I keep seeing posts where people denigrate buying oil that meets a spec higher than the minimum standard in the owners manual. Has someone seen studies that give support to this position. To me it seems dubious that the higher standards for wear, deposits, corrosion and lubricant stability between say API SJ and D1G3 are effectively worthless in the real world. Any input on this?
Oils w/ Tougher Approval
- Thread starter Gene K
- Start date
Owners manual = minimum requirements. At least that's the way I always saw it. To the best of my knowledge, Porsche A40 rated oil has yet to cause a single engine failure, and can be used in 99.99% of internal combustion engines, regardless of owner's manual recommendations.
But if you try to run a 0w20 in an engine that wasn't spec'ed for it - results may vary greatly and you better hope for luck.
- 2000 Honda CR-V with 225k miles, spec'ed for 5w30/10w30 by owner's manual. Took 0W20 for full OCI like a champ despite being a high RPM natured engine and being high up in the miles.
- 2004 Lexus IS300 with 223k miles, spec'ed for 5w30 by owner's manual. After 30 mins at idle with 0W20 it spun a bearing on cyl 6. Currently finishing up the engine rebuild.
But if you try to run a 0w20 in an engine that wasn't spec'ed for it - results may vary greatly and you better hope for luck.
- 2000 Honda CR-V with 225k miles, spec'ed for 5w30/10w30 by owner's manual. Took 0W20 for full OCI like a champ despite being a high RPM natured engine and being high up in the miles.
- 2004 Lexus IS300 with 223k miles, spec'ed for 5w30 by owner's manual. After 30 mins at idle with 0W20 it spun a bearing on cyl 6. Currently finishing up the engine rebuild.
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wemay
Site Donor 2023
So a manual that recommends Porsche A40 does so as it's minimum requirement?
I don't think there's a hard fast rule here. Engine failures occur for infinite reasons. If you are under warranty it's at least peace of mind if you're using what's in the manual.
I don't think there's a hard fast rule here. Engine failures occur for infinite reasons. If you are under warranty it's at least peace of mind if you're using what's in the manual.
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- For most vehicles Porsche A40 rated oil is a huge upgrade over what's in the owner's manual for that vehicle.
- Answering your question: yes there may be cases like that, but rare. Usually it's a case of a Porsche that spends a good chunk of it's life on a racetrack. In these cases owners report switching to boutique racing oils, or grab Mobil 1 15W-50 from Wal-Mart shelf. Or increase oil cooling capacity and stay with A40-rated oil.
- Oil should always be picked by 2 criteria: Climate & Usage. 0W16 may do poorly in Sahara, and 25W60 will struggle in Antarctica. But for the most part A40-rated oils cover the widest range of Climate & Usage requirements, with little to no downsides.
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Wrong or right…I look for the most unreliable/high maintenance cars as having the “best” oil specifications… and in my opinion that award would go to Volkswagen oil specifications…. For example, their 508/509 0w20 oils all have decent amount of pao and look relatively excellent on lubrizol spider chart… VW original and updated 507 spec oils are all low saps thermally stable 5w30 that border on 40 weight oils that provide excellent protection and excellent thermal stability…. They also made an awesome low viscosity 0w30 weight oil for their extremely powerful and high maintenance v12 tourareg diesel think that was like a 506.01 spec but not sure… feel that VW often has engineered vehicles with some type of engineering defect for engine or exhaust system that they have needed to use robust, unique, and awesome oils to compensate and keep the vehicle running….to me the relatively “worse” spec oils would be those created for a Toyota or Honda that most often can run exemplary on the specific recommended viscosities….
Using inductive reasoning and general impressions from owning a tdi golf-as well as Honda Accord and now Toyota Prius…. Currently using Mobil 1 0w20 esp in this used 2012 Prius purchased with 170 thousand miles on it… has like 186 now and have less oil consumption with the esp that I did with valvoline high mileage synthetic… also seemed to flow better jn low temps… I imagine Mercedes’ and BMW spec oils are also excellent but for my money-Volkswagen spec oils are likely the best all things considered as their vehicles are often like a beautiful woman… so many benefits but very high maintenance…. And not because of the oil
Using inductive reasoning and general impressions from owning a tdi golf-as well as Honda Accord and now Toyota Prius…. Currently using Mobil 1 0w20 esp in this used 2012 Prius purchased with 170 thousand miles on it… has like 186 now and have less oil consumption with the esp that I did with valvoline high mileage synthetic… also seemed to flow better jn low temps… I imagine Mercedes’ and BMW spec oils are also excellent but for my money-Volkswagen spec oils are likely the best all things considered as their vehicles are often like a beautiful woman… so many benefits but very high maintenance…. And not because of the oil
You know that spider chart does not compare oil. It compares the minimum specification tests required. Apple compared to orange. Now if you compared a spider chart of the minimum specification tests for all the GF-6 tests to your specs you would see a lot of zeros from the Lubrizol spider charts. Fall for a 20 year old standard, that is what they are marketing. Or the new Dexos 1 ver. 3 It does not say one test is better than another, that is all marketing and that is Lubrizol playing the game. Marketing deception. Different oil specs have different OCI.
The higher standard here is API sticker, on sale with a rebate!
Yes.
climate + use are surly important but engine wear is important as worn = looser + a higher viscosity is a smart move IMO! the same reasoning behind heavier oils for track use as ALL oils get thinner that the warm spec at 212 when oil temps surpass that, whit it does + even normal driving can thin oils due to heat in "hotter" engine areas.
The diff between min requirement oil (assuming owner's manual? idk) and a higher spec oil is sometimes how you sleep or feel better. Meaning the differences (deposite, wear, etc.) could be insignificant ... You know like 0.01% improvements over an insignificant number is still a very insignificant improvement but you sleep better.
I try to buy a very good oil when the car is new. A few years later, I relax a little and buy any relatively good oil and a few years later i buy any oil that meets the owners manual spec and a few years later i buy the cheapest that meet the owner's manual recommendation ...
When the car is new you gotta feed it a good oil and sleep better but never anything thin or lower than 30 grade. Engines can handle moving up a viscosity grade (weight) better than moving down.
I try to buy a very good oil when the car is new. A few years later, I relax a little and buy any relatively good oil and a few years later i buy any oil that meets the owners manual spec and a few years later i buy the cheapest that meet the owner's manual recommendation ...
When the car is new you gotta feed it a good oil and sleep better but never anything thin or lower than 30 grade. Engines can handle moving up a viscosity grade (weight) better than moving down.
Over the years engines have lasted longer and longer and longer. Is that due to engine design or oil? My bet is the oil.
The engines need to meet smog and mpg requirements. On BITOG we seem to miss the fact that oil keeps the parts separated. If an oil keeps the parts separated during its most severe use and the additives do their job for the interval a "heavier" duty oil doesn't add more separation, maybe it lasts longer if not contaminated.
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I wouldn't call it marketing deception, Lubrizol clearly lists the purpose of the tool, which is to compare emphasis placed on each of those categories within a given silo of specifications, so VW spec to VW spec, Porsche to Porsche, Ford to Ford, Dexos to Dexos, it's just designed to give you an idea of what is emphasized and if that emphasis changed between versions. People on here totally misusing it isn't on Lubrizol.
This is the problem with anecdotal evidence. Under those conditions you likely had much lower oil temps and much lower bearing loadings requiring much lower viscosity. Even 0W-8 should have been able to meet the requirements under those conditions if the engine had adequate oil pressure. Usually when I see those type failures they are the result of oil starvation so would have failed regardless of grade.
How did this turn into a viscosity discussion. The OP doesn't even mention viscosity.
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So compare all the tests. Before SP that same spider chart was under SN… They added 7 new standards to meet for SP and all they changed was SN to SP. All perfectly legal and true because they are only looking a small portion of the API tests.
I could easily be wrong here, but I have a real hard time believing that the 0w-20 caused your engine to spin a bearing. There had to already be something wrong there for it to happen that easily and quickly. That bearing had already been on its way out and it just happened to happen at that time. Still, I agree that running oil that is thinner than spec isn't really a good idea, in my mind anyway. I have no issues going a grade heavier, but I would never go a grade lighter.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I wouldn't say they are worthless at all and the "bare minimum" for many engines has proven to be wholly inadequate at the manufacturer's dictated intervals and then this gets blamed on too long of OCI, so the OEM is wrong on the OCI duration but right on the lube choice?
Design choices made during engine development play a huge role. Sump size, oil temperature, VCT system, power density...etc. These all play a role. Toyota and GM (Saturn) both designed engines with poorly designed pistons with respect to oil control and drainback and both suffered massive oil consumption and ring sticking. Would a more robust oil with a greater focus on keeping the ring pack area clean have been beneficial in these applications? One could reasonably conclude yes. Same with the Toyota sludge monsters, ones run on "overkill" lubricants didn't suffer the same issues.
I've recently brought up the Honda VCM V6 in a couple of similar discussion because of both @The Critic and @Trav's experience with it. It is ridiculously hard on oil and if you run the factory interval with the factory spec lube, the one head is going to turn into varnish and sludge city. Trav had excellent experience with a Euro 0w-40 in these engines, which are clearly designed for A40, MB 229.5 and other long drain, extremely demanding specifications, and, not surprisingly, these oils held up.
What we are really looking at here is an oil's ability to cope with the conditions present inside a given application and for what duration. How much testing did the OEM perform and how did they go about determining what the minimum requirement was? Is it based on inference from the API test data or do they actually run extensive in-house engine testing? We know with certain engine designs, clearly, the in-house testing was insufficient, and I suspect this has to do with a lot of computer modelling to fast track getting the engine to market. IIRC, that was the cause with the Toyota sludge situation, it depended heavily on modelling.
There are two ways to get around an oil/OCI combo being inadequate. Run a better oil or run a shorter interval. If the actual wear performance of the lubricant is insufficient, the latter isn't going to help, however, if it is just the additive package; if it just the detergents and dispersants unable to deal with the contaminants and break-down in that application, short changing the cheap lube should be sufficient, but then you have to determine what the cut-off point is, and how do you go about doing that? And even with a "better" oil, there's no guarantee that you'll be able to run much longer drains, that's also application specific.
And then we have of course that the API/ILSAC approvals are the minimum required performance for the product. There's nothing preventing a blender from significantly exceeding the performance requirements. This is why Supertech and Mobil 1 EP aren't going to provide identical performance in all applications that call for SP/GF-6 just because they have the same approvals. Unfortunately, due to the nature of; the low bar set by these approvals, we don't really have a higher benchmark like we do with many of the Euro ones where it generally is accepted that two oils with the same approvals will perform the same in service (A40 for example).
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
It's not about the TESTS, it's about the AREAS OF FOCUS, which is clear if you look at the spider chart. Christ, they'd have to have "Nurburgring performance" included if they were to categorize A40 and C30 on there based on tests performed. It's simply about the emphasis on the different areas; the attention given to these areas of focus in the standard, like deposit control for example, did the focus on that change between the previous version of the standard and the current one?
That's the purpose of the tool. It's not designed to tell you that SL changed the Toyota 4-pot MPI test to one that uses a DI Ford engine in SN for example (just making something up here), or that they added two more parameters to it. What is that test being used for, camshaft wear? OK, what is the emphasis placed on wear control overall in the standard, did that specifically change? No? Then it doesn't change on the spider chart.
It's NOT a deep dive into the various areas of performance of each specification, it's just designed to give an at-a-glance look at the emphasis placed on the specific categories called-out, nothing more. Using it for the wrong purpose and then getting mad at Lubrizol for being "misleading" when they explicitly state the purpose of the tool isn't doing anybody any favours.
When in doubt, buy Euro A3/B4. Throw in couple of A40, LL this or that, dash of MB or VW xyz ... Your engine meal will taste good.
My wife complains because I never follow a food recipe and add or delete things.
Wal-Mart used to carry M1 Euro FS 0W-40 and Castrol Euro A3/B4 0W-40 both with bunch of Euro bells & whistles for $24.x ... Then inflation and supply chain stuff happened. Now oil prices going up happens ... and shelves are semi-empty with no Euro oils.
My wife complains because I never follow a food recipe and add or delete things.
Wal-Mart used to carry M1 Euro FS 0W-40 and Castrol Euro A3/B4 0W-40 both with bunch of Euro bells & whistles for $24.x ... Then inflation and supply chain stuff happened. Now oil prices going up happens ... and shelves are semi-empty with no Euro oils.
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Late February - Local Walmart
Mobil 1 FS 0W-40 $22.47 (Price Reduction)
Castrol A3/B4 0W-40 $24.47 (Standard Price)
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