Thickest oil grade you have run in winter, summer?

20 years ago I ran a conventional 10w30 instead of the recommended 5w30. One cold winter morning (-36c), the engine refused to turn over, my bad. It did start in the mid -20c many times, but it was rough. I had no clue what I was doing, I had picked up the cheapest oil I could find at Canadian Tire, it was called Nugold… anyway at least I was doing oci
 
40-grade all the time in my BMW down to -30F more than once.

Appropriate winter rating of course.
Same here. In the 70's I used straight 40 year round. If it was good enough for the Detroit Diesels I was working on at the time, It was good enough for my slant six. I lived in Illinois at the time. Young, stupid and impressionable I guess ;)
 
Either dino 20w-50 or M1 15w-50 year round here in Ohio in everything we owned up until 2012 when we bought a 2012 Mazda3 when I used 0w-20 to avoid any possible warranty issues. I remember back in the '80's starting my 5.0 Mustang at -25F and the gawdawful noises it would make for the first minute or two but after that it ran fine. Took many engines over 200k, some way higher than that without ever thinking twice about it no matter what the temperature was.

These days, anything not under warranty gets either Castrol or M1 0w-40 just for simplicity. Cars, boats, mowers, whatever.
 
In the OKC Triumph, Honda, & Kawasaki M/C dealership(s) where I worked in the late 1960’s thru to the late 1970’s Castrol 20w-50 was the typical oil used in all of the bikes, new or old.

From the 1990’s to the present, many (as reported on the classic car forums) are using Mobil 1 15w-50 or Mobil 1 0w-40 in classic 1960’s era British and American cars. Those who drove the cars extended mileages report zero wear. That was my experience when using the 15w-50 in various ‘66 Shelby GT-350s, all driven over 100,000 miles.

Z
 
I ran Castrol 20w50 in my Yugo. I drove that car hard and ran the engine like a chainsaw. Plus I think the oil bottle had a crossed checker flags on it :) . Then one winter's day, it got well below 10 degrees Fahrenheit during the workday as an Arctic blast moved in. The little buzz-bomb barely started at the end of that workday, and made some awful racket for the first 5 mins. But it DID start and I did make it home. First time I experienced a slow crank due to cold oil.

Funny, with my fuel-diluted 5W20 in my ford the thing starts a jiff in the sub 10 degree weather we have had off an on,
and will have tomorrow. Makes me shudder to think of it''s coming again being in a drafty, mostly un-insulated, crude log cabin
 
Same here. In the 70's I used straight 40 year round. If it was good enough for the Detroit Diesels I was working on at the time, It was good enough for my slant six. I lived in Illinois at the time. Young, stupid and impressionable I guess ;)
EWE !!! Detroit Diesel 2 strokes ,,they ruin a good day .
 
Back in the 70's a lot of 10w40 but I remember not having money to buy oil and used what ever was in the 55 gallon drum they used for the gas powered tractors, I just don't remember what it was.
 
M1 0W-40 in everything except motorcycle, year round.
Every vehicle gets either 5W-30 or 0W-40 here in Alaska. OPE gets 0W-40, except for our chainsaws' 30W bar oil and their 2-cycle oil/gas mix.
 
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I've never been necessarily brand loyal, but I used a lot of Quaker State and Havoline conventional 20w-50 on and off from the early 90s to the early 2000s. I used it year round in my 1987 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Thinnest oil I've ever used personally was 5w30 in various cars, again year round. I think 15w40 is about the perfect compromise for most engines in most operating conditions, but that's just me.
 
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