Valvoline 10w-30 SL dino

[98LSC32V]

Found 5 quarts in my garage of Valvoline dino 10w30 SL. Is this stuff any good?

 

[Cutehumor]

use away

 

[HawkeyeScott]

I had some of the same oil a few weeks ago and bought SM to match it to complete the oil change. From what I understand SL is still a good oil; SM is just a little better.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

In general, the older SL add-packs were stronger than the current SM. In my opinion, outside of cleaner emissions and possible better fuel economy, I feel the lubrication properties of SL were better than SM.

 

[turbomazda]

what about sj, i as well just discovered some valvoline in my garage but in the synthetic flavor.

 

[Blue99]

I would suggest to anyone that feels that SL oils have an advantage over SM oils in anti-ware performance - read the following article clear thru the end!

David McFall Article on Sequence IIIG Development

And note the graphic on Page 2 that indicates the performance superiority of SM vs. SL oils in valvetrain wear.

Yes, the additional antiwear additives - boron, moly, calcium & friction modifiers are working in stock configuration engines.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Blue

Valvetrain wear improvement could be associated with improvements in group oils - to compensate for overall weaker add-packs associated with SM.

So maybe I erred in my last sentence - as far a lubrication -- or maybe I didn't. I'm suspecting that if you produce an oil using SL base oil with SM add-packs, the end-result will not be a valvetrain wear improvement. I will speculate that most oil producers improved their group oil percentages when entering into SM.... minus XOM... maybe others too.

 

[Blue99]

The short answer is valve train wear is more a function of additives than of base oils. Some film strength comes into play, but the difference in Grp II vs. Grp II+ is minimal.

The main difference in base oils for SM vs. SL formulations is that higher VI is required to meet the higher temp & oxidation of the GF-4 tests.