What Are the Top 10 5w-20 Motor Oils by Quality?

[lubester]

As a 'newby', I'm learning a lot on this Forum reading all the posts and replys! Now, what are the best 5w-20 motor oils in terms of quality out on the market? Are the same weight Phillips 66 and Conoco products the same? How much synthetic oil is in semi-syn products? Who makes Motorcraft oil and why (as one poster suggested) does it create a build-up of shellac in the engine? What oil will keep an engine clean inside? Are same weight Exxon and Mobil products the same? What about Chevron and Texaco? And why is Castrol synthetic oil not a 'true' synthetic but Mobil 1 is? Why do folks look down on the premium brands of yesteryear like Quaker State, Kendall, Sinclair Opaline, Oilzum, Phillips Trop-Artic, Gulfpride G, etc.? Can someone unravel all of this for folks who want to pour the best lubrication available into a brand new vehicle which is a huge investment? Isn't brand quality critical if you want to get 250,000 trouble-free miles out of a vehicle? I have a new 08 Focus and two higher milage vehicles both without a bit of trouble - and all running on Motorcraft semi-syn after starting on Valvoline (I switched because folks here said Valvoline was all marketing hype and did not have good numbers...whatever that means...)

Thanks in advance!

Lubester

08 Focus 3k
04 Odyssey 73k
02 Escape 96k

Lubester

 

[Pablo]

I think you have too many topics to get a rational response to all of them....I quit counting at 10 questions, as I'm wearing socks over my toes.

Amsoil, M1, RLI, Schaeffer's, Redline, Penzoil Platinum, Motorcraft, Valvoline,
I think so.
Depends.
No.
Castrol Syntec is group III.
Modern oils absolutely trounce old oils. No comparison. Nothing wrong with those companies if they are still in the business.
Unravel? That's your job
Some say not.
etc

 

[Audi Junkie]

Nice car. All SM oil is formulated to meet the same spec, just use slighly different formulas to get there. It's like brands of cupcakes, some are more yummy with more butter, some like more sugar. No one oil will save nor hurt your engine.

Just change the oil a few times a year. I believe that nice even ocis are the best approach. Say if you had 100 bottles of oil to use for 100,000 miles, the best approach would be to spread them out perfectly evenly. I change oil every 3 months. 4 is enough for some drivers, 2 or even once like I do on my Mom's car. Just pick a number, a oil brand you like and go for it with the proper speced oil, dino SM. I like Pennzoil and Havoline 5w-20.

 

[Audi Junkie]

I meant to say 1-2-3-4 times a year, rather than mixing up times a year with number of months like I did at the end of my post.

 

[Dale_Knight]

Welcome to the forum Lubester.

Have a look at the extentable drain interval and other specs of this 0W20, then compare those to other XW20 oil specs;

http://www.amsoil.com/storefront/asm.aspx

.

 

[badtlc]

These are mine:

1) Royal Purple 5w20 (my uoa backs this one up)
2) Amsoil Xw20 products
3) Pennzoil Platinum
4) Schaeffers 7000 5w20
5) Valvoline synpower 5w20
6) Pennzoil YB 5w20
7) Valvoline conventional 5w20
8) Valvoline Maxlife 5w20
9) Motorcraft 5w20 (upcoming UOA on this)
10)Kendall GT-1 syn blend 5w20 (upcoming UOA on this)

 

[Turk]

I would think Havoline would be in the lower top 10, but maybe not.

 

[Iain]

These are my top 10:

• Current fill
• Mobil 1 0W-20 AFE
• Mobil 1 5W-20
• Mobil Clean 5000 5W-20

AFAICT, there are no other oils worthy of inclusion on list.

However, if oil meet OEM spec it should be fine.

 

[Bulli]

No M1 5-20? lol its as equal as MC 5-20

 

[BerndV]

My opinion: Mobil 1 0W-20 or 5W-20 (easy to buy, not terribly expensive at Wal Mart), Amsoil 0W-20 or 5W-20 (more expensive, harder to buy), Redline 5W-20 (very expensive, buy at http://www.redlineoil.com ), Pennzoil Platinum 0W-20 or 5W-20 (least expensive, easy to buy). If you are looking for the best, forget the rest.

 

[phaphaphooey]

Aehas has noted that Mobil clean 5000 and Pennzoil are the best dino 5-20 oils. Mobil can be had for under 2 bucks at Walmart

 

[Audi Junkie]

Oh, the BEST 0w-20 is definately Fuchs TITAN, but lists in general and much of the whole concept behind this thread are flawed.