When is it time to jump up a grade?

[demarpaint]

Thicker oil might help and it might not. Shell did a study, and 5W20 actually burnt less than 5W40 in an engine that had some ring wear. If the valve guides or valve seals are bad a thicker grade oil might help. If it were my car, I would consider trying a mix of 5W20 and 5W30 and see if that helps any, in my case it didn't make any difference. In fact changing from a 5W30 to a 5W20 actually improved oil use slightly.

As a side note, I'm playing around with TCW3 in the gas in my 93 Aerostar which uses some oil. Here is what I noticed, the engine is using a little less oil with the TCW3 in the gas vs MMO. I'm still not 100% certain but typically toward the end of my OCI oil use goes to about 1 ounce/100 miles. 4000 into this OCI, and 3 tanks of gas with TCW3 and oil use is ~ 1/2 ounce/100 miles. More to follow.

Buster if you have some TCW3 laying around try adding it to your gas and see if it reduces oil use any.

 

[buster]

I'm sticking with a 5w20. Probably MC. People are getting 300k out of the Ford 4.6 using MC 5w20. Different engine but the oil has also proven itself.

I thought of a 10w30 because they often have the lowest Noack, therefore maybe lower oil consumption. 0w grades are always more volatile.

No thicker grade used previously has ever slowed down consumption but I never tried a 10w30.

Unless I saw a spike in bearing wear, there is prob little reason to use anything higher than a 20. The M1 0w30 seemed to run really well in 2.4L.

Molekule said in one of his cars a 10w30 was the only grade that slowed oil consumption down in his Nissan.

 

[webfors]

Can't hurt to try, if your goal is to reduce consumption. I'm running 10w30 in a brand new Toyota calling for 0w20. I'm not worried one bit about it.

 

[Patman]

Thicker oils don't always mean less consumption, my wife's Civic uses less oil now that I am running Toyota 0w20 compared to it's last interval when I ran Schaeffer 5w30 S7000 blend.

 

[GMFan]

Keep using 5w20. A quart every 3-4k on an engine with 135,000 is nothing. Some consume that from new. Keep truckin'

 

[Ben99GT]

I say give 10W-30 a shot, if it helps great, if it doesn't go back to 5W-20.

 

[rclint]

I know in reality that all engines use oil, however my current accord 2.3 I4 needs no makeup oil in a 15k OCI, and does not move enough to notice a dipstick jokey reading...

However that said I have seen the insides of many engines, and also I have known how the engine was used, and if it used oil etc... an engine that burns a little oil such as yours will be super clean in the head/chamber area compared to one that that never needs any make up oil... this baffled me to no end, so in researching I come to the conclusion that the very slight amount of oil in the fuel/air mixture burns hotter/cleaner.

I don't see a need to change what your using, however doing so may indeed come up with an oil that will need less make-up oil added, however there will be trade offs with everything... I really think Honda engines that spec a 5w-20 work best on a 5w-20, and I have strayed way off the beaten path using all types, brands, grades, etc etc, and now I come full circle running 5w-20 unless I find a good sale on ..-30 or such.

On edit mileage is 167k on the engine/car now an 02 accord.

 

[pidster]

To the OP: Your mileage is still in the toddler if not infant age for a Honda engine. They are pretty much all gems of durability, even if the cars wrapped around and transmissions bolted to them are a "may or may not be" situation. Not knocking Honda, all automakers make great stuff, garbage, and everything between, its a compliment to Honda as I can't think of any engine they've produced that is anything short of rocksolid. Burning that amount of oil may be annoying and a bit worrysome but is not really a red flag amount. That being said, going a grade up wont hurt anything besides maybe a 0.1 or 0.2 mpg loss. And oil consumption will almost certainly go down, probably by a quite appreciable amount. I ran 40wt HDEO (Rotella T) as well as GC (almost a 40 hot) in my old 1.5L Tercel spec'd for 10w30, never felt sluggish, no MPG loss I could measure, and oil burning was slowed considerably, not to mention a quieter and smoother engine. After the rebuild, tried Rotella T6 5w40 and could not tell it from 30wts in feel (nothing burned after the rebuild), but again quieter and smoother, no MPG loss.

In my Ranger, no consumption to start with but after running the FF and PYB 5w30 for a combined 9000km, the current fill of Rotella T6 5w40 feels smoother, is clearly quieter and lost not a trace of power that I can feel or MPG that I can calculate. 3500km into the fill of Rotella just the same results.

The simple point I'm trying to make out of a long story is that lots of vehicles can actually feel BETTER by moving up a grade with no appreciable loss of power, throttle response, MPG or engine wear. And thicker almost ALWAYS slows fuel consumption. Some folks experience is the opposite, a lazier engine, small MPG dropand no desire to repeat.

Why not try and see how you like? Try a good 5w30 or 0w30 and see how the car feels, record and compare your MPG, and see how fast the oil is consumed. If you don't like the results, go back to your 20 grade and lesson learned. No harm in trying.

 

[buster]

Originally Posted By: rclint
I know in reality that all engines use oil, however my current accord 2.3 I4 needs no makeup oil in a 15k OCI, and does not move enough to notice a dipstick jokey reading...

However that said I have seen the insides of many engines, and also I have known how the engine was used, and if it used oil etc... an engine that burns a little oil such as yours will be super clean in the head/chamber area compared to one that that never needs any make up oil... this baffled me to no end, so in researching I come to the conclusion that the very slight amount of oil in the fuel/air mixture burns hotter/cleaner.

I don't see a need to change what your using, however doing so may indeed come up with an oil that will need less make-up oil added, however there will be trade offs with everything... I really think Honda engines that spec a 5w-20 work best on a 5w-20, and I have strayed way off the beaten path using all types, brands, grades, etc etc, and now I come full circle running 5w-20 unless I find a good sale on ..-30 or such.

On edit mileage is 167k on the engine/car now an 02 accord.


Interesting. I've heard similar things from a GM engineer. He claims some engines that use oil last longer.

 

[Spyder7]

This would be consistent with the findings of the Neptune study on the positive effects of adding even small amounts of top up oil. Follows from the study that a burner seeing regular top ups should enjoy a long life (decrease in wear metals) - provided there is no oil starvation from allowing it to run too low between top ups.

Any engine, burner or not, could see the same positive result by introducing some new oil in the OCI. Easiest way, if you can't extract through the dipstick hole, would be to simply remove the filter, empty, and pre-load with new oil. Then re-use and do the usual leak check.

-Spyder

 

[jorton]

Originally Posted By: buster
Thanks Camu. I may try to use a good syn or HM oil of some sort. I'm also thinking about protection being the engine has that many miles on it. May be time to use a slightly thicker viscosity.


If oil flows out of the bearings too fast when it's hot you will be able to hear noises when at hot idle. Check for noises at cold start-up idle, and at hot idle, from outside the car with the air conditioning off. If hot idle sounds noisy, move up to 10w-30.

My 99 Mercury with 187,000 miles consumed 1 cup of oil using Mobil Clean 10w-30 after 5000 miles. I measured the used oil in an empty jug.

 

[CATERHAM]

Originally Posted By: Spyder7
Mine burns it, most noticeably on the highway. I decided to stay with the same oil brand I'm using now but move to the 10w30 flavour for either my next OC or my spring OC (and it may yet be both). This was based on the 10W30 having lower NOACK, higher HTHS, and higher flashpoint. This leads me to believe it'll resist burn off better and I should see some reduction in consumption when it goes in.

Note: the cSt@100C is similar for both; the 10W30 PP is not thicker than what I'm using now, nor did thickness weigh into this particular experiment.

-Spyder


PP 10W-30 is heavier (thicker) than PP 5w30 not because it's KV100 vis is 0.2 cSt higher but because it's HTHS vis is higher.
It is the HTHS vis that determines how thick an oil is at operating temps. For more details check out the following:

https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/posts/2018835/


Buster, I'm of the same opinion that 3,000 - 4,000 miles per quart is pretty good oil consumption and not enough to warrant moving to a heavier oil.
Even if the switch to a heavier oil did reduce oil consumption somewhat, is it worth the trade off in lower performance and reduced fuel economy?
To my way of thinking, unless the oil consumption is terrible with noticeable oil burning, the only valid reason to use a heavier oil is to maintain adequate oil pressure.
Unless you've noticed a drop in oil pressure ( which I doubt) I'd stick to the 20wt oil.