Thoughts on which oil to use? Turbo Inline5 Gas

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jul 5, 2017
Messages
22
Location
BC, Canada
Hello, long time forum creeper here, first time posting. Sorry for the lengthy post here.

I recently bought a new (to me) 1998 Volvo S70 T5 (high pressure 2.3L inline5 cyl turbo) in January with 129,000km (80,000 miles). Seemed to be pretty neglected in terms of maintenance. When I brought it home I discovered the oil was last changed 2 years ago with dino, but only driven about 2000km, having a stockpile of Castrol GTX 10w30, and Castrol GTX HM 10w30 at home I changed the oil immediately. Car needed a lot of work - clogged PCV/flametrap system, timing belt never done, leaking oil cooler lines, and much more.. these were all dealt with within the first week of my ownership. 2500km after the PCV systems was replaced I blew a rear cam seal (caught it immediately and fixed it day of).

So, now she doesn't leak any oil (consumes a bit like all of these older T5 engines, and also has an oily smell after I run it and shut it off like most turbo cars), I'm now at 143,000km (89k miles) having changed the oil every 2500-3000km (less than2k miles) with hopes to clear up a lot of the sludgy and varnish buildup. Oil comes out dark and dirty even at these short OCIs. I always use a quality Mann filter each change. I also usually dump about 300ml of fresh oil with the drain plug/filter removed until it drips out clean. I know there's lots of AutoRX hype and other flush type products to help clean the engine, but I've never liked the idea of additives.

After using all but the last jug of regular GTX I'm now on my second change with the HM GTX. Oil capacity is about 6.1 quarts, I fill exactly 5.7 - 5.8 Liters - so I've been adding the .7 or .8L with the last jug of regular GTX to the 5 liters of HM GTX. My goal is to continue with the quick interval changes until I "feel" confident enough to switch to a good quality synthetic oil.

So, I have 1 more jug of high mileage GTX.. should I jump to synthetic or run more high mileage oil until the engine is cleaner? I recently bought 6 liters of of Castrol Edge Syntec 10w30 with titanium. I've always had good results with Castrol in the past with similar engines, but am I no means a die hard castrol fan.

Mobile1 HM? Do they offer this in Canada in a 10w40, or 0w40?
Penzoil Platinum Ultra for it's cleaning abilities?
a 0w40 synthetic?
thoughts on a blend?
Seems easy to do given the odd oil capacity.
any other thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated

- I live in a mild climate area (Vancouver, British Columbia), seldom gets below 14 degrees F, or warmer than 86 F.
- Half of the time I drive like I stole it, half of the time I'm in [censored] traffic.
- I drive about 50-70 miles per day

much appreciated
 
Last edited:
Did you replace everything in the flame trap circuit?

If so, then any decent euro spec oil will do. Depends what you can get in BC at a reasonable price. I have used Mobil 1 0W40, Castrol 0W40, Pennzoil Euro 5W30, and 0W40 in my Volvo White Block engines that are basically the same as yours.

UOA shows them working well. But in my wife's mix of driving, even the Euro spec oils were down to 1.5 TBN after 7,500 miles, so I wouldn't press this engine, and the oil you select, into long drain intervals.

It won't hurt to run synthetic, and if you keep the interval down, I don't think conventional hurts either.

I think you'll help the engine live a lot longer if you run it easy for the last mile. Let the turbo cool.

Both the Volvos in my signature are driven by "non-car" people, and both have the original turbos. The T5 has over 190K and the XC about 223K. Good oil, factory OCI, let the turbo cool down on each drive. That's what I recommend...
 
Last edited:
You say you replaced a cam seal, if so you've have the valve cover off to do it. How clean did it look? If it was pretty clean you've probably run enough short OCI cleans. M1 HM 10w30 is A3 rated, if you ever go to the US you can buy a few jugs at wallymart in Bellingham, it's 18 miles from the border.
 
Thanks for the replies..

Brons2 - to replace the rear cam seals you don't have to remove the cam cover, so I have no idea what it looks like under there aside from the varnish I see under the oil cap.

Astro14 - yes all of the tubing/breather box, etc was replaced. There was lots of nasty sludgy oil in the old parts, and when I had the turbo intake/PTC pipe off for cam seal replacement there was lots of sludgy build up in there. That part will be replaced with a Snabb intake pipe and I'm thinking of setting up a catch can so the oil vapours from the breather box don't get routed back to the intake. I ALWAYS drive easy the last couple miles and have it idle until the EFAN kicks off. Car is never in boost until the water and oil temp is at normal operating temp.

The original manual suggested 5w30 or 10w30 - do you think there might be an issue running 0w40? I almost feel nervous going to that kind of oil. Beneficial to run 10w30 synth before switching to 0w40 synth and carefully observe oil consumption? Oil goes down about half quart or so after 3000km on the dino oil.

Also, I freaked out just before my last oil change which was the first time using the High Mileage GTX. The engine oil was getting dirty and had a slight red colour to it, not like I've seen before with the regular GTX. I panicked thinking the radiator internal trans cooler and oil cooler mixed as both fluids looked similar. I don't think that's possible though without coolant getting in the mix. Both engine oil and ATF was just dirty and so I gave the trans a 14 litre ATF flush with the OEM Volvo Dex3 (4 speed trans, not the problematic 5 spd). No visibile red colour with the engine oil right now but I'm only 1100km into it.
 
Last edited:
I totally posted this in the wrong forum section
blush.gif
 
In our 2004 XC70, 5 cylinder turbo, purchased at 91,000 miles, I have used Mobil 1, Pennzoil Platinum and Quaker State Ultimate Durability (all called synthetic in US). 5w-30, 5w-40 and 0w-40. Purchased oil on sale and rebate. Grate at oil fill was initially coated with black deposits. Changed oil and filter at 3500 to 4500 miles. Took about 20,000 miles to clean the grate to shiny like new. I now change the oil at ~ 5000 miles with synthetic. No use of additives.
 
That's OK, a lot of gas guys use diesel engine oils to help clean stuff. I add a full can of BG109 at each change and run them out to 4,000 miles now, even if they are looking dark, to help clean stuff on internally dirty engines. BG109 is pretty benign, but does get the job done over time.

If it were me, I'd prolly do that (run the BG109) and I'd run Rotella T6 5W-40 for 3,000 mile changes until you think it has gotten clean enough ... I'd also run an oversized filter if you can make one fit
smile.gif
 
Last edited:
My 850 T5 leaks 5W-30 out the rear main. I run almost anything in it, and will probably go for 10W-50 next change. I only do about 5,000km a year, so it gets yearly oil changes.
 
How many kilometers on your T5? rear main seals will go on these cars with the PCV/flametrap system neglect and extended OCIs.
 
It's done 214,000km, and is an end of life $500 car, in my hands they get a few more years before getting dumped. I've gone with the 5/8 heater hose in the PCV, because it was there and I had nothing better at the time...maybe I'll use something better, maybe not, but whatever I use won't cost me anything. I've run a couple of HDEO's through it, a 15W-40 and a 5W-40, it now has a mix of what was in my shed, next time it will be Penrite HPR10, but that's next year, so who knows what I'll settle on.

The rear main is not an easy job, I work on a hoist all day, so being able to do the job is not the issue, it's just that I'm not going to go that far. It gets dumped if the rear main gets worse. It putters around town doing 20km on the weekends, and every month or so a trip to a city, sometimes more often, sometimes less. I've sunk 3 times the purchase price into it now, but it's still a lot of car for the money. Power, handling, load space...ticks all the boxes for me.
 
Nice, yeah they can be pretty nice bang for the buck vehicles. I took my first car, a 240, to over 400,000 with the original engine/trans with the head never off.
 
On my walk around the lake this morning, a woman walking a couple of husky's asked if I was the owner of the red Volvo. I told her I was, and she said ''her husband just loves that car.'' They have a late model V60 or something, but he really likes the 850 and V70. So looks like they still have a bit of a following. I used to look after a couple of Volvo body transfer vehicles, so knew they had a good load space.
 
Thanks for the input,
I've decided to visit Walmart America and pick up a bunch of 5w30 highmileage Castrol Syntec, Mobile1 highmileage 5w30, or Penzoil Ultra high mileage 5w30 - whatever's on sale (I can't seem to find high mileage synthetics here). I think this vehicle may benefit from the high mileage additives, from there I'll give the 0w40 a try for a few changes if all goes well.

Still have a couple of oil changes worth of 10w30 for the summer, but I basically change oil almost every month with the dino stuff.
 
The red tint in oil had nothing to do with ATF. It is a benefit to have fresh fluid in the tranny though. The red tint in the oil is the chemical reaction to sludge and varnish inside the engine. No biggie there. Keep doing what you are doing. With HM synthetics you could go 5000 kms between oil changes, until oil that drains out starts to have a gold tint to it, instead of the red ATF-like tint. After that point 7000-8000 kms would be the perfect OCI length. Just my two cents...
 
Originally Posted By: Vlad_the_Russian
The red tint in the oil is the chemical reaction to sludge and varnish inside the engine. No biggie there.


When I was doing short (<2000 mile) OCIs on my Lexus, I saw this happen with Castrol Magnatec, Delo SD, and Pennzoil Ultra.
 
Just hit 3000 kilometers, so i'm going to change my oil today with my last jug of 10w30 Castrol GTX high mileage,

I've added 300ML or so during the 3000km and also had a very aggressive 3 hour drive back and forth (nearly 1000km total) sustaining high speeds at around 3000-4500 RPM, in boost for a lot of it. I was surprised at how low under hood temperatures were at speeds pacing 160-180km/h with the occasional burst up to 210km/h (private, non-public roads) - and that it didn't use oil despite boosting hard nearly the entire time.

Oil has that reddish tinge to it again, curious as to how dirty it will be when it comes out of the drain.

Should I use my blackstone labs kit for a UOA today, or wait until I switch to synth?
 
Last edited:
I prefer synthetics in all turbo engines. Reason: Turbo coking, drain line coking and piston ring carbon buildup/sticking. Clearly, a well chosen synthetic can and will prevent problems related to high temperatures, in certain components. The problem is that turbos will operate properly, right up until the coking is sufficient to cause failure. Giving no indication of impending doom.

We can argue the merits of water cooled turbine housings. However, remember that the water cooling does not cool the turbine seals or the heat shield behind the turbine. Water cooled turbos are more tolerant of non synthetic oil, but water cooled turbos are not immune to coking. The pic below is a water cooled turbo, operated on non synthetic oil.

Suggestions in no particular order:

Mobil 1 0W-40, Mobil 1 5W-40 TDT, and Rotella T6 5W-40

oelruecklaufleitung_small.jpg


145889d1417206473-clean-coked-turbo-cleaning-piston-groove-turbine.png


maxresdefault.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thanks Cujet,

I feel the same way but I had a stockpile of Castrol GTX (conventional), and Castrol GTX HM (synth blend). That has all been depleted now so I have a jug of Castrol Syntec I get to use next.

I had my car apart yesterday where I could check for shaft play with the turbo and it's tight and moves perfectly free as it should, so hopefully I don't have any cooked/coked oil issue with my oil cooling lines..

Here's what the engine bay looks like now:


 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top