Engine Oil Recc

[CMF_Alex_B]

Well here the requirments:

has to be avail in 20lt/similar bulk/discounted price drum

1st Micra:

1995 Blue SuperS 5spd
bought 14mths ago with 88K, now has 125K
only performance mod is catback exhaust

> allot of highway driving, then highrevving round the streets to get home. Done 35K in 14mths and has used Semi-Synthetic 15W-50 for the entire 35K. Reson for using 50 was it was cheap damn cheap, i have since found out that's a fair bit too thick, for a 90K car atleast.

>no timing chain rattle, no noises from motor

2nd Micra:

1997 Purple SLX CVT
bought 12mths ago with 120K no has 160K
no mods

> allot of highway driving, then semi-revving round the streets to get home, kind like myself, dad will give it some to get onto highway or to get through roundabout, but dosn't just gun it for the hell of it . Done 40K in 12mths and has used the same Semi-Synthetic 15W-50
> has timing chain rattle when cold since he has had it, rattle goes away when hot.

> neither cars blow any smoke and don't use a drop of oil, both are still zippy and grunty.

> dad changes his oil every 10K, i change mine every 5-10K

> Both cars live in Sunny Queensland, near the coast. Reall hot days can get upto 35degC but here is the average
http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/sunshine_coast/sunshine_coast_region.cfm

http://www.gulfwestern.com.au/products.asp?id=40

that's the oil above. Soo the two 20Lt drums i got cheap have finally run out and now we have to buy some more oil again,

please let me know anything you have had success with and anything you'd like to steer me clear of. A weight reccomendation would be swell too, i'm thinking 10W-40 would probably be the go now that we are past 100K and have already been using thick oil for 40K. I'm thinknig a thin oil will maek the engines noisey as the tolerences are suited for 50 now? what do you lads think,

Cheers,

Alex - oh price must be less than $50 perr 5Lt, and Semi-Syn or Fully Syn

 

[CMF_Alex_B]

well i'll try to make this topic not useless, yes i went and bought some oil today .

now i'll share my 2.5hrs of driving around to every place that sells oil, including servo's. And the researching i did online.

Firslty, Shell don't sell 20lt, Castrol do sell 20lt drums but only certain oils, not including their Formula R 0W-40, 5W-30 (but they do 10W-60 and 25W-60?). Penrite sell 20lt drums of everything but thier entire range is quite thick, and many have large SAE ranges (esp the case with their just realeased 'SIN' range with a 10W-70 being reccommended to me :-( )> which means they have allot of additives and therefore a lesser quality base stock is "probably" used.

Secondly, AFAIK Shell and Mobil Synthetics are made from the same base so you may as well buy the cheaper version of the two.

Thirdly, mobil sell 20lt and 205lt but price it with knowledge of a monkey (i think their computers must be ghey), for example:

Mobil Synth S 10W-40
5Lt $29
20Lt $169
205Lt $1689

now 4x5lt = 20lt no? so 4x$29 = $116 go figure???

Forthly, this thread was handly for myself to read:
http://www.aus-cartalk.com/viewtopi...start=15&sid=80f8bf065a4040887825f27f56982189

here's the good bits from it:

There was a detailed discussion about oils when the club had a technical night with the redline oil people some time ago. That discussion has been lost so here is my understanding of the situation.

Oils are made from "base stocks". Mineral oils, what we all know, and synthetic oils. Synthetics can be made from reprocessed mineral oils and produce a base stock called POA for short, or from other chemical processes to produce a base stock called POE for short.

POA based synthetic oils are the Mobil 1, Castrol Synthetic, Shell Helix, AMSOIL and Havoline brands. The major oils companies making synthetics from mineral base stock, stands to reason.

POE based oils are the Redline, NEO and Royal Purple brands. These are the premium oils both for performance and also the cost.

The viscosity numbers are a measure of how the oil flows at 0 degrees and at 100 degress celcius. Most base socks of oil have a natural viscosity variance of 25 to 30. So any oils that have a wider range have additives and thickeners to give them that bigger viscosity range. More additives though means less oil.

Car manufacturers recommend an oil rating depending on the climate that it is going to be used in. In a country with mild weather like Australia a 10W-40W would be OK. Whereas in contires with more extemes of weather a 0W-50W may be specified.

and this one:

group 1, cheap and nasty, mineral based. castol used to blend their GTX/GTX2/GTX3 range with this base oil, but not any more.

group 2, still cheap but not as nasty, mineral based, castol's gtx/gtx2/gtx3/formula r 25w-50, all other "mineral" oil's will usually be blended from this group.

group 3, cheap relative to legit synthetic's but not has nasty as minerals!
really a mineral oil, but it has been refined enough to lawfully be called a *synthetic*, sometimes refered to as hydrocracked oil. some examples castrol magnetec, castrol formula r 5-30, shell helix ultra, caltex "fully synthetic" havoline.

sometimes you will see semi-synthetics bottles out there. they are usually a blend of group 2 and 3.

group 4, somewhat expensive but good for your car! first of the real synthetics, also known as PAO or polyalphaolefins, its the stuff that i would recommend for a motor car. some examples are the mobil 1 range... note the "1", royal purple, motul and some of the castrol's range, which consist of, formula r 0w-40 and 10w-60.

group 5, the holy grail, sometimes known as ester and POE/Polyolester, its usual application is for lubication of jet engines and refrigerants. mobil makes POE's as well but only for the jet engine and refrigerants. currently i only know of three companies that market this oil to the motor industry, and it is redline, neo and the expensive motul range.

i also found this page an awesome help:
http://www.chris-longhurst.com/carbibles/engineoil_bible.html

Finally, i got myself 4x5Lt packs of Mobil Synth S 10w40 at a nice price of $100. More importantly, i found out which local stores that will bend over backwards to help you and others who had nasty tone and didn't give a wally about you!

Cheers,

Alex - hope there's not too many spelling mistakes in there, reading some of my own posts i'm beginning to think i'm going dislexic!

 

[CMF_Sean]

Its spelt 'Dyslexic'

Seano

 

[CMF_Alex_B]

lmao, there ya go!

 

[cisco]

Mobil XHP 15W is great for the white car.

Recommended for modern twin cam 16v engines and very good value (Cheapest) compared to the other rip off ones. I've been using that in the white car for a while now.

I use Penrite 5W40 in the monster. Its also way cheaper than all the other ripoff ones.

 

[CMF_mipcar]

I've been useing Castrol Magnatec since it came out. Before that, well I cannot remember.
263,000 k's and not a problem.

Serviced every 10,000ks.

Unless you do very hard motoring my opinion is that Cheap K.mart oil is ok providing you keep service intervals to no more then 5,000k's. Middle of the road known brand stuff is fine with 10,000 service's.

Save your money and not buy the super expensive stuff unless you run hard and long or run a forced induction engine.

Infrequent use and stop/start short driving kills an engine as much as thrashing it does.

Even cheap K.mart oil meets the minimum standards.

Mychael

 

[CMF_Snoopy]

Been using Motul turbolight 10w/40 in my car done around 165,000kms. Steer clear of castrol (worst engine oil on the market would rather use recycled oil than castrol, howeverall there other stuff is really good). I just spent the last hour discussing oils with our snap-on rep (he used to race bikes & had a goodyear mechanical shop for years) He is very fussy about what he uses and has done alot of research on the subject. Basicly after anhour of discussing experiences with different oils, we came up with this.
This is our opinon on whats good, that's readly avaliable in oz.
If you want to spend over $40 for 5L then motul is one of the best. Under that shell make a good oil, penrite & penzoil where good 5 year ago & they mainly suit larger bore street machines & older cars, mobil is overpriced (Most gen3 problem where with the mobil oil they where using). The shop I work for use gulf western (there top of the range oil is hard to buy retail, but a nice oil if you can find it). Feel free to pick at this, this is my opinon that I have gotten from speaking to mahine shops, engine builders & guys that have been in the industry for longer than they car to remember.

 

[cisco]

I guess the funny question in my mind is: how do you measure good oil versus crap?

I mean, I put any oil in my car, it doesn't leak, it doesn't burn out the exhaust and I drive my car and the engine goes great without making any rattles or noises.

I've had Mobil1, Shell Helix ultra and now Penrite 5w40, they have all been the same in as far as I can tell, but Penrite is cheaper.

When I change the oil, all 3 of them were just as black as each other.

So what really makes a good engine oil??

 

[CMF_White Knight]

How long is a piece of string??
Agree with Cisco. Have tried many diff. types but how can you tell one is better than the other??
Impossible that is why there are so many brands on the market.
I stick to a fully syn. one and add a small amount of teflon additive.
To me frequency of changing the oil more important.
I have no doubt someone who changes oil at every 5000 kl. will get more life out of the motor than say 10,000 kl. if all things are EQUAL.
Why do taxis get at least 500,000 kl no trouble out of a motor min. with little wear. Answer engine never cold.
Trucks go for millions. Same reason.
Stop/start driving will wear it out a lot quicker than constant long drives and I honestly think the oil has stuff all to do with it.
Maybe when you are racing etc and car under continual high loads etc oil will have some bearing.

 

[CMF_micrat]

I have a micra engine that has travelled over 220,000k, when I used to work for specialist service centre that used shell and redline products I tried both. I found the shell helix ultra(synthetic) to be ok. I found the redline 5/30 to be very good, this is a very expensive oil at about $120 for a US gallon(3.8l), however they recommend a filter change at 10k(with top up-due to filter volume loss), to have the oil analysed at 20k, if the results comeback good, then to change the oil at 30k. God oil ,good performance, acceleration better than with shell oil. Now however I work elsewhere. I have been using Motul 8100 5/40(full synthetic $10/l), I find this to be at least as good as the redline, and I change it every 10k. In my opinion this is a very good oil, with good value for money. I use only genuine oil filters and my engine does not use oil, I will keep using Motul.

 

[CMF_mipcar]

The other thing is that an oil needs to keep in suspension all the by-products of combustion and general crap the engine inhales.
Oil cannot get less "slippery" with age but it can become saturated with sludge and semi-solids that will themselves cause wear on the engines moving parts.
All this in context, most aircraft engines use straight mineral oils, nothing fancy no synthetics and actually illegal to put in additives.
Oil just gets changed every 50-100hrs,simple as that. Or in the case of my aero engine that has no filter, every 25hrs.

An oil needs to be able to retain it's viscosity with heat and be able able to withstand appropriate bearing pressures such as occurs in diesal motors.

Mychael

 

[cisco]

Yep that all makes sense, but how do you measure it in a car?

 

[CMF_NotAnotherSSS]

You cant really. A normal road going car like the Micra isnt stressed anywhere near enough to test the limits of the oil you use.

I believe there's no such thing as an oil for everyone.

You've got to try it all out. Heck, my motor runs better with the cheaper GTX3 than it does with the apparently half decent and double the price formula R... (SR20DE with 170k on clock and all trademark SR20 bearing noises!)

 

[CMF_White Knight]

So... use whatever makes you feel happy.
When you do an oil change/filter does it not feel better than say after another 8000kl??. All in the mind.

 

[cisco]

I agree, go for the right specs and the right price.

 

[CMF_Alex_B]

heh, hasn't this taken off. Just got online after day out fishing Saturday morn and resting since, my arms feel like i've waxed the car 3 times now , not too mention the sore butt (no jokes please seano). I reckon we come to a good conclusion, brands mean squat, pick the right viscosity number for you climate engine adn km travelled and make sure it passes the current API/ACEA stds and you'll be right!

changed the oil on friday arvo, starts better now with a fresh batch in there, other than that > same same, oil oil was black as usual, done 8K this time,

Cherio,

Alex

 

[CMF_White Knight]

Shee!! Alex. Is that Bribie Is. in the background ??
No comment about the **** of a lifestyle you lead up there in sunny Qld.
Glad to see you are doing it tough mate.
Please refain from such photos on this site, we are all insanely jealous.
Cisco I think a fine is appropiate.

 

[CMF_Alex_B]

haha, yep tough life up here ay, yeah that's Bribie Is island in the background, motored about 80% up the ocean side of bribie from launching the the boat at pummicestone passage chasing tuna along the way. Encountered Several! pods of dolphins going nuts feeding on bait, had the boat in neutral with dolphins feeding all arounds us, bout 8-15 'balling' some bait together then several smaller groups with their own bait balls > they chased away the tuna to have the bait too themselves but it was soo fantastic seeing soo many dolphins! Those dolphins were right in front if the surf beach at woorim, on that note there's no beach left with the high winds and tides recently, about 200m is sandbagged

hey great news in the other thread with whitey mate, heh > kinking a vacumm hose eh? must be putting some power down now,

Alex

 

[cisco]

Nice shot Alex. Glad you had a ball! Looks beautiful up there.

 

[CMF_Alex_B]

thanks. after living so close to the water for the past few months i could not imagine living inland again. Sounds like you'll have some quality sound in bluey pumping now, did you get yourself a mp3 headunit?

Alex