Originally Posted By: Pontual
Originally Posted By: fourside
The "motor will outlast the rest of the car" thing doesn't apply here in California where we don't use road salt. Every car I know of that family or friends have gotten rid of due to problems were having mechanical problems, not problems with the structure of the car crumbling.
At any rate, I've had numerous cars that call for 5w-20 or 0w-20, I always run 0w-20 in all of them, and I've put on hundreds of thousands of miles with no problems with the motors. In fact, some of those were amongst the best-running and most reliable cars I've had. I don't believe I even had oil consumption issues with... any of them, come to think of it.
If a car car is designed to run on thin oil, give it thin oil. It will be fine. My newest Honda's L15B motor is actually designed to run on 0w-20 and even thinner - we're talking about stuff that may very well be 0w-7.5. I'll be doing a UOA on that in a month or so, and I'm not expecting to see anything scary.
America's average engine age is of what 12-15 years old? You're talking about new engines, that are allowed to run thinner oil specially beause of better filtration and the requisite to use a better base oil at least semisyn (see Dexos1 and 2), that won't make as much carbon and soot.
And,
Could you garantee that a one grade up on the thicker side oil wouldn't give a longer life to newer engines?
The problem with this argument is that it always ends up with a lot of people asking questions like yours above. No, I cannot guarantee that thicker oil wouldn't give an engine a longer life. No, you cannot guarantee that thinner oils will give an engine a shorter life. So where's this debate supposed to go?
Originally Posted By: fourside
The "motor will outlast the rest of the car" thing doesn't apply here in California where we don't use road salt. Every car I know of that family or friends have gotten rid of due to problems were having mechanical problems, not problems with the structure of the car crumbling.
At any rate, I've had numerous cars that call for 5w-20 or 0w-20, I always run 0w-20 in all of them, and I've put on hundreds of thousands of miles with no problems with the motors. In fact, some of those were amongst the best-running and most reliable cars I've had. I don't believe I even had oil consumption issues with... any of them, come to think of it.
If a car car is designed to run on thin oil, give it thin oil. It will be fine. My newest Honda's L15B motor is actually designed to run on 0w-20 and even thinner - we're talking about stuff that may very well be 0w-7.5. I'll be doing a UOA on that in a month or so, and I'm not expecting to see anything scary.
America's average engine age is of what 12-15 years old? You're talking about new engines, that are allowed to run thinner oil specially beause of better filtration and the requisite to use a better base oil at least semisyn (see Dexos1 and 2), that won't make as much carbon and soot.
And,
Could you garantee that a one grade up on the thicker side oil wouldn't give a longer life to newer engines?
The problem with this argument is that it always ends up with a lot of people asking questions like yours above. No, I cannot guarantee that thicker oil wouldn't give an engine a longer life. No, you cannot guarantee that thinner oils will give an engine a shorter life. So where's this debate supposed to go?
