What happened to the thin oil movement?

[B320i]

I say do what the manufacturer tells you, ESPECIALLY with vehicles still covered by the warranty. Otherwise, if you go too thick or thin - it then becomes your own fault, not the manufacturers.

With older vehicles, do what the manufacturer tells you* and only bump up a grade if you notice excessive consumption,** or will be working the engine hard (e.g. very heavy towing in hot conditions).

Don't follow recommendations from oil manufacturers to use 20w60 (or 25-70!) in a car that is daily-driven, and only relatively young at 200,000km... This is simply marketing (or scare-mongering about "worn engines") and will more than likely cause more problems that it solves.

As I've said before - if using thin oils were to cause the problems some people suggest they do, and were ruining 4y/o Toyotas with under 100k on them, I might agree that there is an issue.
Fact of the matter is that this isn't happening, and I have not seen or heard of any class-actions lawsuits as a result of this recommendation.

There have been rumblings about sludge - but if your usage pattern is so harsh as to induce it, then you ought to be servicing sooner per the recommendations of (most) manufacturers in the Owner's Manual... This brings me to this point: R - T - F - M!

At the end of the day, plenty of people have gotten their cars to stupidly high mileage with thick oils, thin oils and anything in between. I think it comes down MORE to how well you take care of the car as a whole, instead of fussing over oil.
You might change the oil every fortnight, but if you neglect your cooling system, steering/braking/clutching hydraulics, electrics (and so on), then the rest of the car might come apart before any lubrication failure takes place.

In other words: A car that is regularly serviced (in all aspects, not just oil/filters) is a car that is long-lived.

Footnotes:
* Unless you have evidence to the contrary - i.e., we now know that 3 months/3000 miles is pointless for the most part.
Same with changing viscosity for summer and winter with modern synthetics - although do this if it makes you feel better.

** Some engines may respond to a thinner oil with consumption issues, provided you aren't going below the minimum viscosity required for the engine.

 

[SR5]

I think Ferrari spec (GTL) Shell Helix Ultra 5W-40 for the street and the Ultra 10W-60 for the race track. They are both street legal oils being API SN and ACEA A3/B4.

I'm using the GTL Ferrari rated SHU 5W-40 in my car right now. I have no leaks or oil consumption issues, it just sits on the full mark and doesn't move. The SHU 5W-40 is also BMW LL-01 and MB 229.5 rated. I get it for a very good price from a local wholesaler. Works fine for dropping the kids off at school and picking up groceries in my family 4-cylinder car.

BTW the owners manual for my GM car says to use a 10W-30 or 15W-40 in either A3/B3 or A3//B4. No API or ILSAC specs are given. The only full synthetic 30wt or 40wt A3/B4 oils I have access to are either 5W-30 or 0/5W-40, so I'm not running the Ferrari oil just to be silly. It's the cheapest full synthetic oil I can find that is as close as I can get to what is in the owners manual.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: WellOiled
The gas pumps down here are sometimes suspect. The auto shut offs don't all work the same and the flow meters may be needing calibration. Only the long term trends are of value.

I'm not even convinced of the long term trends. The weights and measures people give an allowable error bar that is obviously significantly larger than 1 mL. Then, there's temperature correction. Then, there are batch variations. Accurate fuel economy calculations outside a lab are so difficult.

I do the calculations, just for interest's sake, and to watch to see if something is really glaring and obviously wrong. Or, it's "fun" to see when I had an enormous difference going to Saskatoon one time with a 50 mph tail wind in my Town Car, getting somewhere around 44 mpg, and then going back the same day, getting under 18 mpg in the head wind. Now, that's significant with a fairly obvious variable causing it.

As for auto shut offs, those are all over the place here, too. When I had the Audi, it took me a while to find a pump that wouldn't consistently spray fuel everywhere if I wasn't paying careful attention to when it might be getting full.

TiredTrucker: Your 10w-30, while "thin" in comparison to some oils, still has HTHS of 3.5 or greater, assuming it does actually meet the CJ-4 requirements. I bet you won't try a 5w-30 or a 10w-30 that nominally meets the CF standard, will you?

 

[njohnson]

Originally Posted By: TiredTrucker
The relation is the same. In this case from a 40w to a 30w. Not sure it is any different of a leap from a 30w to a 20w. Keep in mind, my example also was from a engine that is 16 years old and is a factory reman to boot. So one of the newer smaller engines on it's first go around, not sure that using a 20w is all that bad of a deal. I have not seen any serious examples of problems with any of them that can be attributed directly to a lower vis oil. Not championing the use of something like a 20w, just haven't seen any kind of trend that shows it is something to avoid.


It appears you are using a HDEO 10W-30. Look at the zinc and phosphorous. HDEO 10W-30 are stout oils, made to run in diesel engines. I think "thin" oil that most people think of, will be the ILSAC GF-5 variety 0W-20 or 5W-20.
The oil you show doesn't fit that category, with its beefier additive package. I wouldn't be concerned using it, even if it is a 10W-30.
Would you consider using ISLAC GF-5 Pennzoil yellow bottle 10W-30 or Valvoline white bottle 10W-30 in that engine?