What shall I use, wise men?

[uRabbit]

2007 Ford Focus SE manual 2.0 L 50,000 miles

I currently have AMSOIL Signature Series Full Synthetic. It claims to be a 25,000 mile oil, but I changed it out at 39,840 miles back on 9/24/2011. Probably a bit too long to go, eh? Since then, I lost my job, spent six months as a stay-at-home father, and now have a better career, and can afford to take care of the car (among other things). It has looked good every month, but now it looks a bit dark.

I do not have an owner's manual, but here is what the Hayne's says:
5W-30, 3,000 mi / 3 mo. Says to look for ones with labels with American Petroleum Institution Certified and/or API Service SG Energy Conserving II

I drive quite conservatively. I am a member over at CleanMPG.com, so as you could guess, I hypermile my vehicle as much as possible. Lots of engine-off coasting, restarting, etc. Car is rated at 30 mpg combined, while I achieve ~36 every tank. I only drive on the weekends, traveling on average 50 miles per weekend. Fill-ups occur monthly.

Was thinking of going Royal Purple, but of course, no one oil is best. Also, I cannot change my own oil (park in a community parking garage), so if there is any advice on where to take my car, that'd be great. Have never had anyone else change my oil in my nine years of owning vehicles, but I do know to avoid Jiffy Lube and the like.

 

[MaximusD]

With all that stop/start/coast/repeat, even with what I assume to be mostly highway driving, I'd just stick with the 3k mile change on the cheapest 5w-30 oil I could find, save up, and buy a manual or a hybrid. Saving 6 mpg is a steep price to pay for engine and tranny work that could extend into the thousands.

Will it happen? I don't know. I do know that I wouldn't want to be this car's second owner.

 

[uRabbit]

City mileage. It is a manual.

I can't imagine what kind of extra wear is happening to the motor. People have gone rounds about it over at CleanMPG.

 

[grndslm]

I've been hypermiling before hypermiling was cool [and had a cool name to be identified by].

When driving along a highway in which I knew I'd be stopping, I would punch it, giving it just enough oomph to get me to the next stop light, cut the engine off.... coast an 1/8 or 1/4 of a mile, or what have you... and then pop the clutch when nearing the light. If I knew I was gonna be at a light for any longer than a minute, I cut the engine off. The only extra wear you add by doing this is damage to the starter, which can easily be found with lifetime warranties these days.

I could never actually gauge how much fuel I was saving by doing this, because the odometer would actually stop rolling when the key was in the "Acc" position, even tho the wheels were rolling. I also had 17" rims on that car, as well.... so that messed with what the odometer was "tuned" for, which was 14" wheels.

But from what I'm beginning to understand now... you can be doing yourself a disservice by not allowing the oil to come to operating temps (which is not the same as the coolant operating temps). Will have to do a bit more research into this myself, but it appears that 0w-30 is some of the best stuff for quick, frequent starts and/or short trips. Gonna try it out in my vehicles and see how it works.

 

[skyship]

In my opinion,
Just look for a major brand 5/30 on special offer, buy the correct amount plus a quart for top ups, get the best oil filter Motorcraft make for your car and then take the exact amount of oil required plus the filter to your local Iffy or Eazy lube.
Watch them change the oil & filter and dash in with your Blackstone sample bottle mid stream. Then post your UOA (Plus TBN if possible) on this site, as 3K is a real short OCI and I would recommend 5K to start with, then see what the UOA results look like.
If you are a green type then it might be possible to extend OCI to 10K miles, as you are easy on the engine and it's fairly new. Long OCI's are often better in engine wear terms than threekaying, BUT the proof is in the UOA wear metal figures.

 

[skyship]

Originally Posted By: grndslm
I've been hypermiling before hypermiling was cool [and had a cool name to be identified by].

When driving along a highway in which I knew I'd be stopping, I would punch it, giving it just enough oomph to get me to the next stop light, cut the engine off.... coast an 1/8 or 1/4 of a mile, or what have you... and then pop the clutch when nearing the light. If I knew I was gonna be at a light for any longer than a minute, I cut the engine off. The only extra wear you add by doing this is damage to the starter, which can easily be found with lifetime warranties these days.

I could never actually gauge how much fuel I was saving by doing this, because the odometer would actually stop rolling when the key was in the "Acc" position, even tho the wheels were rolling. I also had 17" rims on that car, as well.... so that messed with what the odometer was "tuned" for, which was 14" wheels.

But from what I'm beginning to understand now... you can be doing yourself a disservice by not allowing the oil to come to operating temps (which is not the same as the coolant operating temps). Will have to do a bit more research into this myself, but it appears that 0w-30 is some of the best stuff for quick, frequent starts and/or short trips. Gonna try it out in my vehicles and see how it works.


In my opinion,
If it's not below minus 25C you don't need an 0W oil, a 5W is just fine as lower viscosity figures only matter when it gets very cold, in fact you can use a 15W something above freezing and get the same results in cold start wear terms as the 0W.
The additives included in the oil are what prevents most cold start wear.

What matters much more is how you start and drive when the engine in cold. Firstly with a modern ECU controlled engine never touch the accelerator during start up or for another 30 seconds (1 minute below minus 25C), then drive off keeping the revs as low as practical until the coolant temp is normal. Do not rev the engine hard until the coolant temp has reached normal and try to make all accelerator moves slowly. When you stop always wait 30 seconds before switching off (2 to 5 minutes for a hard used turbo if required).

You are right that stop starting is OK, BUT only if the engine does not cool down. The real oil killers for a good engine are the number of cold starts combined with time spent at idle and dirty air factors. Top of the list is probably time at idle, combined with the size of the drivers right boot!

 

[Turk]

Stay with the Amsoil Sig. Series. No reason to change from a quality oil.

 

[grndslm]

Originally Posted By: skyship
What matters much more is how you start and drive when the engine in cold. Firstly with a modern ECU controlled engine never touch the accelerator during start up or for another 30 seconds (1 minute below minus 25C), then drive off keeping the revs as low as practical until the coolant temp is normal. Do not rev the engine hard until the coolant temp has reached normal and try to make all accelerator moves slowly. When you stop always wait 30 seconds before switching off (2 to 5 minutes for a hard used turbo if required).

Your post makes a lot of sense. But I'm still curious as to what is the purpose of idling for 30 seconds after shutting the car off....

And does this "rule" still apply if you're only going a half mile down the road, when the oil temps won't reach normal operating temps even with an extra minute start up and shut down times???

 

[skyship]

In my opinion,
The 30 second rule is for cold starts only, BUT applies to any shutdown where the engine has warmed up, so not needed for Fedex etc. The reason for the shutdown delay is to allow the cylinder head area temperatures to equalize, BUT if you have a turbo then read the manual as some have a run on oil pump and some don't.
The real killer of turbo bearings apart from bad oil is either starting with the accelerator pressed down or the sudden highway call of nature, where you were at full power towing a heavy caravan and you see the urgently needed WC sign rather late, then slam the brakes on and switch off to run for it. Full power to shut down in 30 seconds can be done, I've watched folks do it who don't understand that the turbo was still doing some horrific RPM when they cut the oil flow to the bearings. Run on oil pumps sloved the shutdown problem by keeping oil flowing through the turbo for several minutes.

 

[uRabbit]

Originally Posted By: Turk
Stay with the Amsoil Sig. Series. No reason to change from a quality oil.



Maybe you're right. This time, however, I'd like to get one of their filters as well. Maybe I will get their basic filter and the XL oil.