Oil Recomendations for 2004 Mitsubishi Outlander

[Bryanccfshr]

I am split between a couple of choices for this vehicle.I have a Tacoma 3.4 that I have been happily running motorcraft 5 w30 in with LC since finding this site but I am HDEO curious

(Delo 400 10 w 30 sounds tempting)
Back to the Outlander, we bought it used last month with 6100 miles on it and has dealer bulk oil that is about 2k miles old but is dark and of unknown quality brand or viscosity

, it is used primarily by my wife who is a realtor. That means many microtrips a day. She will drive about 3 miles to the office and take several more trips in city traffic a day and sometimes get on the freeway for maybe 15 mile trips once a week. We plan to use it as a trip vehicle as well so it will get it's legs stretched under my heavy foot at least every couple of weeks for a few hundred miles and a 3500 mile trip is planned in march!
It rarely freezes where we live in the winter and the summers are simply brutally hot. I worry about fuel dilution with the short trips and idling around resedential neighborhoods with the A?C fighting the cooling system for air. ( I didn't worry about her previous leased Montero Sport but we bought this one)
The engine has variable valve timing as well if that is important.
I am leaning towards running the 5w30 MC with LC in this motor as well (~4.5 qt capacity) or since I am having the local NAPA manager over for X-mas dinner I can score some Delo 10w30.

Any favorites for this motor? The UOA section lacks data on it.

 

[427Z06]

What are the owner's manual recommendations?

I would imagine the API SM version of MC 5w30 semi syn with LC would work well in both vehicles, but I'm very curious on how the Delo 400 10w30 would perform, so if you do decide to run it and performs some UOAs, I'd be one of your fans.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

The owners manual recomendations are weighted by temperature. I am out of state away from the vehicle at this time but as I recall it ranges from 5w20 below zero F. To 10w30 at normal temperatures I cannot recall if the viscosity is allowed to go higher above 90 f but will look at it when I get back to the house.

I know the MC and the LC work great but I am also very curious about running the Delo. (this sight has taken the certainty of choosing something and sticking to it away and made this a fun decision again) I will run a UOA on the second run of whichever oil I choose to see how it is doing.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Well I went with the SM MC 5w30, Put a supertech filter and 5 oz of LC with the 4.6 qtd of new oil. I changed my mind and will do a UOA on this fill and then maybe do the same with the DELO on the spring run. We shall see, the MC is currently my feel good oil. I want to see if this trick valve train is hard on the oil.

 

[Al]

Personally-I think you made the right choice. And you are going to verify with a UOA. I just worry about the higher levels of ZDDP and the cat. conv. Since youy are hitting the cooler season in Texas...I think you'll do fine.