5w-20 oil recomended by factory in a 435hp car?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jun 9, 2010
Messages
18
Location
Honduras
Got a new ford mustang and the owners manual recomends 5w-20 oil. My local ambient tempetures are between 30 and 40 degrees celsius. Also i tend to drive this car really fast. So is it ok to use this oil weight?
Thanks.
 
I use something a little thicker in my coyote engine. The 5w-20 is probably fine. But so is xW-30 and xW-40.
 
Originally Posted By: JorgeSimon
Got a new ford mustang and the owners manual recomends 5w-20 oil. My local ambient tempetures are between 30 and 40 degrees celsius. Also i tend to drive this car really fast. So is it ok to use this oil weight?
Thanks.


It has water cooling so theoretically the oil will be around the same temp. At 10C or 30C outside.

That being said, if you are racing it or tracking it.. where you are using those 400HP for extended periods.. I'd probably step up to a 5w30.

Simply "driving fast" doesn't really put much heat in the oil. And the additional cooling from "driving fast" offsets that.

Whatever you do make sure its a high quality name brand oil.
 
Its got 8 quart sump yes? What temp is the oil running? - that describes the Kviscosity. When a Lincoln dealer "accidentally " put 5w30 in my 2001 Bullitt, power and drivability took a BIG nosedive. Different engine though ...
 
If you drive that thing like it was designed to be driven and you want it to last, I'd use something thicker than 5W20. The same engine in the same car elsewhere specs 5W50 when tracking it...

CAFE runs the show in the US, engine longevity takes a backseat...
 
You can drive a vehicle like that "fast" and still not be putting much of a load on it.

Its extended load the gets the sump heated up - if you are just driving a flat 80-90 no problem.

If you are standing on it all the way up davis dam road in the summer at 110 outside- then no way Id run 20 if it were my car.

When you are standing on it the oil running out of those crank journals is going to be way hot. Hotter than the water by a good amount. The water temp can read fine and you can be sizzling that oil.

Kinda of hard to tell if you should even bother without knowing the oil temps so an oil temp gauge would be nice.

For an el cheapo look at whats going on inside Id put something like a gold plug in the sump and a filtermag on the filter simply as a diagnostic tool to see what you are sloughing off.

If you are loaded up with fuzz in both places then you may want to step it to 30.
If the mags are clean then 20 is likely giving you what you need.

20 in a high performance rig like that is little thin for my taste.
20 in an econobox getting battery assist is a lot more palatable.

Your engine, your money- of course- your call.
 
As it is a new car, and under warranty, I would keep in mind the owner should use the viscosity Ford recommends in the owner's manual.
If 5W-20 is it, then that is what I would go with.
My 2 cents.
 
Originally Posted By: racin4ds
If you drive that thing like it was designed to be driven and you want it to last, I'd use something thicker than 5W20. The same engine in the same car elsewhere specs 5W50 when tracking it...

CAFE runs the show in the US, engine longevity takes a backseat...



Agree.

I am running 5w30 in the F150, and may try 0w40 soon. The Mustang with Track Pack specifies 5w50 as racin4ds noted. Same oiling system in the Coyote in all 3 vehicles so pick what you like. (Insert warranty discussion here). In your climate my choice would be at least a 30 weight.
 
Last edited:
The track pack is different than the regular coyote because there are no power nannies, it will give you full power no matter how hot the oil or water gets. The regular coyote will cut power when it gets too hot.. Big difference which is why there's a 5w50 recommendation.

That being said if 5w20 is hard to find a 5w30 or 10w30 wouldn't kill anything especially with high ambient temperatures.

I'm not against running thicker oil either, I'm using Mobil 1 0W40 in my 5w30 application
 
So many opinions, so much of it totally wrong. Which is OK b/c it's not their car, right?

I'll give the right answer here and try to be as concise as possible so it doesn't confuse. And please, I'm not auditioning for your approval, this is the right answer.

You should use what Ford recommends.

There's no correlation btwn the weight of the oil and engine longevity. If anything, you actually improve the chances of changing the longevity...for the worse...if you monkey around too much with viscosity. That's b/c the thickness of the oil specified by the engineers...you know, those actual folks with advanced degrees who designed your engine, not a bunch of self proclaimed know it all's on a website..take things like load, heat dissipation, bearing clearances, etc. into account.
 
Originally Posted By: Noey
So many opinions, so much of it totally wrong. Which is OK b/c it's not their car, right?

I'll give the right answer here and try to be as concise as possible so it doesn't confuse. And please, I'm not auditioning for your approval, this is the right answer.

You should use what Ford recommends.

There's no correlation btwn the weight of the oil and engine longevity. If anything, you actually improve the chances of changing the longevity...for the worse...if you monkey around too much with viscosity. That's b/c the thickness of the oil specified by the engineers...you know, those actual folks with advanced degrees who designed your engine, not a bunch of self proclaimed know it all's on a website..take things like load, heat dissipation, bearing clearances, etc. into account.
You mean the engineers that spec 0W-20 only in one country and then all the way up to 20W-50 in other countries? Those engineers? Engineers don't write manuals.
 
Engineers design the engines and recommend the oil. Then the marketing and accounting depts ask them can "XXXX" work instead and not materially affect longevity in the first 100K-150K miles? If the answer is yes, the bean counters win.

Under warranty use what the OEM recommends. Find the thickest 20 grade you can find if that's what you have to use. There are some that are not far from 30 grade. I agree that a 5W-20 makes little sense in a 400 hp car where ambient temps are 85-95 deg F.
 
Originally Posted By: Noey
So many opinions, so much of it totally wrong. Which is OK b/c it's not their car, right?

I'll give the right answer here and try to be as concise as possible so it doesn't confuse. And please, I'm not auditioning for your approval, this is the right answer.

You should use what Ford recommends.

There's no correlation btwn the weight of the oil and engine longevity. If anything, you actually improve the chances of changing the longevity...for the worse...if you monkey around too much with viscosity. That's b/c the thickness of the oil specified by the engineers...you know, those actual folks with advanced degrees who designed your engine, not a bunch of self proclaimed know it all's on a website..take things like load, heat dissipation, bearing clearances, etc. into account.


You obviously have no idea how the corporate structure works in the automobile industry! The "Engineers" that know it all are heavily influenced by the bean counters and the EPA/CAFE. The US has the lightest oil weight specs of any country by a long shot. Just research the manual and oil suggestions for your same car in other countries. Almost NO ONE uses 0W20 anywhere else in the world, why? because they would rather trade that .0001% fuel economy for longevity! In the USA its totally backwards.
 
Originally Posted By: racin4ds
The US has the lightest oil weight specs of any country by a long shot. Just research the manual and oil suggestions for your same car in other countries. Almost NO ONE uses 0W20 anywhere else in the world, why? because they would rather trade that .0001% fuel economy for longevity! In the USA its totally backwards.


A claim often made for which there is no evidence, right?
 
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Noey
So many opinions, so much of it totally wrong. Which is OK b/c it's not their car, right?

I'll give the right answer here and try to be as concise as possible so it doesn't confuse. And please, I'm not auditioning for your approval, this is the right answer.

You should use what Ford recommends.

There's no correlation btwn the weight of the oil and engine longevity. If anything, you actually improve the chances of changing the longevity...for the worse...if you monkey around too much with viscosity. That's b/c the thickness of the oil specified by the engineers...you know, those actual folks with advanced degrees who designed your engine, not a bunch of self proclaimed know it all's on a website..take things like load, heat dissipation, bearing clearances, etc. into account.
You mean the engineers that spec 0W-20 only in one country and then all the way up to 20W-50 in other countries? Those engineers? Engineers don't write manuals.



Its exactly what I have seen for one of my cars (Corolla). There is the owners manual for the rest of world and a different oil specification page for North America. The "world" manual states I can use anything from 0w20 to 20W-50...the North American manual...only 0w/5w20. The 2009 Corolla is a world car where the same car was shared worldwide. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. Believe it, CAFE has its influence.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
If I ever buy a V8 Mustang,it's getting 5W50.


5W-50 in a std V8 Stang is silly and gains nothing, isn't necessary for a brief run to 100+ mph... Now I don't use 5W-20 in anything but if I had the aforementioned Stang, I'd go with with a light 0W-40 like M1, which is what I used in my 500+Hp supercharged Marauder...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top