Oil weight and Oil Grade

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Originally Posted by Eddie
Maybe I'll just use the word Viscosity to clarify.
Ed


But then you have to talk in centistokes and not what's written on the oil containers, and will just be looked at with an even weirder eye than when calling it oil weight instead of grade.
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Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
Originally Posted by LotI
Is it the correct time to bring up the error of saying "VIN number"?
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You mean the vehicle identification number number?



Mazda did that with their Mazda 3.

Technically it's a Mazda Mazda3
 
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
Just for fun I am going to cut and paste some quotes from the main stream advertising media showing the terms weight and grade. Those numbers that the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) defines are actually grades such as SAE 30 but many sources call them "weights". The terms seem to be used pretty loosely. Standby.



Your next assignment is to find all of the oil industry web sites that capitalize Noack, and there are lots! That one really brings out the BITOG grammar police.

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Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
How about unleaded gas. We haven't had leaded gas at the pumps in 45 years. I often stop at a station and fill up with regular unleaded gas and get an un-creamed coffee.
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"Gasoline", please. It's a liquid, not a gas...
 
It's grade, not weight. End of story.

As for the motor vs engine thing, I admit to saying motor from time to time but not when directly referencing the engine. I'll say "motorsports" and "motor oil" and sing "Get your motor runnin'." My father told me when I was a teenager, when I asked him that question, that a motor was any device that uses any energy source to impart motion and an engine is a specific type of motor that uses thermal energy to impart motion. Per his definition, all engines are motors, but not all motors are engines. Whether that is the actual definition of that or not, I don't know. I refer to it as engine about 95+% of the time. When I'm at the track, I might tell someone to "put your motor where your mouth is."

Specific gravity does not always follow viscosity. Driven's synthetic street oils FR20, LS30, DT40, DT50, DI30, DI40, and FR50 are all between .8440 and .8490 with the "lightest" being DI30 and "heaviest" being DT40. Also, Driven XP2 0w-20 is "heavier" than all of them.
 
That's far from the worst commonly misused word or phrase on this site!

How about "OCI" used to mean "oil change," or even worse, used as a verb? Or "heat" used to mean (high) temperature? Or "exponentially" to mean fast (growth) when the writer has no clue what "exponential growth" actually is? Etc....

RDY4WAR's father was correct about engines. The definition of "motor" is more vague and squishy.
 
Originally Posted by SubieRubyRoo
Originally Posted by Eddie
Maybe I'll just use the word Viscosity to clarify.
Ed


But then you have to talk in centistokes and not what's written on the oil containers, and will just be looked at with an even weirder eye than when calling it oil weight instead of grade.
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Oh I just can't take this anymore, the humanity of it all!🤣

Mad' is out..✌ï¸
 
I'm gonna print this post and carry it to my safety deposit box for safe keeping.
 
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
It's grade, not weight. End of story.

Except you're not in charge.
And the thread has documented many professionals in the industry working with the colloquialism as has been discussed.

Don't get me wrong, it's important for you to do you.
You're free to draw the same conclusions that you've already made perfectly clear.

Just please be aware that there are many folks (professionals and industry leading organizations included) out there getting along quite well that you would mis-categorize.

Cheers!!!
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Originally Posted by Imp4
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
It's grade, not weight. End of story.

Except you're not in charge.
And the thread has documented many professionals in the industry working with the colloquialism as has been discussed.

Don't get me wrong, it's important for you to do you.
You're free to draw the same conclusions that you've already made perfectly clear.

Just please be aware that there are many folks (professionals and industry leading organizations included) out there getting along quite well that you would mis-categorize.

Cheers!!!
cheers3.gif



The marketer that wrote that on the Valvoline ad probably doesn't know the difference between kinematic and dynamic viscosity, much less a "professional" in the field of tribology and fluid dynamics. Again, marketing feeds off the lowest IQ bracket. "Weight" is more colloquial to the bottom half of the gene pool than "grade" so it gets used despite the fact that it is wrong. The target audience for the SAE reports are not in that bottom half of the gene pool. There's no marketing there.
 
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
As for the motor vs engine thing, I admit to saying motor from time to time but not when directly referencing the engine. I'll say "motorsports" and "motor oil" and sing "Get your motor runnin'." My father told me when I was a teenager, when I asked him that question, that a motor was any device that uses any energy source to impart motion and an engine is a specific type of motor that uses thermal energy to impart motion. Per his definition, all engines are motors, but not all motors are engines. Whether that is the actual definition of that or not, I don't know. I refer to it as engine about 95+% of the time. When I'm at the track, I might tell someone to "put your motor where your mouth is."


According to Merriam-Webster, the terms are pretty much interchangeable. I never saw any electrical vehicles or talk about modifying DC motors in "Motor Trend" magazine back when I use to subscribe to the magazine, lol.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/motor

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engine
 
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
The marketer that wrote that on the Valvoline ad probably doesn't know the difference between kinematic and dynamic viscosity, much less a "professional" in the field of tribology and fluid dynamics. Again, marketing feeds off the lowest IQ bracket. "Weight" is more colloquial to the bottom half of the gene pool than "grade" so it gets used despite the fact that it is wrong. The target audience for the SAE reports are not in that bottom half of the gene pool.
There's no marketing there.

It's interesting that you seem to have an inside line to whom at Valvoline writes their digital content and also who approves the content for publishing.

Explain it away to yourself any way you see fit....

Cheers!!!
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Just surfing the web as I wait for dinner to finish up.

It looks like Mobil1 is at it too.
To quote the link
Originally Posted by Mobil1
Motor oil viscosity and weight
The proper viscosity is the single most important criterion of a lubricating oil. Multiweight oils (such as 5W-30) have polymers added to the oil. The polymers allow the oil to have different weights at different temperatures...
And Castrol as well.

And Chevron here, and again here as well and both Chevron articles are written by one of their Lubrication Engineers with more than 35 years in the industry working for Mobil and Chevron.

But you get the idea...

Cheers!!!
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All of which is interesting and helps your case, but still it is not a weight it is a grade. Especially since grades are ranges, as it is with motor oil grades.

I'm not a purist on this but it is a grade not a weight.
 
Originally Posted by kschachn
All of which is interesting and helps your case, but still it is not a weight it is a grade. Especially since grades are ranges, as it is with motor oil grades.

I'm not a purist on this but it is a grade not a weight.

I totally agree to the technical definition because it is defined by industry standard SAE J300. There is no argument from me there.
I'm just tripping over some member's posts that claim
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
"Weight" is more colloquial to the bottom half of the gene pool than "grade" so it gets used despite the fact that it is wrong. The target audience for the SAE reports are not in that bottom half of the gene pool.

This is a statement that is demonstrably false. And BITOG is a place that loves to ask for sources for just about all claims. So I am attempting to show that the terms in question are readily used within the industry by professionals and organizations with knowledge and insight well beyond all but a few that are present here.

Again, the terms 'weight' is technically incorrect, but it is readily used widely within the industry by some very smart people and very successful organizations.
 
I must say, the term "grade" is normally used to describe quality, e.g. "high grade" and "low grade."
It's easy to see how non-engineers / non-car people might get confused about grade vs weight.
And yes, W does mean winter (low temperature viscosity).
 
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