Does it go to say -20 below zero (Celsius) anywhere at all in Greece? Maybe the mountains in Crete, but Athens and such? If not you can happily run 15w anything. Just enough to require a jacket like 8-10 C isn’t going to faze a 15w40. Regardless of what weight oil you choose, make sure of the other properties I mentioned.
Which of these 4 Ravenol 5w-30 oils should I choose?
- Thread starter inquirer
- Start date
No, I will rarely deal with subzero temps. A few times a year, when visiting mountainous areas I maybe will. Checking the manual 15W can be used for temps down to -15 °C, so it covers those temps too.
Yet, there are other reasons to select lower grade oils, like lowering fuel consumption and increase engine performance.
RSP is an ACEA A3/B4 oil. Would you choose it over VMP?
An a3b4 oil should do you just fine as long as it is calibrated for heat resistance and the other figures I mentioned. Also change oil at 5000 kilometers anyway, use the cheapest a3b4 or sn/ck4 that’s available to you.
Also
The engine does not burn much oil. I now use 0W-20 and despite driving often at high revs the oil falls from max to min on the dipstick about every 6000 miles / 10000 km.That is losing oil for sure. You are better off with a 40 weight (your choice 0w 5w 15w) but a higher viscosity and more heat resistant oil will be best for you rather than something low viscosity and meant to preserve fuel economy more than anything else.
Buy an oil with VW 502.00 certification, Ravenol has several IIRC. A trustworthy source with plenty of knowledge told me it was one of the most robust full-SAPS performance-based oil certs. If you’re not burning lots of oil, there’s no downside to running a full-SAPS oil.
I’ve actually got a 502.00 based add pack in the oil I’m running in my 500+ whp EcoBoost, because it doesn’t burn oil and I’m interested in the best protection. That, and several UOAs I have performed have already proven that DXG is not up to 6k OCIs on an EcoBoost even when a catch can and no short-tripping is involved. Lesson learned!
I’ve actually got a 502.00 based add pack in the oil I’m running in my 500+ whp EcoBoost, because it doesn’t burn oil and I’m interested in the best protection. That, and several UOAs I have performed have already proven that DXG is not up to 6k OCIs on an EcoBoost even when a catch can and no short-tripping is involved. Lesson learned!
My experience is that oil burning is not caused by high revs as such, but by a lot of time of engine braking from the high revs, when you create vacuum in the cylinders. Ravenol RSP might be optimized for tracking and longer rides therefore if you have lots of short trips then VMP or DXG might be a better choice.
I have DXG (old version with tungsten) ready for my next oil change (80 000 km) as I wanted oil where Ravenol declares the presence of Group V in the base oil and "Excellent detergent and dispersant capabilities" - i.e. cleaning abilities rather than just a declaration that there will be no new deposits. The reason is that I short-trip a lot so I want to get rid of any varnish that might have been created during the past 5 years.
There are several UOAs of mine on here with the old version with tungsten, and it did not fare very well even at just 6.5k OCIs. Also, not all esters (Group V) are created equally- there is no documentation if the esters Ravenol uses are polar, which is what would give you cleaning. Redline oils, which for years were sought for their esters, have been confirmed to be non-polar, and therefore non-cleaning in the way you’re hoping.
There are really only two readily available oils that have been proven to have the two “magic” cleaning compounds, alkylated napthalenes and highly-polar esters, and those are M1 FS 0w40, and the entire HPL line of oils. There is the Valvoline Restore Blue, but that does not carry any gasoline certifications and also is unobtanium. Again, I’m giving you personal results from verified use & analysis, not just shouting down Ravenol.
Best of luck if you’ve already purchased the DXG, but I suspect it will fall short of the high hopes you have for it, just as it did for me.
Good points.
I've seen some UOA's of Ravenol and they were all quite disappointing. I believe the comrades on the Russian oil club feel the same about it. Their oils look good on paper though.
Also, Amsoil Signature Series will clean very well. Strong solvency in the SS line. I'd throw that in the mix.
It would be interesting to know the action of their cleaning- @Pablo is SS using ANs or polar esters, or some other method?
It's guesstimated that Amsoil uses 10-14% of some type of esters based on FTIR. But as we know, this can be misleading due to different ester types.
In the Gale Banks video, Dan Peterson did emphasize they like and use Group V.
I will say the SS performed incredibly well in the Seq IIIH.
Very clean piston and they doubled the interval. I would attribute that not only to great oxidation resistance but solvency as well.
Sorry this got off topic.
In the Gale Banks video, Dan Peterson did emphasize they like and use Group V.
I will say the SS performed incredibly well in the Seq IIIH.
Very clean piston and they doubled the interval. I would attribute that not only to great oxidation resistance but solvency as well.
Sorry this got off topic.
Last edited:
They gots price matching in Greece?
Thank you for the warning. What exactly was wrong with the UOAs? I have seen just a few (three or four) of the DXG UOA results on the German oil-club.de and I did not see anything wrong. Just nice low iron wear numbers and sometimes slightly elevated copper numbers. I would believe DXG is not good only if I would see two consecutive UOAs where DGX was used as the elevated wear metal numbers in the first UOA might be related to the cleaning of older deposits or destruction of the old trilayer and building a new one
In the long term, I use VST in one car and SSO in the other.
When I used Ravenol for the first time, the cold engine sound was unusually harsh for the first 100 miles and then it slowly became smoother than ever before. This was quite well audible with VST and a bit less audible with SSO. Therefore, I believe I heard tribolayer destruction and the forming of a new one. This never happened with other oils I have used in the past. I really wonder if there will be some audible difference when going from SSO to DXG, but I doubt it as there was no audible difference when going from SSO to Honda 0w-20 oil and then back to SSO again.
UOA's are not the correct tool to discern wear from reports; if you search "Mobil 1" and "iron" you will find many UOAs that appear to show more iron than when those same engines were run on other oils. Many reactionary people believed that this was M1 causing more wear; some of the elder statesmen of the board, including tribologists and those steeped in statistical backgrounds pointed out a couple things: first, over the entire OCI, the change in PPM was negligible on the amount of tenths of a PPM per 1k miles; and moreso, that the components M1 uses are much more suited to chelating (freeing up) deposits left behind by other oils.
Basically, the excess (if you will) iron had already been in the engine from previous wear, but because other oils did not keep these deposits in suspension they precipitated out onto internal surfaces. When M1 was introduced, it began liberating these deposits and therefore shows more iron in the oil.
Now, onto my DXG experiences: I will agree that the engine did run smoothly (but not as smoothly as it is with HPL's No VII Euro 5w30). But when you look at its viscosity retention, my UOAs had all dropped into the 20 grade window... which is most definitely a condemnation point when using UOAs to determine oil condition. The flashpoint was lower, which indicates some fuel was present, but even on shorter runs it was questionable if there was some mechanical shearing of the VIIs. You will also find my VOAs which prove that at least at some point, Ravenol had been shipping d1G1 while the bottle was labeled d1G2... which is not a great sign of quality control IMO. Again, not saying that Ravenol makes "bad" oils... just saying that their marketing and sponsorships seem to indicate that the company is making a better product than they actually are. When you toss in the insane pricing for Ravenol's top-tier oils like DXG (now over $70/5L, and over $100/5L for some other oils) IMO there are better oils available for less cost. Again, IMO, if you're wanting to maintain certifications yet get a terrific oil for the money, M1's FS 0w40 (previously M1 Euro 0w40) just can't be beat as it offers alkylated napthalenes and polar esters for $26/5qt.
There definitely may be Ravenol offerings that deliver everything they say, but a VOA can't predict how well an oil will perform... that's what the certifications are there for. Heck, if you want to dabble in some serious cleaning for a bargain, you may run a quart of HPL EC30 along with a fresh sump of M1 FS 0W40. That holds the cost of the oil change to about $40-45/6 qts and will arguably clean better than any other oil combo short of Valvoline's Restore or HPL's regular engine oils.
The oil level drop happens only when I drive constantly at high revs. For example for the last 1000 km that include normal driving there wasn't the slightest change on the level of the oil on the dipstick. If I drive 1000 km at high revs then there is visible drop, a few mm on the dipstick.
That would be the racing oil RSP. It's the only of the 4 that has the certification you mention.
Read my answer to the first quotation. I only notice oil drop when driving at high revs for long distances, otherwise there is no change of the oil level at all.
Last edited:
As I said you need an oil with fairly robust protection and high detergent / dispersant / tbn / heat tolerance for your car. Racing spec oils might do the job, as will using any bargain a3b4 and changing the oil every 5-6k km rather than 10k km.
