What oils are good oils..... - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

ianmcginley · 06-10-2003, 15:46

I couldn't quite find the best place for this thread, so I thought i'd go for engine tech...

I came to noticing that my BA XR6 N/A was a little on the low side of oil (12,000km) so just to get me over the line to the 15,000km service I went to my local servo (Shell) looking for some 10W-30 engine oil. Could I find any? nup!

10W-40: yes
5W-30: yes

but no 10W-30 as recommended. As I couldn't find any of the recommended oil specification I didn't buy. Now it got me thinking, if I was in a bind, eg: driving an LS1 5.7 litre V8

and I needed a specific kind of oil quickly but I can't find the same specification match, what is the best to do?

Now my *LIMITED* understanding of the numbers are something like the XW number is the viscosity and the -YY number is the temperature that the oil operates okay at? 5W is more viscose then 10W, and -30 has a lower operating temperature range than -40 ?

Something like that? If I had to buy 5W-30 or 10W-40 for my car, which would have been better and why?

Dellboy999 · 06-11-2003, 16:07

The lower the first number the runnier it is at cold temp, and then it heats up and the bigger the second number the thicker it gets and sticks to everything important.

SO.......... based on that, realisticly either would be ok.

Dellboy999

TopGhia · 06-12-2003, 02:50

That's about right, although it seems in Australia a lot of drivers use a 5W something oil, which is far too thin.

Ford in Europe now only recommend this viscosity(5W) for Scandanavian countries and the North Pole. The weather in Australia would never reach those extremes, so it beats me why anyone would risk their engine on a thin oil.

cheers

ianmcginley · 06-12-2003, 20:50

Quote:

Originally posted by TopGhia
That's about right, although it seems in Australia a lot of drivers use a 5W something oil, which is far too thin.

Ford in Europe now only recommend this viscosity(5W) for Scandanavian countries and the North Pole. The weather in Australia would never reach those extremes, so it beats me why anyone would risk their engine on a thin oil.

Well now the GT has 0W-20 or something similar (not sure on the second number). I figure the higher quality/thinner oil is for highly tuned hand built engines that have the design tolerances to take advantage of the thinner oil (as designated by the 0W or 5W). Whereas the good ol' I6 NA requires the 10W because the tolerances in manufacturing aren't as good ?

Personally i'd love to see how the engine performance differs between using 10W and 0W oil. Obviously i might see better engine revving but what about wear and oil consumption? Would such a change to a drastically different oil be warranty voiding stuff?

Dellboy999 · 06-12-2003, 21:26

No perfromance gain will be achieved by different oil, better oil pressure maybe, but thats about it.

The wear and tear is the only issue to be assessed, I have not noticed any oil consumption when I ran 5w50 Mobil 1 in my XF Carby 4.1L motor.

Dellboy999

russellw · 06-12-2003, 23:17

For an explanation of oil technology try this link in our tech forum:

http://www.ford-tech.com/articles.php?articleId=7

http://www.ford-tech.com/articles.php?articleId=8

Cheers
Russ

82falcon · 06-13-2003, 09:37

i use 25W70 in my XE, might not be that good for a BA though...
works in the xe

XESpakman · 06-20-2003, 03:33

is magnatec good stuff? i use 10w 40 i think in my xf

XR8 Couple · 06-20-2003, 12:01

Check your car's manual....the oils required for the high performance cars are something a little different to the ordinary stuff...going form the list I found in my manual.