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0w30 vs 5w30 vs 5w20 ?

9K views 18 replies 13 participants last post by  Blis  
#1 ·
Okay, so ford says to use 5w20, which is fine and good. Except that limits your selection of oils to near zero, especially on the synthetic side. Noresull, do you know the ford official position on this? Is 5w30 "close enough"? I know virtually nothing about oil, so cant make an even slightly informed decision
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Thanks!

[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: henrich ]</p>
 
#6 ·
Starting in 2001 Ford switched to 5w20 for all their cars for the improved fule mileage numbers.

The engines were designed for 5w30 or 10w30 where it's hot.

Since I'm in CA I put 10w30 in the summer and 5w30 in the winter.

Running 5w20 is bad for your engine.
 
#7 ·
Has anyone studied the specs on the new Mobil-1 SuperSyn oil ?

It appears that at operating temperature, the best film strength is 0W-30, then 10W-30, then 5W-30.

New Corvettes come from the factory filled with Mobil-1 5W-30. I wonder if they will switch to 0W-30 ??
 
#8 ·
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by raitchison:

Running 5w20 is bad for your engine.
<hr></blockquote>

I'm just wondering where you got this from.
 
#9 ·
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by henrich:
Okay, so ford says to use 5w20, which is fine and good. Except that limits your selection of oils to near zero, especially on the synthetic side. Noresull, do you know the ford official position on this? Is 5w30 "close enough"? I know virtually nothing about oil, so cant make an even slightly informed decision
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Thanks!

[ 05-30-2002: Message edited by: henrich ]
<hr></blockquote>

When I first got my car, I was running 5w30. Now I am running Motorcraft Synthetic blend 5w20.

5w30 will work fine and there are alot of posts throughout the Jet where people give very good, detailed info on the different oils.
 
#11 ·
I agree, I'd prefer to use the ford spec as well, but I wasnt aware that motorcraft had a synthetic! Does anyone know where I can buy the stuff?
 
#12 ·
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by henrich:
I agree, I'd prefer to use the ford spec as well, but I wasnt aware that motorcraft had a synthetic! Does anyone know where I can buy the stuff?<hr></blockquote>

I beleive it is just a synthetic blend, which some may disagree with, but I like to use it. I buy it right from my Dealer.
 
#14 ·
I have gotten 5W20 at Wal Mart as well, by their supply is spotty- it goes quick, so I buy 5-10 at a time to make up for when they're out. For over the counter, Wal Mart is the only place I have found the Ford Synthetic Blend - $ 1.77/quart.
 
#15 ·
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jimmy:


I'm just wondering where you got this from.
<hr></blockquote>

It's common sense. The Zetec and SPI engines are a fairly old design, when they were originally introduced Ford recommended either 5w30 or 10w30, depending on your climate.

Starting in 2001 Ford started recommending 5w20.

Was there ANY change in the engine from 2000 to 2001? No.

Was the engine designed to run super thin 5w20? No.

The reason Ford made the switch is that they get marginally better fuel mileage numbers from the thinner oil. Ford knows that the engines will be well out of warranty by the time they prematurely fail due to the too thin oil being used so it won't cost them anything.

In short, Ford is sacrificing your long term engine life for a miniscule improvement of their CAFE numbers.

Run what your engine was designed for, not what Ford tells you to run.

Remember Ford also told Explorer owners to under-inflate their tires which was a major contributing factor to the whole Explorer-Firestone fiasco.

When the Duratec gets here, 5w20 would be the right oil to use, that is a much newer engine with closer tolerances and is actually designed for thinner oil.
 
#16 ·
raitchison....I tend to agree with you. I changed to Mobil 1 synthetic 10w30 after the first change till that discussion we had here about whether Mobil Oil is "blending" their reformulated synthetic oil. Now I am running Amsoil synthetic but still staying with 10w30

Bobby
 
#18 ·
1. Who says Ford didn't tighten the tolerances starting with MY 2001 engines ? ? Just a change in rings and/or bearing tolerances might justify specifying 5W-20 oil. Anyway, they have to deal with worst-case scenarios - if they call for 5W-20 in a dino oil, any of the synthetics would be better. See below.

2. As I posted earlier in this thread, the new Mobil-1 SuperSyn specs show 0W-30 to have a better film strength at operating temperature than either 5W-30 or 10W-30. I even called Mobil Technical Services to be sure that it wasn't a typo and they verified that it's true. I have been using 5W-30 with the old Mobil-1 Tri-Synthetic, but I will be switching to 0W-30 SuperSyn at my next oil change - for year round service.

By the way, they also verified that Mobil-1 SuperSyn is positively 100% synthetic.
 
#19 ·
Yeah, I put that in my car this time around, new Mobil SuperSyn 0w30... Not sure, but it feels like its purring (not pouring, purring like a cat, or a tiger
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) much better now! Again, this is just in my head, so don't take it for granted since I have no numbers to show for it.

Oh yeah, this mod is good for 15HP
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