Greg Campbell

> Any Europeans or Australians out there? Please post your owner's manual
> recommendations!
> FWIW, my 92 Accord, built in Ohio, presumably for a North American
> market, specifies 5w or 10W-30 for ALL temperatures.


Found a recent BITOG thread regarding the Mazda 3. US Spec is 5W-20,
but a fellow from Kuwait says his manual calls for 15W-40, also listing
20w-50 as an acceptable substitute.

Leftie

Tegger wrote:
> Leftie <No@Thanks.net> wrote in
> news:aIPJl.119192$%k2.115591@newsfe07.iad:
>
>> Greg Campbell wrote:
>>> Tegger wrote:
>>>
>>>> 15W-50 was not good choice. You surely suffered at least oil pump
>>>> damage and bearing damage if not ring damage as well using that
>>>> stuff.
>>> Why on earth do you say that? What supposed mechanism will cause oil
>>> pump damage? I can almost believe the rings suffering due to
>>> decreased oil flow, but have a hard time believing that a 50wt oil (a
>>> comparatively wimpy 50wt at that.) will cause such severe starvation
>>> as to 'break' the them. M1's 15w-50 has tons of zinc, moly, and
>>> boron based anti-wear additives. Even IF oil delivery to the rings
>>> was reduced (by how much, 20~30%?) I don't think it could kill the
>>> engine in such a short time. I can't see any mechanism by which the
>>> plain crank bearings would be damaged.
>>>
>>> Europeans and those crazy Aussies routinely run xW-40 and xW-50wt
>>> oils in the very same engines that are spec'd for 10W30 in North
>>> America.
>>>
>>> Consider what happens every time you start your car on a cold
>>> morning. Until the engine is up to operating temp, the cold oil
>>> circulating and lubricating is vastly thicker than any hot 50wt. If
>>> thick-ish oil caused bearing damage, we'd all destroy our cars in
>>> short order.
>>>
>>> IMO.
>>>
>> Tegger is normally a pretty reliable source of info, but
>> apparently
>> I pushed some sort of "button" with this. He snipped the parts of my
>> post that directly contradict what he concluded,
>
>
>
>
>
> Au contraire. I snipped everything BUT the apparently contradictory
> part. And I even /joined together/ two parts of the contradictory
> information that were originally spaced apart by other text, just so
> people could see what I was replying to.
> Go read my last reply again.


I did, and it doesn't make sense. I noted that the engine stopped
burning oil, and was still fine ten years later, and this made you
conclude that I had "broke" it ten years earlier.


>
>
>
>
>> and since he hasn't
>> said otherwise, I'm going to assume that his "research" on the effects
>> of viscosity changes was done on cars that weren't burning oil to
>> start with.
>
>
>
>
> True. I've had absolutely no success getting oil-burning cars to quit
> burning oil. Oil going /elsewhere/ is another story, but oil getting
> sucked /past the rings/ (which is what "burning" usually is) is pretty
> much a done deal and time for a ring job.
>
> It's highly unlikely and hard to believe that your rings somehow got
> "fixed" because you fed the engine different oil. It's easier to believe
> that a leak of some kind got fixed as a byproduct of some other
> servicing. You did imply later on that the car did have a "leakdown" of
> oil that persisted until you sold the car.



You aren't familiar with Honda engines leaking oil past the valve
seals when they get old and sit unused for a few days? Seriously? The
fact remains - and it is a fact - the car stopped burning oil with no
repairs just new plugs and O2 sensor, and 10W-30 weight synthetic.




>
>
>
>
>> The final irony is that after saying that viscosity
>> doesn't have any effect on oil consumption,
>
>
>
>
> No, I said *I* was unable to find any difference at all in consumption
> between the grades I tried. Not the same thing.


You are telling me that I'm wrong about the viscosity making a
difference, so yes you *are* saying that the viscosity didn't matter.


>
>
>
>
>> he accused me of
>> "breaking" my engine just by using 15W-50! I guess he thinks that
>> Castrol GTX 20W-50 was sent by Satan to prepare the earth for the
>> Apocalypse. ;-)
>
>
>
> To address Greg Campbell, I made an (unsuccessful) attempt at finding
> any European Honda Owner's Manuals online in order to determine exactly
> what Europeans are supposed to use in their engines. I did, however,
> locate such information at www.castrol.co.uk .
>
> Prior to model-year 2000, 15W-50 is the highest "alternate" viscosity
> grade Castrol specifies (meant for /very/ hot climates, ~100F), but
> their "recommended" viscosity for all pre-'00 cars is 10W-40.

I think you're losing track of what I wrote. I was using Mobil One
synthetic 15W-50 in the Honda engine. I simply *made a joke* about
Castrol 20W-50. Your response suggests, however, that my using 15W-50
for Summer use (which is when I used it) was not a problem.


>
> AFTER 2000, Castrol no longer specifies any alternate viscosity higher
> than 10W-40, and their "recommended" viscosity goes down to 0W-30.
>
> A higher viscosity is harder for the oil pump to pick up, and harder to
> squeeze through the filter. This is especially true when cold. This
> means it takes "just a bit longer" for pressure to build in the
> bearings, and "just a bit longer" for the rings and camshafts to receive
> fresh oil.
> All that "just a bit longer" means just that much more wear on each cold
> start, and just that much shorter life for your engine's internals. No
> "apocalypse", just shortened life.


So I should feel robbed because I only got 23 years and 146k miles
from my original engine? The one that was still running strong months
after I sold it? Really?


>
>
>
>>
>> Just to be clear, it's been my experience that older engines that
>> are using oil will often use less or even none if you switch them from
>> 0W or 5W lower weight oil to 10W-30. I make no other claim.
>
>
>
> And I make no other claim than that it is a bad idea to do other than
> what Honda says to do for your engine.
>
> You trusted them with +$20K of your money, evidently because you trusted
> them to give you a finely-designed and built machine, but you won't
> trust them to know what's best for that fine machine.
>
>

You've apparently confused my 1986 Civic Si with a new one. I paid
about $12k, with A/C. Get a grip, man. BTW, the dealer usually used my
oil for oil changes - the Mobil One 15W-50. They didn't make any silly
claims about it "breaking my engine."

Leftie

Greg Campbell wrote:
(...)

I wrote:

>>> Just to be clear, it's been my experience that older engines that are
>>> using oil will often use less or even none if you switch them from
>>> 0W or 5W lower weight oil to 10W-30. I make no other claim.
>
> This, I'm curious about. At operating temp, there is not necessarily
> any difference between a 0w-30 and a 10w-30. The 10W-X oils are, on
> average, a hair thicker, but that's not guaranteed. If operating visc.
> is similar, oil blow-by, etc. should also be similar. (?)


I suspect that it's just that marginal extra viscosity - a bit more
than marginal as the engine warms up from cold - that makes the
difference. I seem to recall that most normal (not related to actual
damage) oil burning occurs at or near startup, so maybe it's just a case
of cutting the oil consumption for the few minutes when it's highest. I
don't know.

BTW, I didn't use the 15W-50 in Winter.

(...)