ford spec oil or recommended?

"Kay" mumbled:

No more important that in any other car. After all, the number of miles between oil changes ain't going to change. In fact, a taxi may well be in a better situation 'cos it's always hot and doesn't allow condensation to form in the oil.

Ford recommend a 5w30 oil for Zetec engines; their own branded oil costs a lot less than Shell Helix and is perfectly suitable.

Just a note- keep an eye on your local national tyres depot, they often do oil / filter change offers for £15 or so. This includes using the correct

5w-30 oil when presented with a Zetec engine.

Tim..

Answered your own question there :-)

That's really good.

Next oil change - I'm off there. Enough scrabbling in the dirt for me :-)

Pete.

Not in Chester, and not if you've got the 2 litre engine.

They don't even list a filter as existing, let alone carrying one, and when I went in 2 months ago, they only had 10-40 and 20-50 oil available. They described the Zetec engines as "the ones that need the _really_ special oil".

I'll try again in 4 months, when the oil's up for renewal again.

Pete.

When I last asked my local Rapid-Fit centre for the price of an oil and filter change they told me £70. That's on a Fiesta TD (the 75bhp Endura DI Lynx Engine), and the recommended oil for this is the same as the Zetec engines (5W30). Work that one out.

Peter

LOL. Well all must not be alike, as the NT depot in Newtown (Powys) did my

1.8 Zetec (Focus) with the correct oil, cos I insisted on checking and a genuine motorcraft filter. The 2.0l in the mondeo (or Focus) takes the same filter, so work that out!

Tim..

You look gullible !.... :-)

Andy

Well if that's the case I must sound gullibe - I asked over the phone.

Peter

Pop up to York for a pizza, natter with Dervy here, and use the local Rapid Fit.

Okay, okay, so we pay £27 for an oil and filter there. I know it's possible to get it done cheaper elsewhere, though, but in fairness the Rapid Fit place do exactly what they're told to do and don't comment, "ere, your brakes look a bit low" type thing! :)

Sounds good. Pizza prices are cheaper oop north :-) Talking of which, have you ever tried Papa John's Garlic Cheese Sticks? Basically a pizza with lashings of garlic butter and cheese cut up into soldiers (aroud 10" size pizza base) with a couple of cold pizza sauce dips, for £2.95. Absolutely divine. I'd highly recommend it.

Hey, how about uk.rec.cars.* meet at 3am on a Sunday morning to do the snake pass, all leaving at 3 minute intervals so we don't get in each others way!

Well there's no rapid fit in Bracknell, but the one in Slough (lovely place) where I work (well, sort of), did sort of write down a big long list when I took my van to them. Basically the pedal travel was a bit more than I'd liked, but I knew it'd only be low pads and/or shoes, and I thought I might as well let them look at them for free instead of getting my hands dirty, so I did. Ok, so pads and discs are easy enough to check yourself, but I much preferred the idea of them taking off the brake drums than me! They wrote me out a list of rear shocks (very very slightly leaking, but that could have come from anywhere), front discs and pads, and 4 new tyres (they were all quite low). Their prices for the budget tyres were more expensive than my local place for Michelins, and I looked at the discs and pads prices and laughed. Then I bought the discs and pads and they weren't as cheap as I thought, plus it took me about three attempts to get the right parts. In the end I only saved about £30 doing it myself, but still worth it (just). On which note, I wonder if I could value my own time at, say, about £40/hour for mechanical work/servicing I do to my car, against my income - thinking about it I probably could, but I'd have to declare it as earnings then, so probably not worth it!!!

Peter

Wibble! :)

Ouch. Sounds expensive.

I'd suppose. We, on the other hand, don't have any tools, and no garage or driveway, plus the street has a big camber. I'm also mechanically inept, really, but in my defence I've never had to know how to do something, a very nice man from the dealership does it for me. :)

I use Rapidfit for "execution only" work, and my "advisory" and "discretionary" work is carried out by my preferred Ford dealership.

Heh! Would you not need to be qualified?