My two Toyotas (97 Camry 4, 2000 Sienna) recommend 5W-30 oil for the engine. The 2002 Ford Escort I bought for my son recommends 5W-20 grade oil. I live in SE Virginia where it gets hot during the summer but not too cold in winter. What are the ramifications of using 5W-20 or 5W-30 in all vehicles? Would the 5W-20 oil get past leaky seals easier?
The Escort recommends, or requires, 5W-20? Is there an oil type vs. temperature chart in the owner's manual?
The short answer is they are functional equivelents.
The 5w20 will be a little lighter than the 5w30, and this has more to do with CAFE standards than engine needs. If they need a million cars to use less gas, then can specify lighter oil and meet the spec. If you elect to use heavier oil, the motor won't care, but instead of getting 400 miles on a tank, you might find that you get 395, or some minor difference like that.
I'd lean to putting my fleet on 5w30 instead of 5w20, given the choices you have. Frankly, if you wanted to put them all on 10w30, you would be okay. The 5w or 10w part of the grade defines the cold weather characteristics of the oil. Once the engine is up to temp, the 20 or 30 part of the grade is driving the bus. 20 or 30 defines the heated characteristics of the oil. If you lived in Arizona or anyplace else in the Desert Southwest, you would certainly opt for the 30 over the 20, and might even bump to a 40 for summer, and you would even consider 10w30 or 10w40.
In your relative mild climate would say that you can stay with the 20 or the
30, and I'd be inclined to use heavier oil than lighter, so I'd bump the car that takes 20 up to the 30 instead of dropping the cars that take 30 down to a 20. I say use the 5w30 in your fleet.
I have been using 5W20 in the Fords I owned since 2001. I've had no problems at all. All the Toyotas in my immeadiate family except one also rspecify
5W20 oil.My advice is to use what your owner's manual recommends. When Ford first switched to 5W20 I worried about it. After reading numerous SAE papers on the subject, I came to the conclusion that 5W20 was just fine. Experience has confirmed that this is true, at least for me. BTW, I spend most of my time back and forth between Raleigh, NC, and Hertford, NC (NE NC).
The following cquote ame from: Fuel Efficiency of SAE 5W-20 Friction Modified Gasoline Engine Oil Kohkichi Hoshino, Hiromi Kawai and Kenyu Akiyama Toyota Motor Corporation
CONCLUSION The results of the studies of fuel efficiency of a newly developed SAE
5W-20, ILSAC GF-2 oil conducted with various types of modern engines show that:
Oils have improved since 1997, and Toyota has since adopted 5W-20 oil.
My recommendation is to use the recommended oil for your cars although you probably would not notice any difference if you used one or the other in all of your vehicles. The 5W-20 won't leak more easily than 5W-30.
I doubt it will leak any more than the 10W-30 Vavoline synthetic I used in my 1998 Frontier. I switched back to conventional 5W-30, and the leaks stopped in a few days. Valvoline said viscosity doesn't matter nearly as much as slipperiness when it comes to leaks, and synthetic is slipperier.
I'm in Phoenix, where 110F in the summer isn't unusual, and a few days each year will reach 115F. 5W-20 seems to work fine in Hondas specified for it; I'm not familiar with other cars using that viscosity.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.