changing my oil brand from Castrol 20/50

has anyone gone to say Kendall, Pennzoil, etc. etc.?? Here in Georgia it gets HOT in summer, and Castrol 20/50 has always been fine, but sometimes I see good brands @ prices much lower...

and how much would you save with the switch? about a buck? ;-) later, dave

Stick with the quality of Castrol. I have been using the Castrol 10-40 winter 20-50 summer for 25 years. At 419,000 miles my original crank is still within specs. I change my oil every 5,000 miles. ( Type 4 w/ filter) You can recoup your lousy .50 cent premium by extending the interval

25% past the usual 3,000 mile suggestion. Those intervals were when oil was not as advanced as it is now. Colin

A slight environmental rant here, changing your oil every 2,000-2,500 miles is just about wasteful, particularly if you have a well-tuned engine with good compression and decent guides. Even the non-filtered stock upright engines don't mind the factory-recommended 3K interval. If you are not driving each car every day all day, the sump plate will have plenty of time to catch the particles that drop out of suspension. The only name-brand prejudice I've come across, is that Quaker State and its derivitives have a paraffin base that sucks. Colin

I can second that. My yellow bug ran much hotter with Quaker State oil than Mobil... both the same weight...

.................As an observation, over the years, it looks to me like most racing teams that aren't getting sponsorship money from an oil company are using either Castrol or Kendall. Synthetics haven't won over too many racing mechanics either.

...........For example, the VW Paradise drag racing rail that holds the 1/8 mile record for ACVW's uses Kendall. It's not apparent until you get up close in the pits which tells me that they probably aren't getting paid for using it.

I thought all brands with the little round stamp on them are equal - but yeeaaah - stayin' with Castrol 20/50. I stated my locale/temps because posters get into extended debates re: oil - forgetting not everyone lives in Togo or Saskatchewan...

Can't go wrong with Castrol in an aircooled engine. Chevron, Mobil, Shell - all good. The Pennzoil - Quaker State types are higher in parafin. My personal preference is to stay away from them. I use Valvoline Racing. On the aircooled, I tried to never allow it to stay in longer than 2000 miles. In the Soobey, it's 3,000 - or so! The aircooled has such a wide range of operating temps that you're working your oil much harder than in a modern engine. Yes, "modern" engines operate at theoretically higher pressures and temps all the time, but the key here is "all the time." The aircooled is much more likely to cause oil contamination even when operating at its optimum. When I had mine still, I typivally saw 200 degree headtemp swings on freeway driving in less than a mile! You will not get that in a modern engine.

Always used Castrol in my motorcycle engines, Castrol "R" for racing 2-strokes (prolly illegal now!) and even used Castrol in my hopped up chainsaw engine!

BTW - when I ran my oil 2,000 miles in the bus and it came out clean (summertime) it went into bottles to be used in my "less critical" vehicles like my '73 Duster. That's recycling! Winter oil went to the commercial recyclers.

has always

lower...

'course, some of us DO drive them every day... I just have to remember to change it. Driving 440 miles/week commuting to/from work means I have to change it quite often even at 3500 mi/intervals.

Just west of you in south-central Alabama. Been using Castrol 30W HD in both our Bugs with no problems.

Malcolm '69 Bug (Gus) '71 SB (Herbie)