Recommended oil viscosity

SAE5W-20 and 5W-30 is recommended. Its designed to improve cold temp starting and fuel economy. most of the newer vehicles have the viscostiy grade stamped on the oil cap fro each vehicle. I should also say it in the owners manual

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

You didn't get an owners manual with the car? I'd go back and ask the dealer for one.

Matt

I don't own one (yet) but am considering a T&C purchase. If 5w30 will satisfy Chrysler's warranty requirements then that's good enough for me. I'm willing to sacrifice a little mpg to use 5w30. But if 5w20 is mandated, I'll have to consider something else suited to 5w30.

SAE5W-20 and 5W-30 is recommended. Its designed to improve cold temp starting and fuel economy. most of the newer vehicles have the viscostiy grade stamped on the oil cap fro each vehicle. I should also say it in the owners manual

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

I agree with you. Whether the particular owner gets 120k miles or 250k miles out of the engine is of no concern to the manufacturer. Their recommendations for viscosity (which I see from others' posts does say

5W-30) is absolutely going to be skewed towards marginally better gas mileage as long as a typical engine near the bottom of the bell curve will be projected to go some minimally reasonable distance. The manufacturer is willing to do this to gain a tenth or two in mpg for their CAFE numbers. A couple of tenths in mpg for some finite sacrifice of engine life is not a worthwhile trade-off to me since I keep a car for a long time.

I wouldn't be limited to their recommendations since I know that the numbers are pushed for non-technical reasons towards thinner oil. Definitely the 5W-30, or even 10W-40 (after you're out of warranty) should do just fine.

IMO...

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Why? If Chrysler says 5W20 is acceptable why does that bother you?

Matt

Have you seen any data that the thinner oil causes shorter engine life? I've seen no such data and my personal experience doesn't bear this out. My current vehicles that specify 5W-30 are lasting as long as my cars of 25 years ago that specied 10W40. Actually, my 1996 Grand Voyager is my current highest mileage vehicle ever (just rolled over

169K) and it has had a pretty steady diet of 5W30 Mobil 1.

Matt

Nope. Next question.

Well that's a scientific study if I ever saw one! Face it - we're both working off of very informal and imprecise observations here.

Sample of one. If that's the criteria, then I ran a 1986 turbo'd Subaru wagon and sold it with 275k miles on it still running absolutely great with original engine and original turbo unit - always used Castrol GTX and some Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase. That's just as valid an indicator as your van, so by your study criteria, I proved that Castrol dino and MMO are far superior to Mobil 1. 8^)

Vehicles sold in Europe with the same engines as the U.S. for the same climates specify one step heavier oil thant he ones here. Why? Could it be that we have CAFE and they don't.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Non-technical reasons? I doubt the manufacturer specifies an oil grade for their engines without consideration for the engineering that went into it.

And 10W40? Going out of the manufacturer recommendations to use higher-viscosity oil just because the warranty is over? On what basis? It surely doesn't bear repeating here, of all places, that by far the highest wear the engine experiences is on cold startup. 5W oil will pump faster on cold startup and minimize the delay in getting oil to all the surfaces.

For some years manufacturers have begun tightening clearances on their engines to reduce blowby and reduce emissions.

A wider spread of viscosity requires more additives, which can lead to more sludge and deposits > > What is the recommended oil viscosity for V-6 engines in the '05 T&C

Marvel Mystery Oil?? come on Bill !!

And so therefore they recommend higher viscosity for essentially the same vehicle and engine going to other countries of similar climate. The difference: We have CAFE requirements, they don't. You're going to tell me that that's not the driver behind the different recommendations on the same engine in the same climate?

As an aside, I will submit that the mfgr. doesn't understand as much as you or they think they do. If I had not been thinking outside the box on engine oil, my '99 2.7L would probably be in the scrap yard by now instead of running great. So, no - I don't always listen to the manufacturer.

That's not everything. We have to look at the whole picture.

5W oil will pump faster on

Certainly - important for very cold climates. I was mainly going for the 40 - the 10W just happens to be the more commonly available cold spec. in synthetics (i.e, it was secondary) for the higher top number. If they make a 5W-40 in synthetic, fine - use it - I have no problem with that.

Yes. Though there are some here that have argued with me on that when I have stated same.

I'm with you on that for *non-synth* -I reference the same info. every once in a while myself. But the same thing is *not* true for a synthetic, and since we started out discussing 5W-20, I assumed we were talking synthetics and I continued along that line. I almost stipulated that assumption on my part in my previous post, but decided it wasn't necessary - O thought ot was obvious. So I wil say it now - I was talking synhtetics. If you go with non-synthetic, then I would recommend against 10W-40 for exactly what you said about the unstable additional viscosity extenders that are needed. Better to go with mixing 10W-30 and 20W-50 - more of the former in winter, the latter in winter for an average of around 15W-40.

So you push the second number down to 20 just so you can get the 5W...? For an extremely cold climate, yes. For milder climates, 10W for the cold startup should be fine. Certainly not worth pushing the hot number down so far just so the mfgr. can claim that for the CAFE numbers (which is the motivation as I pointed out as indicated by their specifying heavier oils for similar climates where they don't have to worry about CAFE).

In a perfect world you could have all the data you wanted. In the real world, you have to make the decisions without the hard data. The laws of physics are the same around the world - I'd like to see the data that shows that the laws of physics somehow change when you have the same engine in the same operating temperature but it's within a different border.

You stay within the manufacturer's spec. - I'll go outside them. I have no problem with that. Neither will be catastrophic (unless you had a'98-'00 2.7, or certain Toyota engines, in which case you'd better

*NOT* follow the manufacturer's spec.), and we'll neither one be able to prove anything about the end result one way or the other. We both have the same info., we both make our own decisions and get the results as determined by the laws of physics which are immune to people's opinions and manufacturer's motiviations, i.e., CAFE.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

Where are we going. Let's see - I get 275k on original turbo unit and engine - and who knows how much farther it will run because I sold it while it was still running great and haven't kept up with it, and you're going to question my method of doing that? (BTW - You do realize that I was only kidding that I had proved anything in the earlier post about it being superior to synthetic - if that's what you think, then you missed my point?)

I find this amazing. I did that with a turbo engine. I now have a '99

2.7L engine with 145k miles on it that is running absolutely great - an engine that is known to totally crap out between 60 and 80k because of an unanticipated sludge problem, and I'm going to get hammered by multiple people here because I dare to do things that the manufacturers don't recommend? Can you possibly admit that at least I have done no harm to have achieved those things?

Give me a break.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my adddress with the letter 'x')

I never claimed to have any data, but then I never made any claim about thinner oil wearing out an engine faster either! :-)

I agree it is a sample of one, but that seems to be one more than what you have to suggest that thinner oil wears out engines faster.

Could be. Also, could be that people are just averse to change.

Look how long it has taken synthetic oil to catch on.

Matt

Bill relax.....I was just questioning you on the fact that you say you used marvel mystery oil and was wondering if you really think that had something to do with the high mileage you got out of it.

Not really, no. Take a look at piston-to-cylinder clearance specs for an early-'60s Chrysler engine, and for a present-model Chrysler engine, for instance, and you'll see they're identical (or close to it). Significant blowby has *long* indicated engine problems and has *never* been acceptable.

Oh, I'm sure if the engine engineers had the sole and final say as to what oil were specced, then going on the manufacturer's recommendation would be a sound policy. But there are all kinds of other spurious votes on the matter, and usually the engine engineers' recommendation is not the one that wins.

That's because while it sounds commonsensical, and probably appears in magazines like Popular Mechanics, it's not correct. The evidence is right in the factory service manuals.

I still believe that the engines that are sludging up are mainly due to lack of maintenance, I may have seen 4 engines get replaced at the dealership, and out of those 4, I bet 2 were not a regular cust of ours unable to prove oil changes. The 2.7 engine that is well maintained will last 150K easy!! I own one and will buy another vehicle with the same engine.

Speaking of Turbos, My 85 Chrysler Lazer 2.2 turbo went 198k before I sold it to my sister and I bet she put another 60k on it before she sold it. yes a few head gaskets were replaced but neve the turbo.. A little Maintenance goes a long way.... including the 2.7

and I'm going to get hammered by