Hi, Is there a web site which gives a chart with the fancy oil numbers we get in car handbooks/manuals linking them to the oil Names that we find in supermarkets and accessory shops. These products put these numbers in small print and often bare no resemblance to the book numbers.
Also confusion appears with regard to the 5w-30 number my past 2 cars all needed 5w- but do you see this in shops? Usually seems to be 15W- or 10W-
so you put a smaller W number in when it's cold and when you service the car before the summer you put in a higher W number so it works in both climates :)
Try
All you get in most manuals are the manufacturers own Standard numbers and probably the API number such as SL for petrol and CG4 for diesel. Increasingly the European Standard is used. This is called the ACEA Standard and consists of several current standards running concurently with higher numbers indicating a higher performance [but not always]. If a manufacturer specifies a higher specification oil for an application then the Standard will probably be their own and will be printed on oil cans that meet this Standard. If it is not printed on the can, in small print perhaps, then in most cases the oil will not meet the required standard.
Plenty of 5W/? [? usually indicates 30] oils available in most stores. It is probably the most common viscosity specified for modern cars in the UK.
Huw
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