I was reading an article the other day, that the most wear on the engine could from cold start-ups. I was thinking of switching oils to a 5-30w (conventional oil, no synthetics). If anyone in this NG runs 5-30w in their air-cooled beetle I would be interested in their comments.
-tom
I used to run 5-30 Mobil 1 in my Beetle. But, for the heck of it started running
You should expect to read as many opinions on oil as there are readers in this group. In the winter my stock (mostly) 1600dp engine runs
5w/30. Our temps at night get down to ~20f average. daytime ~45f. In the summer I swich to 15w/40. Hottest daytime temps average in the mid 90s f. My bug is used most often just as transportation to/from work. And sees minimal highway driving. When I needed to drive it on a 300 mile road trip last summer (temps in mid/high 90s f) I first changed the oil to straight 40w.I run synthetic gear oil in the transmission, I do not run synthetic oil in the engine.
There was a time when I would not run multi-weight oil. However these blends have improved since emission requirements resulted in engines having to run at much hotter temps than the days of the large V8. And motor oils had to be reformulated to operate in these hotter engines.
..............Modern day multi-viscosity automotive oils are still not formulated to withstand the 350-450 deg. F. temps. that are encountered in the valve/rocker arm galleries of an air-cooled VW. The hottest head temp. that a water-cooled automobile engine can generate is no more than 300 deg. and that's an engine that's being flogged very hard. I used synthetic oil for awhile until I was finally convinced by own observations and the advice of some old timers in the racing community to forget about multi-viscosity oil in my bug. Now that I'm using straight 30 weight Castrol, I no longer see any difference in the oil pressure at idle when the oil temp is 250+ between when the oil is new and when it's time for an oil change at 3000 miles in my Berg 1679. If there was such a thing as a straight weight synthetic that was affordable and easily purchased locally, I'd be tempted to try it, maybe. But I'm pretty satisfied with the Castrol dino juice.
Get on of those presurized oil reserves. 'course, you have to have full-flow plumbing and all...
What is presurized? Do you mean pressurized?
-tom
.............He means a pressurized reservoir that pre-oils the engine prior to start-up, I think. John is so old now that he can't clearly type what he's thinking anymore..........
I'm using this stupid mini-tablet with a keyboard that looks like a pad of chicklets.
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