i own a pontiac g8 gt along with me vette. and on the g8 forum someone posted this. what do you think?? any comments.. Single Grade Oil
i personally like to use the single grade oil because it has better protection than that cheap multi grade stuff. for those who dont know multi grade oil is the stuff like 5W 30 and single grade is just straight 30, 40, 50, or 60W. Let me explain my theory on why i think single grade oil protects and lengthens engine life than multi-grade:

First off, lets start with the all those automakers out there. In order for them to make there billion dollar profits yearly they need to produce an auto that is designed to fall apart within months after the warranty expires. For the majority of the world, people are not mechanics and have no clue about care for there rides. Easy people to target. So to the point cars are made to wear out quickly and if they dont you pay out the *** for repairs. (of course unless your a knowledge car fixer and caretaker you may get more use of your car). So to make that billion dollar your need to sell more cars so hence make them cheap to wear fast right? Genius! But not really...my point of explaining this is all your auto manuals tell you to use multi grade oils and change oil every 6,000 or so miles. Do you realize the damage this will do to your engine???? Again cheap manufacturing/cheap oil manufacturing.

Second off, multi grade oil has claimed to have 2 viscosities ex. 5W 30. The first number is the oil weight at cold temperatures the second is the oil weight at engine operating temps. So multigrade oils are telling us that the oil thickens as heated and thins as cooled? Any sane person knows this is impossible. Any petrol product that is heated thins out and thickens up as cooled. Yes! The polymers additive works in the oposite of physics but only for the first 500miles of multigrade oil use then its useless! At 500miles your lubing your precious engine with oil thin as water thus wearing your engine to expire around 150,000miles vs 300,000 (we are talking true miles not every mile traveled plus 2 like most autos are ratio(ed) which is another way automakers cheat around there warranties). So my point here is why spend tons of money on a product that does nothing but increase friction, increase engine wear, decrease fuel economy, increase engine temps, and rough running?

Third off, my favorite oil, single grade oil! Straight weight oil! I will use 40W oil for my explaination. Single grade oil has one viscosity and thats 40W. So the higher the number is the thicker the oil. All single grade oils, as heated only lose about 10 grades so 40W at runnin temps would be lubing at about 30 viscosity driving down the road. Which to me is a lot better than 0W multi grade after 500miles. Using this oil is very important and will help your fuel economy by reducing friction, less friction will reduce heat, less friction will improve enigne smoothness, and of course the less friction means less enigne wear. If you ask how i know this i know from experience! Imagine that! I switch to singl grade oil about a year ago and wished i had done it sooner. I saw and increase in gas milage, my engine ran smooth and so quietly that i have to rev my engine to hear it inside my G6!! The only thing i hear is the alternator and fuel injectors (of course i hear the sounds from my aftermarket parts but thats not the engine). When i first heard of using sinlge grade oil i was sceptical very sceptical. And the funny thing is automakers never advertise or recommend this oil because it actually works and protects the engine! Its all about the marketing. When your using the single grade oils in areas of below zero temps and 100+ degrees in the summer i recommend using multi grade oil ONLY when temps are continuously in the single digits or below 15-18 degrees for a period of time! When temps rise past 20 i change to 30W Valvoline oil. (btw valvoline is the most reliable in terms of true viscosity and so is Coastal single grades) When temps are up to about 30 (sorry for not saying this but these temps are for "lows" like at night) i change to 40W (so like spring weather). When the 80's and 90's hit i put in Valvoline Racing 50W or the 60W depending when the oil chang is like early summer or late summer.

So my final words on oil is use single grade oils, use NAPA gold oil filters or the K&N filters (both are identical in performing but i would go with NAPA cuz its cheaper unless you race your car eveyday go with K&N) AND oil filters usually go bad around 3,000miles so do your oil changes every 2,500 like i do!

I hope this helps and informs people of new ideas.
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I think "Oh Noess!!! Anoter Oil Debate!!" .....

 

huh!!!!! not me .

 

One of the funniest things I've read all week, thanks for the laugh

 

OK, All I can say is WOW....

 

I don't know enough about oil to join the single or double weight argument. But I do know that changing your oil exactly at 3000 miles is such a goddamn waste of time and money that it's ridiculous. Cars are given oil life monitors for a reason, and they are very accurate. Older cars, yes change the oil early and often. Newer vehicles are built to last with better components, and the quality of motor oil has grown astonomically over time.

 

To advocate oil changes every 2500-3000 miles does not sound good to me.

The oil manufactures would love us all if we changed the oil that often. I do the synthetic oil that meets the recommended GM spec, at the DIC interval.

 

OMG!!!!!!!!!! Do we really have to change the oil?????????????????
LOL

 

What is this oil life monitor thingee?

I haven't heard any voice telling me to change the oil.

 

The ONLY thing I agree with is your choice of oil filters, WIX or NAPA Gold !

Changing synthetic oil at 2,500 miles is CRAZY and WASTEFUL !

I am considering going to 0W-30 oil. Most wear is at startup of engine, and thinner oil produces less wear. Your thicker oil will probably wear WORSE, do some oil analysis and see for yourself.

Oh, and 3,000 mile oil changes with single weight oil is hardly a "new idea", you have turned the clock back 30 years !

 

One of the worst things you can do as far as changing oil viscosities is to use a single weight oil. Most engine wear occurs when you start the engine and the oil is at ambient temperature. This is why a 5W-30 oil is almost always better than a 10W-30, even at 70 degree F startup temperatures. A 40 weight oil flows much more slowly at startup than a 5W-30 oil, so wear components won't get coated for a critical amount of time when the 40W is used.

The person who wrote that argument about why 40W is better knows very little about motor oil and why multiviscosity oils are superior to single weight oils.
This is akin to writing about how much better drum brakes are when compared to disc brakes.

 

Bill, you said it well, quite well..................

 

 

He has no idea what he is talking about, multigrade oil is better is better because of weather changes, if was always the same temperature outside you could you an oil of constant viscosity, but sinc one day is going to be 65 degress out and the other day 95 is good that the oil can "change" its viscosity.
Back in the day i know that some race cars use to use single viscosity oil. i dont know about today.
Anyway i will keep using 5w-30 or 0w-30 when i can find it.
And i change every 3000 miles no matter what, oil is what protects your engine the most, if it start to break down your engine is going to wear super fast.

just my .02 cents

 

If the auto makers are making billons of dollars off us stupid people why are they going belly up or is that part of the game to?

 

There are tons of people out there who have hundreds of thousands of miles using 5w30 oils, so this above statement makes me laugh. Multigrade oil is not going to damage your engine, period.

This person once again has no clue what they are talking about. The first number on the oil bottle is NOT a viscosity! It's simply an arbitrary number assigned to the oil based on how it performs on the cold cranking tests. An oil that has the 5w rating will have a better cold cranking number than an oil with a 10w rating. The oil is not thicker when hot, the exact opposite is true.

Once again, it seems to be working just fine for many automobiles out there. I wonder where that guy is getting his false info from? And the part about the polymers only working for 500 miles is pure nonsense. In fact a lot of 5w30 synthetic oils nowadays don't even have any polymers in them, or very small amounts, so it's a non issue anyhow. And oil being super thin after only 500 miles? More pure nonsense. Anyone who has had an oil analysis done (and I've had many) will know that a good quality 5w30 synthetic isn't thinning out to "water" at all, and in fact will maintain it's viscosity for the entire oil change interval, even if it's 10,000 miles.


I seriously hope people on that forum don't listen to that guy! Oil changes every 2500? What a huge waste of money. And filters going bad at 3k? Again, pure nonsense. A NAPA Gold will easily go 10k or more before it's even close to being a problem.

 

you couldn't have stated it better. the lighter weight component of the oil is allows it to keep a lower viscosity at cooler temperatures to fill all the small clearances in bearings and such until the more viscous component warms up and can do the same thing. with a single weight oil like 40w, these parts would be very poorly lubricated until the engine comes close to normal operating temperature, and it would cause a lot of engine wear that could be prevented by using a multi-weight. you could probably get away with using a single weight oil if you kept the temperature in your garage at 200 degrees all the time to keep the engine temp high at startup.

 

I like to think of it this way. They start with a 5W oil and add viscosity thickeners that slow the thinning of the oil as it heats up. At the standardized temp they use to rate viscosity the 5W30 weight is as thin as a straight 30 weight oil would be at that temperature. These thickeners do not lose their ability as the oil ages. In reality the oil doesn't get thicker it just doesn't thin out as much as a straight 30 weight oil would do.

I have an 08 Malibu with the 4 cylinder that I bought at the end of July last year. It has 6400 miles on it now, the OLM indicates there is 25% oil life left and the oil level is down a half quart. I expect to change the oil in the next two weeks as I it should be well below 20% life left. It will also let me get the car into the dealer to check it over for any problems (like alignment) that could be fixed for free before the one year period ends.

Bill