5w-20 or 5w-30? Synthetic or Dino?

[96RedSE5Sp]

Yes I have read all othe old posts but cannot find any consensus.

What are the advantages of switching to 5w-20 as Ford, appears to recommend.

Has any consensus developed on whether to use Dino or Synthetic oil?

[Matt R]

Not much of a difference. You're from the same area as me, and it gets pretty cold here. Stick with 5w-30, synthetic (Mobil 1). It stays liquidity (holds it's viscosity) even in extreme upstate NY cold.

[Big Jim]

5W20 seems to work great in my Escape. It also has not given trouble at the dealerships that i worked in where it was installed an all the cars that Ford said it was OK to use it on.

Personally, I'm a little reluctant to make the change on my car due to it's age. I still use 5W30 on the CSVT.

[ford zetec2]

if I was you I 'll change QUICK!!! I did use 5w30 in my contour and engine broke down the oil in 1 month. I just start using 10w40. its thicker and tougher.

[frenchblueC2]

5w20 is supposed to help your gas mileage. That's the only advantage I've heard over 5w30.

[Tony2005]

if I was you I 'll change QUICK!!! I did use 5w30 in my contour and engine broke down the oil in 1 month. I just start using 10w40. its thicker and tougher.

Your engine would have broken no matter what oil you had in there. The original specs called for 5W-30. Ford updated to 5W-20 with a TSB in 2002 (?) to keep up with CAFE requirements. 5W20 or 5W30 is fine for our Contours.

Edit. Thicker and tougher (10W40) could also be translated as less oil flow at start up resulting in more wear and tear during start up.

[ContourGuy9817]

yea, i run 0-20 most of the time, full synthetic also. the cougar loves it. it just seems smoother in my opinion.

[LUCA]

Personally, I'm a little reluctant to make the change on my car due to it's age. I still use 5W30 on the CSVT.

Same here.
(Mobil 1 Synthetic)

[getsum111]

Just started using mobil 1 5w-30 instead of dino 5w-30. Didn't notice much of a difference, but I didn't expect to.

[Rara]

Don't use the 5w20. It replaced 5w30 as the factory recommendation only because it gave an increase in Ford's average CAFE numbers. The fuel economy differences are small enough that a single user would be hard pressed to notice.

The kicker is, the testing that Ford did to internally validate the oil showed increased engine wear compared to the 5w30. However, while it may have been more wear than the 5w30, it still was within Ford's acceptable wear limits for thier engine durability tests, so it was approved.

In regards to standard oil vs. full synthetic, meh, it tends to come down to personal preference. Synthetic has a more consistant chemical composition, and less effective viscosity (this is where the increased power claims come from, and there is some small truth to it) but, standard oil is much cheaper, and still quite effective as long as you buy a quality oil (most are at least decent, just look for the API certification label, and try to get a well known brand)

The one situation you want to avoid is to run standard oil for many years, and just switch to synthetic. Engine lubrication will be just fine, but standard oil, with the larger and less consistant molecules tends to swell oil seals more than synthetic will. When you switch to synthetic, as the new synthetic oil soaks into the seals, replacing the standard oil, the seal will not stay swelled up as much, and may develop a small leak. This doesn't always occur, depending on the types of seals, etc. but it is known to happen.