Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Oil FAQ

I pulled this from D-tech maint. so everyone could comment.


Okay, that guy seems to be on the ball. More research got me some more good info, so here we go. The general ideas are this, laid out for future reference. Some things may be in the stickied FAQs around as well. Mod, if you like, please sticky. Anyone who knows their oil and has corrections/comments, please post/PM.

[SEARCH TERMS] Oil weight viscosity rating [/SEARCH TERMS]

OIL FAQ:

Synthetic oils have several advantages:

-They reduce wear. Only buy "SM" rated oils. SL/SJ cause more wear.
-They have superior low-temp viscosity.
-You can get 0-Wx oils in syn, but not dino.
-They have less (or no) viscocity improvement additives to wear out. This is one reason they can be run longer.

Oil ratings explained:

A 0-W40 oil will get no thinner than a 40 weight oil would at high temps, and no thicker than a 0 weight oil would at freezing. Unless you live in the desert, a 0W is better than a 5W. Never use a 10W on the Contour unless there are special circumstances (open-track racing in high-heat).

Myths Debunked:

-With modern oils you don't need to run two oils for varying temps.
-Synthetics will not harm gaskets, and won't cause leaks. If you switch on a damaged engine, the damage may be revealed sooner because the crud gets cleaned out. I'd rather know sooner than later that my gaskets are shot, but that's just me.
-Synthetic blends are not good. They do nothing for you.
-You don't need to follow the manual's ratings exactly.

What oil should I use in my Contour?

I would recommend one of several options, based on your driving situation:

If you run your car hard and want to be good to it:
-Run Mobil 1 0W-40 every 5k or even less.

If you mostly drive on the street and want it to last as long as possible, without excess cost/work.
-Run Mobil 1 0W-40 every 7.5k or so. Get an analysis to make sure it's okay the first time you go long.

You don't abuse it, plan on selling it well before engine wear becomes an issue, and/or want to save money:
-Run a quality 5W-30 dino oil every 3-5k.

One note: if you drive on dirt roads/dusty conditions a lot, or use cheap air filters or don't change your air filter, you might want to change the oil more often. An analysis will help you make that call.

What oil filter should I use?

-Not Fram. They have some good ones, and some real crap ones. Orange is bad.
-Motorcraft is cheap and very good. ($3-4)
-K&N is very pricey. ($12) If you race, it's worth it. The K&N (HP2010 fits the V-6) filters more oil and gets more stuff out.

-Fil

Nice FAQ. I'd only add that 5W-30 synthetic (Mobil 1 SuperSyn, from my experiences) is also a nice choice.

Yes, 5W-30 SuperSyn is what I've been running. However, it seems that 0W-40 is a better choice if you fit any of these cases:

You race it at all
You start it in freezing temps
You start it often (short trips)


The thinner cold viscosity means that you get less wear on startup, and the thicker hot viscosity means you won't get it too thin when really cooking at 6k rpm. Now if you live in the south where you never start it below 50 degrees F, and don't race, then there's no real advantage. The cold viscosity will be damn close. There isn't a huge difference in the oils, but if they are the same price (or very close), and it might help on those cold mornings, why not?

i just bought my svt with 63k on it. it has had 5 30 mobile 1 super synth in it all its life. Would it cause any problems to switch to the 0 40 super symth?

No. There are no problems with switching oils at all. (Except switching to a crappy oil, because you're then running crappy oil.) Switching between grades of Mobil 1 is certainly not even close to an issue. I see you are from CA. If you are from So-Cal and never see sub-freezing temps, then 5W-30 is fine.

The difference between 0W-40 and 5W-30 is mininal except at very low temperatures.

The only time I would advocate switching becuase 0W-40 is definetly better is when you deal with sub-zero temps. When I start my car at -20�ºF, I want oil flowing as quickly as possible. It is academically a better choice all around, because of the more fluid (lower viscosity) characteristics at even moderate startup temperatures, but the real difference is probably negligible for warmer climates.

You should specify that significant differences in engine wear will only start to become evident at hundreds of thousands of miles.

Hard driving should be specified to be short trips that don't allow the engine to warm up fully. Not frequent trips to the engines redline, which even conventional oils won't have a particular problem with.

Also, define crappy oil. If you include anything with API certification, I would disagree with you.

Give me or Pete a holler when the technical aspects are hashed out to create the most (correct) informational FAQ, and we'll be glad to add a link to the maintenance faq.

(we try to limit the stickies, so we can be consise, and consolidated...)

Ray

I'd also say that mileage recommendations are fairly bogus unless an oil test is performed. Between atmospheric conditions, engine types, driving styles, oil type, etc etc telling someone to change every 3000 or 5000 or 7500 or ??? is nothing more than a guess and has no place in a technical discussion that this needs to be.