Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Motor oil poll

The following is a questionnaire on motor oil...

Who the heck uses 5W50?

By the way, here is a good article on motor oil...

I don't figger I ought to answer since I don't have a gasser right now My figures would probably skew it a little bit.

On a related note, though, I was curious how many were having any type of oil analysis performed? Costs vary, but I know when I sold the Mustang, having the analysis results made the higher mileage much more palatable for the buyer since there were no signs of significant wear materials and all items were well within spec.

They can also do differential fluid analysis as well, which is also good information if you think you might have toasted something over the miles...I ran it for piece of mind when I changed the Ranger fluid at 50K...also took advantage of that change to move to a synthetic.

We were getting a discount on the F-D site through Blackstone, and I would almost bet that they would offer a similar deal if approached by the CEG (brought the costs down to about $17)...if not, you don't HAVE to own a PSD to be a member over at the other site

I've been using 5W-50 Castrol Syntec in my SVT since I bought it about a year ago. It's still clean when I drain it every 7,000 miles. I also used the same oil in my 350 Chevy 300+HP motor for years. I put a very abused 80,000 miles on that 350. When it was pulled apart for a rebuild there was no ridge on the cylinders and you could still see the cross-hatch from the honing! We put it back together after seeing similar results on the bearings and it's still running today in a '78 Nova at about 135,000 miles. I understand that fairly recently Castrol has changed their formulation, as has Mobil 1. I'm looking to switch to Amsoil on the next change due in a thousand or so miles. Am I crazy? Probably.

I would HIGHLY recommend switching from 5W-50 to 5W-30. The fact that the oil is clean is not the point. There have been many posts on this board about the Contour engine not being able to get enough oil under certain conditions (high revs, right hand turn, etc.) and seizing. Using a thicker oil (e.g., 5W-50) will only make oil starvation more likely, since it will not be able to flow through the engine as readily.

If you lived in the Mojave Desert (or somewhere else that was really hot), then you might have an argument for a thicker oil weight, but your SIG says that you live in WA which if I am correct is a relatively cool (and wet) state.

I recently switched from Mobil 1 0-30 to their Euro formula 0-40 that my local parts guy can get.

After reading all the oil specs and many comments/web sites on this topic, I find the hot viscosity (100 deg C)of 10-30 and 5-30 is just about at the SAE 20 spec. This is THIN ! This is about 17% of the viscosity at 40 deg C.

Notice how the viscosity varies far more with temp between 100 and 212 degress F than between 20,30,40,50 SAE weights at a constant 212 degrees F. so I can't get to nervous about "too thick oil". My previous experience with long life motors and the use of different SAE viscosity grades leads me to believe that the car manufacturers are sacrificing engine life for a minor boost in corporate CAFE specs.

valvoline SAE 5w 30, just like it says in the manual

isn't ford now recommending we switch to 5w20 in a TSB?

i'm sticking with the 5w30. and FWIW i use pennzoil dino.

No. The TSB was stating a list of engines that "could" (Ford OK'd) run the new 5W20 oil.

Personally I prefer engine protection over CAFE ratings.