Originally posted by Big Jim:
Originally posted by emartinez13:
My valvetrain makes alot of noise in the morning and when the engine is cold. Doesn't thicker oil also help with that? or will lower weight oil help more to quiet it down?



It does not help. It makes it worse.

Thicker oil takes longer to get flowing. Thinner oil will circulate much quicker on a cold start.

Your engine was specifically designed for 5W30 oil and that oil works well in that engine in all climates. There have been incidents of blowing off the oil filters on cold starts with thicker oil, even 10W30 even in mild winter areas. I still use 5W30 in my SVT with over 190,000 miles on it. I also use 0W20 in my Escape, which has nearly the same engine.

Heavy oil on older engines is "old" thinking. It had some questionable merit when the engine was nearly worn out. It is not good thinking for an engine that has very light wear wear, especially when it was designed for lighter oil to begin with.




Yes, this is true. Today's engines have much tighter bearing clearances than cars of the old days (since the EPA wants thinner oil to increase gas mileage). 20w-50 is a sure way to take life out of a Contour engine. I run 10w-40 in mine, and even that can be a tid bit thick in the winter. I do think that 5w-30 is a bit on the thin side too. 10w-30 or 10w-40 is about right depending on your climite and temp.

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