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Is this oil ok to use?

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TSITurbo95

Probationary Member
2,506
17
Oct 26, 2009
Ohio, Ohio
Ok, so I have a 95 Talon TSI AWD. I switched the oil over to 5w-20 Full Synthetic. Is this ok to use for winter/summer applications, or should I switch it to a higher weight, etc?
 
Personally i wouldnt run anything under a 10w30. Have you ever seen hot 10w30 oil? It is decently thin, now think how much more thin a 5weight motor oil would be. I run Valvoline 20w50 in the summer just to make sure things are well protected. Oil in our cars are subject to a lot of punishment especially with the environment of a turbocharger.
 
So next oil change, switch it to something like 10w 30? for the winter, and a little heavier in the summer?
 
Wow this topic is hot the last few days

5w20 is a little thin for your car when up to temp. You need something that is a 30 weight at operating temperature. You could run 5w30 in the winter if it gets real cold then go 10w30 in the summer. IMO 20w50 is way to thick for our cars and can cause excessive oil pressure.
 
Always run heavier in the summer. And yes 50wt is heavy for our cars but i dont get into any rpms at all untill the motor has warmed up. This way i help prevent the excessive oil pressure. Honestly the best thing to run would be a straight 20 or 30 weight.

You for sure do not want to run anything under 10w30 in the summer though!
 
Always run heavier in the summer. And yes 50wt is heavy for our cars but i dont get into any rpms at all untill the motor has warmed up. This way i help prevent the excessive oil pressure. Honestly the best thing to run would be a straight 20 or 30 weight.

You for sure do not want to run anything under 10w30 in the summer though!

Unless it gets real cold you never really need to go anything other than 10w30. Even if you let the car warm up before you drive it it still could be hitting 100+psi at idle. There is no need to run that heavy a weight for a car on the street. It can cause engine wear, decreased fuel consumption and high oil pressure.

If you heated the oil first then you could run straight 30wt but who does that for a street car?
 
Ok, so what is the advantage to running a lighter weight in the winter, cant I just stick with 10w 30 all the time?
 
Very true. I run a autometer manual oil pressure gauge to make sure i dont go to high on oil pressure. Im planning on switching back over to thinner oil.

Yes 10w30 can be run year round. Why you would switch to a thinner oil in the winter is because the colder it gets outside the less oil heats up so it may not thin out to its 10w. Its mainly just for fuel efficiency due to the fact that the ticker an oil is the more restiction it puts on your motor due to drag. I personally have never switched to anything thinner than 10w30 and we get temps here that are below 0
 
I switched the oil over to 5w-20 Full Synthetic.
Get it out of your engine right away.

That oil was designed for newer Ford, Chrysler, and Import vehicles that use a low-tension oil ring and have extremely tight engine tolerances, not your whooped-up 4G63. Our cars call for 10W30 at the thinnest; my 4G63's get 15W50 Mobil 1.
 
I also agree that 5w20 is too thin for our cars; as I ran some for a few hundred mile until putting a thickening additive in and then chickening out a few days later and changing back to 10w40.

I wonder if non-synthetic 5w20 is "safer" for our application-- isn't synthetic typically considered a little thinner than non? That seems strange now that I type that out...

Does anyone think 5w20 could cause damage? I haven't noticed any, but now that I think about it, I have noticed a little engine noise, or, a little more engine noise recently. :)
 
Not too old of a thread, but here goes....

New motors are very tight in clearance, why the thin stuff can be used. But, our motors, esp with turbos don't have that tight of clearance. Thus we need the thicker stuff to "fill the gaps" so to say and stay there during operation.

Thin oil will ruin turbos pretty quick since the shaft itself actually floats in oil around the bearing in as well as the connecting rod bearings - they "float" around the crank journal with a film of oil between the two metals.

The noise that you're hearing is prob your motor getting ready to self destruct inside from using that thin oil-prob the main bearings is what you're hearing from being damaged from little protection due to too thin of oil.
 
When I first got my gsx, I changed the oil the first day I had it because I didn't know about the previous owner's maintenance. I made the mistake of going too thin at 5w30. The car started smoking on start up and under high rpms. I swapped that stuff out and put in 15w50 in a quickness. The smoking stopped because the oil sealed back up the gaps and didn't burn as easily. High mileage cars need thicker oil for sure. You should take your mileage into consideration as well...
 
Not too old of a thread, but here goes....

New motors are very tight in clearance, why the thin stuff can be used. But, our motors, esp with turbos don't have that tight of clearance. Thus we need the thicker stuff to "fill the gaps" so to say and stay there during operation.

Thin oil will ruin turbos pretty quick since the shaft itself actually floats in oil around the bearing in as well as the connecting rod bearings - they "float" around the crank journal with a film of oil between the two metals.

The noise that you're hearing is prob your motor getting ready to self destruct inside from using that thin oil-prob the main bearings is what you're hearing from being damaged from little protection due to too thin of oil.

If this response was directed to me... because, I have a separate thread discussing a wining sound coming from my engine, my wining sound was coming from my engine long before I ran 5w20 (non-synthetic) for a hundred miles.

And I really don't think running this thin of an oil would do to much damage to our engines - if any, even if you did run it for a full 3000 mile cycle.

unfortinately my other "wining noise" thread isn't getting much traction in the way of responces... I'm still working on it though.
 
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..even the stock 1990 plus owner's manuals would state to either run 10w30, or 20w/40 if extreme situations was needed...

I figure that if they put those recommendations in that manual when they wrote it, they must know what they're doing and definitely made sure before making that disclaimer.

..and do hope that the whining in your motor can be remedied..

..good luck-DSM
 
Thanks Dsm.

I don't recommend running that thin of oil, and this is why i pulled mine out so quick. I'd agree, and have argued in support of in the past, that OEM equipment and specifications are of higher quality and standard than the majority of the aftermarket crap being bolted, strap and glued to vehicles today. The majority of aftermarket manufactures simply can't compare in terms of the time and money spent on research and development invested in each and every piece of OEM equipment all to often toss to the trash-bin by the average tuner enthusiast. The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) knew what they where doing! I can't help but laugh when i see $90 tail light covers in place of the $350 OEM covers on some Honda (or DSM for that matter) when driving down the street. The OEM think in terms of decades people, don't forget this important fact... damn, I'm preaching again...

5W20 did however work as a good engine flush.

That said, I believe that you'd be hard pressed to find a single thread where a person LEGITIMATELY contributed the failure of an engine, or a major part, to the use of the wrong viscosity oil alone. This is within reason of coarse; the oil needs to at least be rated for gas engines - like 5w20 is. Other than an oil pressure issues related to viscosity or perhaps an aftermarket turbo with super picky bearings -- I don't think you'd find a single, reasonably confirmed, instance where oil viscosity was the main cause of catastrophic engine damage or failure.

Side note: keep the water lines hooked up to your mitsu turbos; they were put there for a reason... again, it's funny to me when someone removes the OEM water cooling lines from their Mitsu turbo and then spends $150 on a turbo timer...

No one really wants to admit it, but oil is oil... keep it full, the viscosity within reason for your temp range, don't run it for more than 7,500 miles and you'll be fine.

If you pay attention to you engine and listen, it will let you know if somethings not right 90% of the time.

:hmm: anyone?
 
everyone has an opinion and thats just it an opinion. for a brand new motor conventional 5w30 for the break in period because synthetic is too slipery to properly break in rings and bearings. after that i run mobil 1 15w50 never had any issues of too high oil pressure seeing how synthetic pumps much easier than conventional.
 
10w30 ALL YEAR ROUND NO MATTER TURBO OR NOT!!!!! all the I do this i do that is bullshit!!! most people have no ####in clue why they run what they are running they just do it cause some other asshole had some dumb shit to say about it. just run 10w30 and change it like your underwear!!!!!!!
 
Castrol GTX 10w-40 conventional. After i fill her up my car goes "MMMMMM now thats the stuff!"
 
i rock rotella 20w50, year round. because i don't think my car will ever be in the sahara, but if i am.. i will be ready. LOL.
 
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