friendly_jacek
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Everything posted by friendly_jacek
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This is good info but correction is needed on the "stuck in traffic in summer" part. Excessive idling and stop and go driving puts lots of demands on cooling system but doesn't increase oil temp. This is a common misconception and only people with cars equiped with oil temp gauges can attest to the fact that engine oil is lukewarm in city driving. Oil is only hot with high speed, high RPM driving and thus, racing cars have engine oil coolers. This also why cars sold in US are recommended with 5W30 or 5W20 oils while most cars sold in Europe usually call for 5W40 or 10W40 oils.
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You picked up 2 mpg from thinner synthetic, not a "slicker" one. The notion than oil can be "slicker" is purely an urban myth and marketing slogan. Also your Pennzoil bashing is based on anegdotic and newer substantiated incidents in early 1980's. Now, the Pennzoil brand is owned by Shell and has nothing to do with the Pennzoil oils of the 80's. Wake up to the 21st centry.
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I'm not as smart as blitz but will give you my 2 cents. It is also my dilema as my wife does stop and go cold engine city driving and then I pull a boat on weekends (at least some weekends). Initially I used 5W40 rotella synthetic for summers as a compromise even though it is group 3 fluid (group 3 is almost as good as group 4 except for arctic conditions). However it is still thickish at room temp (175 cSt at 70F). This season I will try german castrol 0W30 as it is group 4 (the only true synthetic castrol in US), behaves as 5w30 at room temp and is high-30, almost 40 viscosity at 212F. If you don't want to go synth route, 5W30 winter and 10W30 summer will do IMHO.
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"My 96 OBW also reccomends 5w30 oil." Vs. "The owner's manual says not to run 5w30 if you drive at highway speeds, higher rpm for long periods of time." Which of these is correct? BOTH! Recommends 5W30 because most people in US use cars for short trip, stop and go, city driving when oil never reaches operating temp. 5W30 allows for better protection and MPG at lower oil temps. Notice that Honda, Ford, and Mazda switched to 5W20 in USA. At the same time if you drive hard, fast, and far (think autobahn) or tow, the oil temp is 200-300F and 5W30 is just not thick enough. This is why cars in Europe and Australia specify 5W40, 10W40, 20W50, and 10W60 oils. If you want both of these worlds look at the specs of Castrol SLX 0W30 aka German Syntec 0W30 in US.
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I dont see how cavitation would produce HG problems short of eating away chunks of aluminium adjacent to the gaskets itself. That has not been reported to my knowledge. While the subaru powered airplane experiments documented that the air bubles can overheat the engine and warp the heads, the bubles in cavitation are made of water vapor only, last only miliseconds and the only harm is the shock wave from the implosions (hence erosions). Sorry to burst your bubble so to speak... Edit: I was intrigued enough to look more into this. According to my sources, 007 pump is an older design for 1989-1997 cars and the 110 pump (not 010) is the newer design for 1997-now. Unfortunately, there is confusion on this on some sites. Adding to the pump quality issue, there was a recall on the 110 pump in 2002: http://test127.subarunet.com/business/service/Service_Publications/PDF_Files/WWJ-93.pdf