Do you want your engine to last a long time? It may be time to rethink your oil change strategies. Nowadays, if you take care of your engine properly from the get go, you can expect decades of high performance, good gas mileage, and nearly maintenance free engine life. But if you make a simple mistake in your choice of oil change maintenance then you risk having premature engine troubles, hesitation when you try to accelerate, unreliable starting, poor fuel economy, and poor performance.
What you have to pay attention to is your oil. Get the right oil and the right oil change interval and you can save yourself from a lot of heartache when it comes to your engine.
Often overlooked, your motor oil is critical to keeping your engine clean on the inside. This is often considered secondary to lubricating but a dirty engine does not get proper lubricant distribution and starts to generate dangerous hot spots. A quality motor oil will have quality additives to counteract the effects of combustion byproducts inside your engine.
The oil basestock is important too. This is the starting point for blending a good motor oil. The base lubricant that then has all the anti wear and detergents added to it to keep your engine safe. A group IV basestock called a PAO is a fully synthesized base lubricant that can be a great starting point (if engineered well). The PAO base comes to the table with almost zero contaminants. Oils have enough problem getting contaminated by the air and fuel in your engine so it is best they don’t create their own contamination issues from the start.
Anti wear additives are essential for dry starts and for heavily loaded operation. In engine and machine design there are always compromises and one of these is the potential for metal to metal contact in certain loading situations where the oil film in a bearing or cylinder may break down. In an automotive engine metal to metal contact would be inevitable if not for a group of anti wear additives that provide lubrication should the oil film break down. Cheap oils skip this even though it a very important oil component to protect an engine.
Cheap oils use cheap viscosity improvers (VI). As VIs where out it thins the oil. See a 5W30 oil is possible because of VIs. A light weight oil is blended with VIs to help keep it thick when it heats up. The problem is cheap VIs break down and when they do they leave your oil thinner than it is supposed to be. You can guess the problems that come with thin oil…
There are many factors that weigh into the difference between a really good oil and a cheap oil that will cause you harm. The key factors are all summarized and ranked by oil manufacturer in the best motor oil review.