Re: [OM] [OT] 20W oil, was spare wheels, deer and BMWs, etc.

[Wayne Harridge]

I understood that in modern engines the tolerances between the moving parts
was smaller and as a consequence the oil could be less viscous, in fact
needed to be less viscous to work properly.

...Wayne


> 
> Somewhere in the chatter about spare wheels or lack thereof and how
> modern cars are equipped or not equipped someone mentioned that
> manufacturers are now using 20W oil to reduce engine friction.  Someone
> else commented that this might lead to high oil consumption such as
burning
> 1 quart per 1,000 miles.
> 
> This concerned me because I do have a new Chrysler T&C and had never
> heard about using 20W oil.  You might logically infer that I've never
changed
> the oil on that car and you'd be right.  Right now it has 8,500 miles on
it and
> the oil change monitoring system has yet to call for a change despite the
> mileage and 10 months of usage.  That doesn't concern me since the car is
> used almost exclusively for long distance travel.
> The Buick that preceded it had a similar system and would usually go
almost
> 10,000 miles between changes.
> 
> But comments about 20W oil and potentially burning 1 quart per 1,000 miles
> were concerning so I decided I better go have a look.  The engine does
> indeed call for 5W-20W oil.  With great trepidation I pulled the dipstick
> expecting I might see a horribly low level after 8,500 miles given no
attention
> whatsoever.  The "safe range" marked on the dipstick has a distance of
about
> 10mm between high and low marks.  The current level is about 3mm down
> from the high mark.  The oil looks very clean.
> 
> Looks OK to me.  :-)
> 
> Chuck Norcutt
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