Where is that list?

 

"there is a list of other porsche approved oil too, including 15-40 M1, and castrol"


love it.

 

If you buy 0-40 or 5-50 Mobil 1 you cant go wrong, not to say Castrol etc is not as good. Older air cooled Porsches used heavier weight oils.

 

castrol edge synthetic cannot be *"greatly*" different in its composition ( zddp etc etc ) from other oils of a similar weight/viscosity, but before this begins(!?) another circular oil debate about which there is never a consensus, the "list" of porsche approved oils can be found via internet search or i'd never have seen it.

it exists.

 

I'm sure it does, but I don't know how many things I've googled related to this over the past 1.5 days and I haven't seen a list from an official porsche website or porsche domain.

 

I posted this over on the sister-thread on RL...figure it's good to share here..

 

So this thread completely derailed from the original intent, the sound of my engine. No one has said anything about it, and someone said it sounded fine, so I guess there is that.

As for the oil, next oil change will be at the dealer to avoid these shenanigans.

 

talking about engine sounds is akin to dancing about boating.

its all subjective and even then, everyone eyes and ears are different. e.g. normal to me might not be to you etc.

i think folks contributing here have been pretty helpful to you, on balance. it may take you some acclimation here to get exactly what you want/need upon demand.

nice list rob!

 

I was just trying to look at the bright side of the thread.

I'm probably just going to end up running this oil through this cycle and going through the dealer from now on. I'm not a master mechanic on cars, and I know that recommendations should always be followed, but I watch OP like a hawk (and yes, I know you can have OP with inferior lubrication because of the thickness of the oil), and people are running this weight and/or higher without ill effect, so I'll probably ride it out and go with the dealer from now on. This place was only about $10 cheaper than the dealer.

In the grand scheme of things I don't think 10W vs 5W is going to make much of a difference over 1 oil change cycle, but in the future I'm going through the dealer.

 

last i checked, a dealership charged $250 for an oil change. you can do it in your driveway for 60 bucks.
add: don't use "10"on the lower end. no one does.

 

M1 5W50.

I was recalling Kevin at UMW discussing this very issue...and THEN find he responded in your same thread over on RL with feedback.

I am not sure what you are looking for...advice? which you can then argue about? very odd.

If you are looking at oil as two 'numbers', one for cold and one for warm, there is a Grand Canyon of information you are missing.

IMO

 

yeah, it's ironic. kevin helps EVERYone and then folks ( probably myself included ) only half listen. but the funnier phenomenon is a questions asked, and when the answer isn't deemed suitable or what someone wanted to hear, they get pissy lol

not the op.. of course. just saying. having said that, oil is the one subject that anyone that has any experience ( MOSTLY! lol ) shares the consensus that 5/40 and 5/50 ARE better fills for hard driven cars depending upon climates.

 

That's why the "experts", the guys that work on P cars every day, don't offer advice that often. And when they do, it's usually a fleeting comment with little detail. I'm in a related field but don't even visit those forums as there is so much misinformation spread.

 

Bingo

 

It has been some time since I have bothered with motorcycle oils so I don't know much about them other than they can cost more than oils for autos.

M/C owners that drive big miles use auto engine oils but still change the oil frequently. (By big miles I mean like the chap I read about who lives/works in the UK as a motorcycle courier who racked up hundreds of thousand of miles on motorcycles, covering 3K miles (or more) per week. Even so he changed the oil every week.)

Might add that the only internal engine problem I've ever had and one attributed to oil was in my Honda CB750 engine when a cam lobe went flat. Running a motorcycle oil, too, I might add. Don't recall which one now though.

In the case of Porsche engines they have a fancy VarioCam system (my 2002 Boxster) while newer ones, like my 2003 Turbo engine, have a VarioCam Plus system. VarioCam refers to variable intake valve timing control while the Plus refers to the ability to switch between high and low lift while the engine is running.

Both valve timing adjustment and low/high lift select is done with engine oil. The mechanism to control the timing or to select low or high lift is a hydraulic system that uses engine oil. I have not see the variable valve timing hardware up close but I have seen the intake valve hardware up close -- I bought an intake valve lifter and took it apart.

It would take a lot of words to describe what is involved but let me just say proper oil flow into this tight fitting hardware is paramount to avoid excessive (any) wear. Porsche tested this hardware to some extraordinary high number of cycles and it should be good for several engine lifetimes. As I mentioned in an earlier post the owner of that 400+K mile Turbo engine found no measurable wear when he checked the engine after tearing it down so you can get a feel for how little wear this hardware gets subjected to under normal circumstances and using the right oil and following some reasonable oil change interval.

By switching to a 10w-XX oil the 10W has different flow characteristics at low temperatures and the low/high lift hardware may receive marginal lubrication. It just so happens that just moments after engine start the DME switches over to the low lift, at least in my Turbo's engine, for I can see the oil pressure take a brief drop concurrent with the engine manifesting a bit of hitch as the switch over takes place so the proper flow of oil when cold is critical to the proper and wear free operation of this switchover hardware.

Might point out that I was recently looking into buying a Dodge R/T with the 5.7L V8 with the MDS (multiple-displacement system). This refers to the ability of the DME to disable 4 cylinders to reduce fuel consumption. This is done via a hydraulic system that similar the VarioCam Plus system in the Porsche engine relies upon engine oil.

How critical is the engine oil to this system? Well, Chrysler insists that the only oil suitable for use in engines with MDS is a 5w-20 oil. Going to be interesting I think to read the goofy oil threads by some who think that's too "thin" and any engine worthy of the name ought to run a thicker oil, cause you know thicker is better.

Here's some comment on the criticality of using the right oil:

If you have an MDS engine (all current 5.7 engines!), only use 5W20 oil. You need the right oil. If the owner’s manual says something else, follow its advice - but don’t be convinced by a mechanic. Insist on the right grade and if they don’t use it...get a refund and go somewhere else. (See TSB 09-015-04 and 09-013-04: “Vehicles with the Multiple Displacement System must use SAE 5W-20 oil. Failure to do so may result in improper operation of the MDS.”) Engine problems have been reported as being due to the use of the wrong oil. Usually, these problems can be resolved with an oil change, but not always.

Engine thermodynamics is a complicated field.

Take a cylinder with a piston in it. When a cold engine is started and runs the cylinder can stay the same diameter while the piston as it warms up grows in size. (Might point out the piston's change in size is not consistent, the top or upper portion of the piston getting bigger because it is closest to the heat source and thus heats up first before the heat reaches the rest of the piston.) Thus the clearance between the piston and the cylinder wall actually decreases.

Now engine designers, even the ones at Porsche know this, and you can be sure the piston material has been chosen to reduce the growth so clearances stay well within the safety zone.

But clearances can decrease nonetheless so too thick an oil may not properly lube this area at cold start and as the engine warms up.

There's more: At operating temperature the crank main and rod bearing journals and bearings are the same temperature so their clearances remain the same as they were cold.

However, at higher engine speeds the oil itself can contribute heat as there is considerable friction from the oil. The oil in the bearing -- the oil film may be just a thousand or so of an inch thick -- gets hot and thins. Fresh and cooler oil has to push this heated oil out and help remove the heat the oil may have transferred to the metal surfaces to keep the heat from building up to critical levels.

If the oil is too thick when cold and if the engine RPMs are too high the oil in the bearing gets hot and thins but the incoming oil being thicker can't flow readily into the bearing and if the oil there breaks down from this heat the engine can suffer engine wear even while relatively cold.

Now Porsche has stated that when cold engine RPMs should be kept below 4200 RPMs. However this number I suspect assumes the engine is filled with an approved 0w-40, 5w-40, or 5w-50 oil. What is the RPM threshold if say one is running a 10w-40 oil? A 15w-50 oil? Or (Good grief....) a 20w-50 oil?

I might also point out the cam lobes and lifter bucket tops are splash lubricated, by oil that seeps out around the lifter bucket and the bore in which it resides.

If one strays away from an approved oil, and uses an unapproved oil, especially one with different viscosities, this splash lubrication may be compromised and the lifter bucket and cam lobe may experience marginal lubrication.

You can rely upon an indy for your car's servicing, if you know the indy knows these cars and their engines inside/out. Any indy that touts some other oil other than a recommended oil I think has to be eliminated. (This is at least what I did: I took my Boxster to an indy. He insisted on using 15w-50 oil (he stocked this oil for the air-cooled cars he worked on and even though Porsche doesn't approve of this oil for sports cars from 1984 or later) even though I wanted him to use 0w-40 oil and even offered to supply the oil. He refused, saying he needed the profit margin the 15w-50 oil provided him to counter the lower labor rates he charged.)

As for those who say you should use this oil or that oil, these are easy to handle. Ignore them. Use what Porsche recommends.

My only advice would be to at least consider a more frequent oil/filter service change interval.