Recommended oil viscosity

What is the recommended oil viscosity for V-6 engines in the '05 T&C
and 300C? A message read on another board said for the T&C it was 5w20.
Is this correct? I assume it's all about fuel economy but for long term
engine protection under a variety of conditions 5w20 doesn't exactly
fill me with confidence. I hope that usage of 5w30 is acceptible.

 

SAE5W-20 and 5W-30 is recommended. Its designed to improve cold temp
starting and fuel economy. most of the newer vehicles have the viscostiy
grade stamped on the oil cap fro each vehicle. I should also say it in the
owners manual

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

You didn't get an owners manual with the car? I'd go back and ask the
dealer for one.


Matt

 

You didn't get an owners manual with the car? I'd go back and ask the
dealer for one.


Matt

 

dealer for one. <

I don't own one (yet) but am considering a T&C purchase. If 5w30 will
satisfy Chrysler's warranty requirements then that's good enough for
me. I'm willing to sacrifice a little mpg to use 5w30. But if 5w20 is
mandated, I'll have to consider something else suited to 5w30.

 

SAE5W-20 and 5W-30 is recommended. Its designed to improve cold temp
starting and fuel economy. most of the newer vehicles have the viscostiy
grade stamped on the oil cap fro each vehicle. I should also say it in the
owners manual

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

I agree with you. Whether the particular owner gets 120k miles or 250k
miles out of the engine is of no concern to the manufacturer. Their
recommendations for viscosity (which I see from others' posts does say
5W-30) is absolutely going to be skewed towards marginally better gas
mileage as long as a typical engine near the bottom of the bell curve
will be projected to go some minimally reasonable distance. The
manufacturer is willing to do this to gain a tenth or two in mpg for
their CAFE numbers. A couple of tenths in mpg for some finite sacrifice
of engine life is not a worthwhile trade-off to me since I keep a car
for a long time.

I wouldn't be limited to their recommendations since I know that the
numbers are pushed for non-technical reasons towards thinner oil.
Definitely the 5W-30, or even 10W-40 (after you're out of warranty)
should do just fine.

IMO...

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

Why? If Chrysler says 5W20 is acceptable why does that bother you?

Matt

 

Why? If Chrysler says 5W20 is acceptable why does that bother you?

Matt

 

Have you seen any data that the thinner oil causes shorter engine life?
I've seen no such data and my personal experience doesn't bear this
out. My current vehicles that specify 5W-30 are lasting as long as my
cars of 25 years ago that specied 10W40. Actually, my 1996 Grand
Voyager is my current highest mileage vehicle ever (just rolled over
169K) and it has had a pretty steady diet of 5W30 Mobil 1.


Matt

 

Nope. Next question.

Well that's a scientific study if I ever saw one! Face it - we're both
working off of very informal and imprecise observations here.

Sample of one. If that's the criteria, then I ran a 1986 turbo'd Subaru
wagon and sold it with 275k miles on it still running absolutely great
with original engine and original turbo unit - always used Castrol GTX
and some Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase. That's just as valid an
indicator as your van, so by your study criteria, I proved that Castrol
dino and MMO are far superior to Mobil 1. 8^)

Vehicles sold in Europe with the same engines as the U.S. for the same
climates specify one step heavier oil thant he ones here. Why? Could
it be that we have CAFE and they don't.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

Nope. Next question.

Well that's a scientific study if I ever saw one! Face it - we're both
working off of very informal and imprecise observations here.

Sample of one. If that's the criteria, then I ran a 1986 turbo'd Subaru
wagon and sold it with 275k miles on it still running absolutely great
with original engine and original turbo unit - always used Castrol GTX
and some Marvel Mystery Oil in the crankcase. That's just as valid an
indicator as your van, so by your study criteria, I proved that Castrol
dino and MMO are far superior to Mobil 1. 8^)

Vehicles sold in Europe with the same engines as the U.S. for the same
climates specify one step heavier oil thant he ones here. Why? Could
it be that we have CAFE and they don't.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

Non-technical reasons? I doubt the manufacturer specifies an oil grade for
their engines without consideration for the engineering that went into it.

And 10W40? Going out of the manufacturer recommendations to use
higher-viscosity oil just because the warranty is over? On what basis? It
surely doesn't bear repeating here, of all places, that by far the highest
wear the engine experiences is on cold startup. 5W oil will pump faster on
cold startup and minimize the delay in getting oil to all the surfaces.

For some years manufacturers have begun tightening clearances on their
engines to reduce blowby and reduce emissions.

A wider spread of viscosity requires more additives, which can lead to more
sludge and deposits in the engine. That may well be part of the reason for
the 5W20 recommendation. At any rate, I'd want some hard data before going
outside the manufacturer's spec on oil on an otherwise healthy engine.

 

Marvel Mystery Oil?? come on Bill !!

 

Agreed on all points, though you'd have to admit that we're all just talking
oil weights, but you also mention Mobil 1. I imagine that has as much to do
your vehicles' longevity as the 5W30. Lots of benefits to the Mobil 1. I
use the same.

 

And so therefore they recommend higher viscosity for essentially the
same vehicle and engine going to other countries of similar climate.
The difference: We have CAFE requirements, they don't. You're going to
tell me that that's not the driver behind the different recommendations
on the same engine in the same climate?

As an aside, I will submit that the mfgr. doesn't understand as much as
you or they think they do. If I had not been thinking outside the box
on engine oil, my '99 2.7L would probably be in the scrap yard by now
instead of running great. So, no - I don't always listen to the
manufacturer.

That's not everything. We have to look at the whole picture.

5W oil will pump faster on

Certainly - important for very cold climates. I was mainly going for
the 40 - the 10W just happens to be the more commonly available cold
spec. in synthetics (i.e, it was secondary) for the higher top number.
If they make a 5W-40 in synthetic, fine - use it - I have no problem
with that.

Yes. Though there are some here that have argued with me on that when I
have stated same.

I'm with you on that for *non-synth* -I reference the same info. every
once in a while myself. But the same thing is *not* true for a
synthetic, and since we started out discussing 5W-20, I assumed we were
talking synthetics and I continued along that line. I almost stipulated
that assumption on my part in my previous post, but decided it wasn't
necessary - O thought ot was obvious. So I wil say it now - I was
talking synhtetics. If you go with non-synthetic, then I would
recommend against 10W-40 for exactly what you said about the unstable
additional viscosity extenders that are needed. Better to go with
mixing 10W-30 and 20W-50 - more of the former in winter, the latter in
winter for an average of around 15W-40.

So you push the second number down to 20 just so you can get the 5W...?
For an extremely cold climate, yes. For milder climates, 10W for the
cold startup should be fine. Certainly not worth pushing the hot number
down so far just so the mfgr. can claim that for the CAFE numbers (which
is the motivation as I pointed out as indicated by their specifying
heavier oils for similar climates where they don't have to worry about
CAFE).

In a perfect world you could have all the data you wanted. In the real
world, you have to make the decisions without the hard data. The laws
of physics are the same around the world - I'd like to see the data that
shows that the laws of physics somehow change when you have the same
engine in the same operating temperature but it's within a different border.

You stay within the manufacturer's spec. - I'll go outside them. I have
no problem with that. Neither will be catastrophic (unless you had
a'98-'00 2.7, or certain Toyota engines, in which case you'd better
*NOT* follow the manufacturer's spec.), and we'll neither one be able to
prove anything about the end result one way or the other. We both have
the same info., we both make our own decisions and get the results as
determined by the laws of physics which are immune to people's opinions
and manufacturer's motiviations, i.e., CAFE.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

Where are we going. Let's see - I get 275k on original turbo unit and
engine - and who knows how much farther it will run because I sold it
while it was still running great and haven't kept up with it, and you're
going to question my method of doing that? (BTW - You do realize that I
was only kidding that I had proved anything in the earlier post about it
being superior to synthetic - if that's what you think, then you missed
my point?)

I find this amazing. I did that with a turbo engine. I now have a '99
2.7L engine with 145k miles on it that is running absolutely great - an
engine that is known to totally crap out between 60 and 80k because of
an unanticipated sludge problem, and I'm going to get hammered by
multiple people here because I dare to do things that the manufacturers
don't recommend? Can you possibly admit that at least I have done no
harm to have achieved those things?

Give me a break.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

I never claimed to have any data, but then I never made any claim about
thinner oil wearing out an engine faster either!

I agree it is a sample of one, but that seems to be one more than what
you have to suggest that thinner oil wears out engines faster.

Could be. Also, could be that people are just averse to change.

Look how long it has taken synthetic oil to catch on.


Matt

 

Bill relax.....I was just questioning you on the fact that you say you used
marvel mystery oil and was wondering if you really think that had something
to do with the high mileage you got out of it.

 

Not really, no. Take a look at piston-to-cylinder clearance specs for an
early-'60s Chrysler engine, and for a present-model Chrysler engine, for
instance, and you'll see they're identical (or close to it). Significant
blowby has *long* indicated engine problems and has *never* been
acceptable.