Quote:
Originally Posted by canis
All that might be true, I s'pose. You certainly sound like you've done your homework. Our car is still on the same starter-motor and battery it had when we bought it, six or seven years ago. It's coming up to 180,000 miles now.
In that regard, starter motor and battery longevity seems pretty good. And definately cheaper than expensive oils and more frequent changes.
This is a 20 year old car, and it's on it's last legs. I'm expecting to retire it from duty within a year. It'll get rock-bottom price 10/40 oil, and it'll just have to do. No way am I spending twice as much on (Ha!) "magnetic" oil. Might as claim to have fairy dust as an ingerdient.
No sludge in my engine either. I know because last year I had it down to it's component parts almost. I think you have too much faith in all these detergents and additive, personally. They should call it snake oil.
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Cheap oils that are changed often enough can keep the block clean (Unless the HG has a leak etc), BUT the most common issue for the V40 engines is not sludge but top end varnish. The real area of interest is the turbo oil feed pipe, as varnish forms more readily in hot areas and that pipe does get rather warm.
Obviously it's not possible to inspect the turbo oil feed pipe to see if it has varnished up and it's also not easy to measure the oil pressure supplied to it. If there is any degree of restriction to it or the oil feed pressure is low because of more general wear or sludge in the oil system, the turbo bearings are not going to last anything like as long as the main block.
I have never inspected my turbo feed pipe, or measured it's inlet oil pressure, so I try to make sure it is 100% clean AND that the turbo bearings have the best possible layer of anti wear additives to protect them from initial cold start or even hot shut down issues.
To do that means using an oil that will not allow top end varnish to form AND has the best possible anti wear additives (Some of them are in reality friction or extreme pressure modifyers.
My old V40 diesel gets subject to the most appaling abuse, like hot and heavy horse box towing (High bearing loads), cold start abuse, short tripping and the one that really does murder older turbo bearings, the dreaded autobahn emergency pee stop.
"She who must be obeyed", drove me to Munich airport a few months and due to the fact that there was very little traffic she drove at max continous RPM (The handbook says it's 4000 for the 1.9D) which seems to be around the 100 mph mark, so not possible in the UK. I was real pleased we were burning the cylinders, EGR, turbo and even CAT clean, BUT nearly cried when she turned off into a service station and switched off, 4000 RPM to zero in about 15 seconds!
The only reason the turbo bearings have not failed yet is that they are protected by a combined layer of mostly Zinc and Boron Nitride (Hexagonal form used in Ceratec). Not sure how much Moly is in that layer, but that additive also helps in run dry situations.
Using a good oil, filter and change intervals matched to the condition and useage is a very sensible insurance policy.
PS: Using a major brand full synthetic oil will remove pre existing varnish deposits, BUT it will take quite a number of OCI's to do a good job. It's far more effective to use a good flush additive just before the oil and filter are changed (Can result in an increase in the drip rate of any oil leaks for a while). Mobil 0w40 (A3/B4) has about double the detergents of a typical 10w40 like the old Mag 10w40, so is one of the better cleaners.
Never use drive around flush additive like Marvel Mystery Oil, as they can easily damage the engine.