Valvoline Engine Oil

[MuddyWinny]

Euro Car Parts have Valvoline Durablend 10/40 in their clearance, 20L for £30 (normall £101, was £89) which seems to good to be true...

As far as I can tell it meets ACEA A3/B4.

Does anyone know if this is ok for a 300Tdi or is it not such a good offer?

Thanks

Mark

[Lewis]

Looks like good value

http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/p/car-accessories/summer-essentials/car-accessories/summer-clearance/?521770465&0&cc5_1051

I may buy some, though I should really use up the vat of OMD90 I have first

[Bowie69]

Click and collect only, or I would have their hand off for my Audi.

[Souster]

I also saw this today. Bargain I think! Valvoline is plenty good enough for a 300tdi, been about years.

[Souster]

I also saw this today. Bargain I think! Valvoline is plenty good enough for a 300tdi, been about years.

[Boydie]

Ideal is 5/40 but go for it, it's good product.

[rick]

Ideal is 5/40 but go for it, it's good product.

Why Ian?

Most all 5W-40's use a fair bit of viscosity index improvers (VII's) to get that wide a viscosity spread and most all VII's shear rapidly in use, their kinematic viscosity often geting close to a 5W-30 after 10,000km of use.

They also generally have a fairly high NOAK number, ie. they are fairly volaitile.

Here in Australia there is no need for that wide a viscosity oil, I'm happily using a 10-40 full syn oil (as far as you can call a GroupIII/ester oil full synthetic) as the lowest cranking temp I'll see where I live is -7*C, and a 15w-40 is more than fine at that temp anyway.

Depending on the oil and it's viscosity index, you may find there's bugger all difference in cranking pressure/kinematic viscosity at temps from -5*C and up between a 0/5/10 and 15W-40.

Something like 8 or so years ago I ran some numbers on oils on the AULRO forum and some 5W-40's had a higher viscosity at 0* than one 15W-40, altough admittedly it was an extreme example of a 15W-40 (Redline)

You really only need a 5W-40 if you are starting the engine down around -25C and beyond.

Actually, if you look at the cranking pressures of the 5W-40 vs 10W-40 Valvoline oils, the 10W-40's have a CP of <7000 mPa@-25*C vs <6600mPa@-30*C, which s a good indicator of how cold an ambient you need to make use of the wide viscosity span oils.

Of course a lower pumping pressure can reduce the load on the battery and starter at most sub zero temps too, but it does come down to individual blends.

Serious HDEO's like Delvac 1 5W-40 don't shear in use, I've taken them past 20,000km in TD42T Patrols and the oil was fine when tested, but as an example something like Mobil 1 0W-40 shears pretty rapidly, it then starts to thicken as it oxidises, but that's another discussion.

[dave1607]

Thanks for the heads up, just ordered some 5w-30 to collect tomorrow.

Dave

[Boydie]

Rick, I agree with everything you said, the manual quotes 5 - 40, I personally use a 10-40 mineral oil (Caltex), I don't see any advantage in running a diesel on full synthetic, especially a 300Tdi -- but I think that's open for discussion -- and I do an oil/filter change every 10,000 kilometres. My particular engine is somewhat "modified" returning it to the original design by Perkins with hydraulic lifters which like thinner oil to initially charge them, once charged however the cold oil viscosity is of little importance.