For your oil you can find out exactly the best way, for your car, your choice of oil, your climate, your driving / car usage pattern.
Use an oil sample analysis service it's about £15 a sample.
They mail you out a sealed test tube. You fill it with oil that came out on your last change. Fill in the form with the questions they ask, then post it off. They write back with a comprehensive breakdown of how the oil is performing, whether there's signs of engine wear in the oil etc.
You can also google for virgin samples of any brand of oil you're considering, to see how good it is. For example, castrol edge fully synth as it comes out the 4l (whats with the small packs?) carton appears to be an average-to-good fully synthetic, but there are similar performing much cheaper alternatives.
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Seriously - are there independent tests that show that identical engines last longer/emit less/use less fuel with the premium product than with the standard/cheap'n'cheerfull product?
I'm talking about normal cars in normal use, not F1 cars on the track.
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If its the 1.6 TDCI then there are quite a few problems with this engine. The engines tend to run very dirty and in particular the small feed pipe to the turbo has a little filter in it that blcoks and starves the turbo of lube.
My suggestion is a fully synth oil to ford spec (doesnt matter about brand, just get the cheapest that matches the spec) then change the oil and filter at least every year and do it at 6 months if you are only doing short journies.
When driving the car, let it warm up before taking over 3000rpm.
Dont labour the engine, its tempting to, but let it rev to at least 2500-3000 rpm before changing up. Dont boot it at low rpm. This helps the DMF last longer and excercises the turbo.
Take it to a decent diesel workshop when it needs repair work (not the main dealer).
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My suggestion is a fully synth oil to ford spec (doesnt matter about brand just get the cheapest that matches the spec) >>
Ford spec is clearly 5w-30 semi-synth, AFAIK there is no fully synth that meets the spec.
>>Take it to a decent diesel workshop when it needs repair work (not the main dealer).>>
Good advise once 3-4 years old or so though before then watch the warranty, if you exceed the 60k miles with the 3 years then you have good chance of goodwill if serviced repaired by a dealer.
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For example castrol edge fully synth as it comes out the 4l (whats with the small packs?) carton appears to be an average-to-good fully synthetic
Not all fully synthetics are actually fully synthetic - just clever mineral oils (pointing the finger at the stuff mentioned above.) most oils are compromised these days thanks to the additive packs designed to improve chemical stability for extended drains rather than concentrating on how good a lubricant they are. I think a (up to spec) semi changed between services (at least) will greatly extend the life of any engine. If you can afford to do that with mobil 1 - great, if not cheaper oil changed more often is better than higher quality oil stretched beyond what's reasonably expected for oil to last. Even the best oil is shot by 7-8K miles, cheaper oil sooner, it's only the excellent mass-manufacturing techniques and advances in metallurgy that allow our engines to spend most of their running life on knackered oil and still attain reasonable engine longevity.
Obviously if you are unlucky enough to have an engine with a manufacturing or design defect, no amount of oil changing will stop it going bang before its time and then there's the expensive to repair FI systems which put otherwise perfectly serviceable cars into the scrapyard prematurely - but that's another story.
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Peanut, you dont say howmany miles a year you do. But at the average of 12,000pa thats going to be 16 years. You will have changed cars by then.
Just get it serviced on the on the schedule by ford, with the oil they say in the manual.
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Altea Ego, WST has pointed out in another thread a service bulletin regarding the oil changes for these engines - if they are that marginal then stuff the proscribed servicing intervals and change the oil more often as WST says. Cars are designed to last the warranty period even if abused - 99% of cars will last the warranty period without ever having a service - it doesn't mean treating the car like that is good for long-term longevity.
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Thanks for all the replies.
I do about 15k/year. Rarely short journeys.
How do I know if a fully synth meets Ford spec, as (I presume) it exceeds them, so is not mentioned in the blurb? Given the engine is new-ish, would there be any down-side to moving over to a fully synth? (Ok an extra £10-15 per oil change - a marginal fuel improvemnt could make that up)
Peanut.
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How do I know if a fully synth meets Ford spec >>
AFAIK none do.
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>> How do I know if a fully synth meets Ford spec >> AFAIK none do.
There's at least a couple which do. As an example, Opieoils stock a couple of fully synthetic (as well as some semi-synthetics) meeting WSS-M2C 913B: www.opieoils.co.uk/c-694-ford-engine-oil.aspx
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Even the best oil is shot by 7-8K miles, ... >>
Where is the proof, please, for such a bold claim?
IMO, global-warming/climate-change at least has scientific evidence to support the claims made than the statement above, unless SteveLee can come up with the facts to make me change my opinion.
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Covered above really but....
To give the engine some extra care the choice is between a higher grade oil (fully syn) and keep to 12k changes or keep to the oil in the handbook (semi-syn I guess) and go for 6k changes.
As the hardest part for any oil is the second 6k of a 12k interval my choice is to use standard oil for the car but change at 6k.
That way you remove all the nasties that it's trying to hold in suspension (and often failing to succeed) before they drop out on the engine internals.
I have no documented proof for this... I don't need it as I just know it's right :-)
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Where is the proof please for such a bold claim?
The only proof I have is what I saw with my own eyes when I worked for a large American oil company, we were developing a new fully-synth, we analysed all the current market leading brands including bench running the oil in engines then analysed the results, hot viscosity rating for all the oils we tested were out of spec by around 4-5K miles except Mobil 1 which passed this test - indeed our new super-duper oil couldn't do so either - but it didn't stop us making all sorts of claims for it and selling it at an exorbitant price.
In terms of lubricative properties, engine oil is actually getting worse, because of extended service intervals, oil filters have to let ever larger particles pass through them to stop them getting blocked, as a consequence modern oil is designed to suspend the particles that make it past the filter in the oil itself - without allowing the crud to sink and form sludge. After 8 or 9K miles you are "lubricating" your engine with suspended swarf and various detritus which is the product of the combustion process. Modern engines will take this abuse - for so long.
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>>oil filters have to let ever larger particles pass through them to stop them getting blocked
Which manufacturers are using these Steve? If I buy a modern car in the future I don't like the thought of it using an oil filter that isn't doing it's job properly. Are you saying that the manufacturers specifying long life regimes on their engines are using less efficient oil filters to stop them blocking up as a result of dirty oil? Explain.
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Corax. Yes, exactly that, when I was at Ford, Volvo were resisting that trend, their own spec filters actually filtered far better than the Ford equivalents and Volvo resisted the long service interval game for a while - I wasn't there long enough to find out if they joined the crowd in the end - I suspect modern economics and pressure from the parent company meant they had to. AFAIK this practice is common-place now, modern oil is designed to suspend small particles, they are no longer filtered out - this is why you must use the spec of oil suggested by the manufacturer - unless you decide to change it (and filter) frequently in which case as long as it's the same viscosity and general (temperature) performance it probably won't matter.
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But Ford dont offer "long life" servicing, 12500 max or 12 months, where as a VAG car can go double that and up to two years, Renault 18000 and two years etc ...
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12,500 miles *is* an extended service interval - just not as extended as others, compare this to what was "normal" the 80s and further back. One of my old man's recent cars (Scenic or Picasso - can't remember which) had a 20K/2 year service interval - that's mental!
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The only proof I have is what I saw with my own eyes ... >>
Anecdotal, and not scientific peer reviewed proof then. i much prefer anecdotes such as this one by "yorkiebar" who I believe owns/runs a garage:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=81384&...e
One of my old man's recent cars (Scenic or Picasso - can't remember which) had a 20K/2 year service interval - that's mental! >>
Not at all.
As Number cruncher has said many times, use of modern long-life synthetic oils is not such a big issue in determining the end of life of motors, eg.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=58...4
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=49...2
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=47...9
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=34...1
Edited by jbif on 03/02/2010 at 17:54
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jbig, NumberCruncher's anecdotal evidence (ie opinion) is hardly peer-reviewed either! And since when has peer-review become science? Of course I respect his opinion a great deal but I do have direct expertise and experience in this area. I don't expect oil companies to publish the results of their internal R&D costing millions of dollars for their competitors' perusal! I've simply been privileged enough as part of a product development team to read it. If it wasn't for stop/start wear and the running temperature of an internal combustion engine exceeding 100C - it could be "lubricated" with water! Oil only provides a protective barrier when limits are exceeded, when the parts aren't yet up to temperature or moving fast enough (start up wear), the protection from metal to metal contact is provided (in normal running) by a hydrodynamic "wedge" formed between parts - care of their relative movement, not film strength, crap in the oil disrupts this process causing the "wedge" to fail earlier and thus accelerates wear, the maintenance of viscosity is important for this reason, aged thinning oil being thrown from the crank journals quicker than it can be replaced will lead to rapid big end failure or a drop off in oil pressure starving the top end. Oil does NOT stay in spec for 12500 miles let alone 20,000.
All the above is why oil being clean and in spec (viscosity wise) is the most important aspect when it comes to engine longevity - not some magic enhanced film-strength or other such properties. All modern engines will last if looked after, the OP is asking if that life can be extended, my answer is "yes", by ensuring your oil is always clean and in spec - change it often, unless you're putting in cheap nasty stuff which is like glue when cold - in which case you're doing more harm than good.
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>>>Not all fully synthetics are actually fully synthetic - just clever mineral oils (pointing the finger at the stuff mentioned above.)
Steve you are getting Castrol Edge which is fully synthetic mixed up with Castrol Magnatec which is not. You are not saying that Castrol Edge is a mineral oil, are you?
I think the most important thing to keep an engine going for ever is changing the oil more often. I usually change the oil in all my machines at half the manufactures recommendation. If I were you I would use semi synthetic 5W-30 like Castrol Magnatec or the Ford oil.
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It was Castrol pressure that got what could be called "synthetic" changed as their base oil was not strictly fully-synth, "our" analysis (an oil company I worked for) confirmed this to be the case. Maybe things are different now, it's perfectly good oil but the 10C deficit in cold pour performance, compared to Mobil 1, says all you need to know regarding the quality of the base oil in my opinion. It's not that Castrol is bad, Mobil 1 is particularly good - and no I don't work for them and never have.
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This is all fascinating...!
Thanks.
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