Choosing the correct engine oil is critical to engine life with Pat Goss from Goss Garage

hi folks this time in Gauss's garage we are going to talk about one of the hottest subjects that has ever dealt with automobiles and it's been a hot topic since the invention of the automobile and that's the oil that goes in the engine now granted you can get good professional advice from just about any do-it-yourselfer that you ever want to talk to because every one of them is an authority on oil they probably don't know how to take the cap off and pour it properly but they're an authority on oil what oil you should use all right well what else should you use well let's get to that in just a second but the first thing is what are the different types of oil well there are three basic types of oil there is a conventional oil which is the old dinosaur oil works well in a lot of cars it is a situation of good better best and better is what's called a synthetic blend or semi synthetic that's a combination of conventional oil and synthetic oil and it gives better protection best is full synthetic like we see here now synthetic oils they give you the longest life out of your engine they minimize wear they give you maybe a little teeny bit better fuel economy and performance but the big thing is protecting the engine now these are not designed to extend the oil change interval that remains relatively what your owner's manual says because how long all stays in an engine depends on the design of the engine and the related engine parts not so much the oil you put in the engine ok so good better best you make that choice but now you've got all of these different oils different types and so on how do you decide which one you should be using in your car well number one you have to look at the owner's manual and in the owner's manual you'll find that there are going to be ratings on the oil now these ratings number one is going to be the quality of the oil now the quality of the oil can be determined by this seal right here on the oil it will give you an API service rating that has to meet or exceed the service rating in your owner's manual now going better that's always a good thing going below that could be disastrous so we want the proper service rating then in the middle of this doughnut here we have the viscosity that's the thickness of the oil now when we talk about the thickness of oil we're talking about how much force it takes to push the oil through the engine now back in the day you had all kinds of do-it-yourselfers that always felt and still do many of them that thicker oil is better than thinner oil well that isn't necessarily the case you see the thickness of the oil that's required by a car is determined by the clearance between the moving parts inside the engine and the more precise the machining the tighter those clearances the thinner the oil otherwise you put a thick oil into a car that has really tight clearances what's going to happen is that it's going to dam up behind the various parts because it's too thick to move through the gap between the parts all right so you always want to make sure that you use the specified oil unless there's a technical service bulletin that tells you otherwise so just because a car requires a zero w20 as opposed to a 20 w 50 well that doesn't mean that 20 50 is going to work well in the car that require there's zero 20 because you may increase oil pressure but reduce oil volume or the amount of oil circulating through the engine and that's an important factor because oil is as much a coolant as the coolant in the radiator it cools all these metal pipes because it's what actually touches the metal parts so you've got to keep it moving to keep it cool to keep the internal parts of the engine cool so proper viscosity and don't let somebody that's working on cars tell you that thicker oil is better or something like that just because a technician changes oil maybe that's all they do all day long they change oil they may do 10 20 jobs a day does that make them an oil engineer I don't think so doesn't mean that they know anything at all about oils it just means that they are expert at changing oil not at recommending oils or anything of the kind so owner's manual that's the Bible because most manufacturers spend millions upon millions of dollars doing testing to find out which oil belongs in the car the next thing we have high mileage oils now high mileage oil you'll listen to the ads on TV and see it in print and so on high mileage oil says seventy five thousand miles or more gotta put high mileage oil in there well I would disagree with it I think high mileage oil is great but not specifically at 75,000 miles see no two engines are going to have exactly the same amount of wear on them at 75,000 miles and one of the big differences between conventional oil whether it's synthetic or blend or absolute conventional and high mileage oil is that high mileage oil has more chemicals to swell the oil seals inside the engine now suppose you have an engine that isn't burning any oil or doing anything wrong and you put the high mileage oil in there and those seals swell errs they swell the seals up real tight around the moving parts now the seals wear into this new tighter configuration you go a few thousand miles and say I don't see any difference here so I'm going to go back to a conventional type of oil non high mileage you put it in and what happens well the car burns oil because now without all those extra seals Weller's in there this heals relaxed and they allow oil to go past them so it's not a good thing it's a great thing when you have an engine that is getting a little tired and you want to prolong the agony great thing to go with but don't do it prematurely because you might wind up regretting the choice so owner's manual that is the real source for information for the oil that goes in your car the only exception to that is when there is a technical service bulletins that says to do something different because they've found a problem with their original decision on the oil and if you want the best oil always use a full synthetic oil which can actually double or triple the life expectancy of your engine so that's oil in a nutshell and if you have a question or a comment how about dropping me a line right here at radio at boss - garage com

Channel: Goss' Garage

Views: 1,673,326

Keywords: Goss Garage, engine oil, engine, car, automobile, automotive, car maintenance, mechanic, garage, Pat Goss, Goss, Goss Garage Radio Show, automotive repair, diy, auto repair, auto repair shop, auto service, auto shop, cars, car repair, MotorWeek, technician, advice, ask, BG, class, consult, consumer, fixin car, how to, learn, lesson, maintain, maintenance, mileage, miles, Pat, prevent, preventative, preventive, problem, question, reliability, repair, service, tips, truck, trust, vehicle

Id: UdzbRMy0sYU

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2016