Correct oil

[jjtwister]

I'm out in Durango after putting on 7,000 miles. I had an oil change at the ford dealer and asked them to,use Mobil 1 which they did but the invoice shows they used 5W20 oil. My mechanic back in Vermont uses 10w30 mobile 1
Is this a problem??

[boywonder]

No...it'll be fine.....assuming that you have a 5.3L?

What does your owner's manual specify? Pretty sure it's 5-20....same as my 2008.

[mikracer]

I'm pretty sure 5/20 is the recommended oil. I remember a member on this forum Carringb saying not to use heavier oil because of the way the Ford motors were designed. The motor wouldn't be properly lubricated with heavier oils...

[carringb]

Yup. Don't put 10w anything in a triton motor. It'll oil starve important parts during cold starts.

5w20 is fine, especially full synthetic. 5w30 is fine too but probably heavier than you need if you aren't towing heavy.

[86Scotty]

I use Mobil 1 or Motorcraft (semi synthetic) 5w-30. Most of my vehicles get driven every month or two and none have blown up lately.........

[MadScience]

+1 on skipping 10wXX.

I've settled on Mobil 1 5w30 in my v10. I would consider 5w20 if I didn't consistently beat on it in hot weather.

I've been sending off samples as a educational experiment, and my van is doing well with that oil and 3k changes. 5k was too long, at least when I was towing.

The fact that I use Mobil 1 isn't a crucial component in this, it's just a cheaply and easily available synthetic.

[mikracer]

Interesting to see that a 5k interval with full synthetic is too long.

[carringb]

I do my oil every 7-12,000 miles fully dependendant on amount of short trips. I don't even change it early if I'm doing 100% towing. Again, that's on full synthetic. On a
Synthetic blend i don't go more than 5k. Pretty much I just change it when i hear it start to growl on cold starts, meaning the lifters are coming up to pressure fast enough.

[MadScience]

True full synthetic is hard to find anymore. I thought the blends were like 99%+ of the performance at 5% the cost though.

I was getting visible sludge with longer (5K) intervals. A couple of shorter 1k runs cleaned that out and I'm sticking to 3k now. There may or may not be something specific with my engine or usage that leads to this. I certainly have tallish gears for my tire size. I also cross sierra passes regularly and tow from time to time. I don't however tow like carringb does.

Edit: I don't think Mobil 1 is actually a full synthetic these days, the naming conventions there are also subject to debate at this point...

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by MadScience

True full synthetic is hard to find anymore.

I don't think Mobil 1 is actually a full synthetic these days, the naming conventions there are also subject to debate at this point...

....Interesting...that's news to me.....

Years ago I hired a chemist for a project (spinning hollow fiber) that did his masters on Mobil 1 development stuff; we had a few interesting discussions about syth vs. dino oil. I've pretty much used Mobil 1 100% since then changing it every 8000 miles (whether it needs it or not ). I use Rotella in the motorcycles since it has a few specs that meet wet clutch criteria.

I find these oil threads almost as interesting as brake discussions, as it seems that oil-related failures are few and far between as long as the oil is changed at a reasonable interval. All that being said, we had a trooper that toasted a rod bearing right in the middle of Yosemite years ago. Drove it back to So Cal with a super loud rod knock successfully.....