Recommended oil ?

[stephansvolvo]

Thanks Joe. I appreciate your opinion.

[FCPEURO]

If the car has always had dino oil in it, I stick with castro or one of the other good brands out there. You could case a leak in a seal from the cleaning agents in the synthetic oils. Otherwise, Mobil 1 all the way.

[rspi]

It looked like there was some leakage at the turbo. Is this bad?

Most have a little leak here and there, ask Justin. He claims that there is none dry, no not one.

I have a drop of oil under my turbo but never see oil on the ground. The thing about synthetic is that it is suppose to virtually stop wear. So if these motors can last 500,000 miles with dino on 3 - 5k changes, it may last 1,500,000 with full synthetic. I have read where guys with pick up trucks had over 800,000 with great compression numbers. I have also read about people feeling good if their turbo last 200,000 and a guy told me the other day that his original turbo has over 350,000. Heck, if I can get a turbo to last 500,000 miles instead of 200,000, I'm all in.

I say switch to full synthetic and fix the leaks. That's what we did with my daughter's S70 GLT. The cam seals came out within 6 months of switching to full synthetic so I had to replace the cam seals. I had replaced the PCV so the system isn't pushing pressure. The crank and RMS are stronger seals but may leak (with our without synthetic).

Again, make sure you have a good PCV system and go from there.

I think there are other benefits as well. My daughter overheated her car 500 miles from home. Replaced the torn coolant hose and continued on her trip. She then drove the car back home and I replaced the head gasket about 1,200 miles from the incident. I believe the oil helped.

[precopster]

In my younger days I rebuilt a Mitsubishi 2.6 litre 4 cylinder the one with 2 balance shafts and chain drive. New o/s pistons and matching bores and new everything.

After driving it for almost 15,000 miles on Mobil 1 it was torn down for a suspected ring problem. The bores looked as new as the day I had assembled the engine. Cross hatch marks were as deep as the day I sealed it up. It was suggested I use dino oil to solve that but my reasoning was if dino oil allows cylinders to glaze what can it do to my new bearings and cam journals? I continued to run Mobil 1 in that engine as it was transplanted to another 2 cars. It completed another trouble free 80, 000 kilometres before I sold the final donor car. It never leaked a drop of oil.

The low compression ended up being a slightly warped head which the hydraulic valve adjusters couldn't compensate for. I swapped to manual ones.

Just my story and 2 cents......

[jblackburn]

Careful with standard M1 5W-30 for long intervals. It shears down to a -20 weight in just over 4000-5000 miles, and that isn't providing that hot film strength protection that these engines, especially the turbos, really need.

I would recommend the high-mileage M1 oil over the regular M1 stuff for these cars, at least in 5W-30 form. 10W-30 has better viscosity additives and holds up a little better to mileage.

I recently switched to Pennzoil Ultimate and won't look back. I'm too cheap to go for a true full synthetic oil like Amsoil or the like. Mobil-1 used to be a fantastic full Group-4 synthetic oil, but their quality went downhill in 2006 when they switched to crummy base stocks.

[rspi]

When I use Mobile 1, I do use the high mileage blend, mainly because my car has all of its original seals (except the RMS) to my knowledge.

My car had a clogged PCV and bad tranny when I purchased it. I think the RMS was leaking a little. But who wouldn't do a RMS when replacing a tranny @ 200,000 miles, leaking or not. I now have 244,000.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pushing any brand, just full synthetic. My brother who initially pushed me to full synthetic oil only uses Royal Purple.

[kcodyjr]

I've been running M1 high mileage 10W-40, mainly because I don't wanna do an RMS right now.

The oil looks clean as new, but I'm sure I could use a filter.

[jblackburn]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pushing any brand, just full synthetic.

No worries - just throwing that bit of information out there. I would just stay away from the standard M1 5W-30. Extended protection and High Mileage varieties of M1 are better oils.

If you're planning on doing extended change intervals past 6000 mi, I would even suggest running a -40 like kcody is doing. It will maintain the Volvo-specified viscosities for longer.

My brother who initially pushed me to full synthetic oil only uses Royal Purple.

Except the top tier RP, HPS, that's one of the worst you can use...it performs really, really poorly for the price.

[rspi]

I run 10W-40 year round here in the desert. Mornings are 28° and afternoons are 55°, steady as a rock. Mainly because of the old hard valve stem seals.

My oil never looks clean when I drain it. When I got it I'm pretty sure the PO was running some dino (Penzoil maybe) and doing 3,000 mile changes. The first time I drained it the oil looked pretty clean. I switched to full synthetic and replaced the PCV and have not seen a clean drain sense. It's always black when drained past 1,000 miles and even looks dirty on the dip stick past 3,000 miles. The oil sample was done at about 5,300 miles and I still got that good report from Blackstone.

My daughters S70 has never smoked so I never aimed at high mileage for that car. Turns out the head was done right before we got it and I did it again in 7/12. I had new valve stem seals and cam seals installed so no smoke or leaks on it. I also installed a new oil cooler line on it. Other than that the other seals may be original and maybe can use high mileage (crank, RMS, and any other oil seals in the system). It's not leaking so I guess they are ok.

[jblackburn]

I run 10W-40 year round here in the desert. Mornings are 28° and afternoons are 55°, steady as a rock. Mainly because of the old hard valve stem seals.

You don't like the trademark blue puff at startup?

I once let my car sit for a whole month and covered the whole car behind me in smoke...