Mobil 1? Castrol GTX? or Pennzoil Platinum?

volvovera · Post by **volvovera** » 04 Mar 2011, 09:16

May anyone give me some suggestion on synthetic motor oil?
Mobil 1? Castrol GTX? or Pennzoil Platinum? , which one is better regarding turbo car?
Althought Castrol is recommended by dealers, some one told me that both Castrol and Mobil are not full synthetic motor oil (100% PAO).
Also is this true that oil with higher Zinc content can provide longer protection to turbo cars?

Post by **jimmy57** » 04 Mar 2011, 09:57

GTX is not synthetic, Syntec is Castrol's synthetic.
Any of those oils will be excellent unless you do 7500 mile or longer change interval and driving is mostly short trips with long warm up idling times.
Any current motor oil meeting the latest API specifications, synthetic or not, will provide excellent protection for your water cooled turbocharger engine. That engine has an oil cooler and the stress on oil on that turbo engine is not great.
Many will argue this but if you change at appropriate intervals for your use, there is no reason to overspend for oil. Most people chicken out on leaving synthetic oils in long enough for them to see any benefit in using synthetics. EXCEPT IF YOUR CAR IS A MOMMY/DADDY TO AND FROM SCHOOL CAR AND YOU LET IT IDLE FOR LONG PERIODS TO WARM UP IN WINTER TIME.
Then you need every possible weapon to keep from suffering sludge problems and even synthetic oil may not stop those issues.
I deal with cars where the oil is changed appropriately using Wal-Mart oil or other lower cost brands and the engines are very clean inside with over 150 K miles and also no crankcase breather box issues.
I see others with synthetic oil use and less than stellar oil change history and the synthetics have not done miracles and the crankcase breather box is plugged at less than 100K and looking down in the cam cover reveals ugly stuff (assuming it doesn't have that anti-fire grate thing in oil filler hole).

jjaV70T · Post by **jjaV70T** » 04 Mar 2011, 18:52

]>>>>>>May anyone give me some suggestion on synthetic motor oil?
Mobil 1? Castrol GTX? or Pennzoil Platinum? , which one is better regarding turbo car?
Althought Castrol is recommended by dealers, some one told me that both Castrol and Mobil are not full synthetic motor oil (100% PAO).Also is this true that oil with higher Zinc content can provide longer protection to turbo cars?<<<<<[

I know nothing about the Zinc deal, BUT re: synthetic oils..I use Mobil 1, but am not afraid to put another brand in.BUT I change at 5K+Filter My.1985 245T mobil 1 sold at 280K,

Post by **EstVolvo** » 06 Mar 2011, 09:27

I dropped oil pan and MVC member ecbsykes dropped his. I think he has pictures showing his oil pan somewhere around here - it was very clean. He had been using Pennzoil Ultra full synthetic and his engine looked much cleaner than mine with Castrol GTX. I switched over to Pennzoil Ultra full synthetic. It took care of one or two noisy lifters. I have no experience with Mobil 1.

jjaV70T · Post by **jjaV70T** » 06 Mar 2011, 10:22

estVolvo..
I will try Pennzoil Ultra full synthetic, next change, why not, when i bought it at 48K the engine was dirty , so using Mobil one , cleaned her very well.. not opposed to switching oils.. BEST, ja

Post by **JRL** » 06 Mar 2011, 10:29

SEAFOAM the engine if it was dirty at 48K
THEN change the oil

Post by **Pauloil** » 06 Mar 2011, 10:32

Castrol edge syn. in the golden 5 gal from wally world works well in my V70XC

Post by **EstVolvo** » 06 Mar 2011, 11:02

Here are some pictures of the engine that was getting Gastrol GTX (the oil pan on the picture is after the power wash) :
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... 1&start=28

and here are some pictures of the engine that was getting Pennzoil Ultra full synthetic :
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... 1&start=70
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... 1&start=84

and here is ecbsykes "oil story" :
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... &start=112

lexluther · Post by **lexluther** » 01 Apr 2011, 03:22

Mobile 1 is not pure synthetic and its very hard to tell which ones are you can go to bobstheoilguy.com The base stock of the mineral oil is so refined that they can be called synthetic although they are still mineral based. My understanding is that the extended range oils are pure synthetic in the mobile line due to factory warranty coverage and their extended drain intervals and also the diesel grades in the grey bottles not blue delo bottles. Blame Castrol they started it with the motorcycle oils and the rest followed and then crossed markets to auto's. If you like Castrol is probably because the rep it made with the green oil way back in the days. That refinery has since been bought by Brad Penn and you can still get the Green stuff. Again since the base stocks are so refined they call it semi-syn and its better than a lot of the synthetic as the zdpp additive pkg still retains those great additives. The other brands removed or rather slimmed the additive package claiming catalytic premature wear but more like its cheaper for them and meeting the EPA specs to keeps eyes off yes that means Redline also. The smaller refiners like Brad Penn and Swepco cater to a different market such as diesel fleet and racing and can get by the EPA mandates for their applications. I ran Brad Penn in my benz and it ran great never an issue up to 120k miles used swepco trans and diff oil. The Porsche race teams no longer use Redline or Mobile for the same reasons and run the Swepco all around for everything with oil in it. My v70 runs now on Rotello T6 5w-40 they also have a T5 semi-syn in 5w-30 and it has all the good stuff in it and can be found in 5qt jugs at walmart for $19 for T6 and $14.60 for T5. All the oil forums seem to be partial to the Rotello if you can use one of these 2 grades otherwise you have to pay attention to the specs for each grade and manufacture to distinguish whats in them.

Checksix · Post by **Checksix** » 03 Apr 2011, 11:24

LexLuther

Can you please give a link to the specific articles at Bobistheoilguy? I looked around there for about an hour and did not come accross this type of information. Pretty neat sight that I have yet to fully explore.

Jerry