oil question '95 850 N/A auto

meteg · Post by **meteg** » 23 Jan 2012, 15:45

I own the volvo '95 850 N/A and I had to replace the engine block due to low compression problems and it was costing lower rather than repairing it.. it has been 15k miles since the engine block replacement and we used full synthetic oil 5-40 castrol until now.. should I continue to use the full synthetic oil when I do the oil change or should use semi synthetic oil like 10-40?

I would like to know which is better and preferred by the forum.. I want to keep the new block running for a long time..

thanks

Post by **misha** » 23 Jan 2012, 17:11

It's really up to you.Both of them are great oils.If you live in moderate or mediteranian climate area i suggest 10w-40,because in those areas the winters are not that cold.

5w-40 is for ambient temperatures from -30 to +40 Celsius.
10w-40 -------------------------------------- -20 to +40 -------- .

Check this Volvo oil viscosity recommendation:

: Volvo oil viscosity recomendation.jpg (17.36 KiB) Viewed 2211 times

Direct recommendation from Castrol,Mobil,Liqui Moly...etc,for these cars is usually 10w-40,but as you could see,it depends of ambient temperatures.

Recommendation from Haynes manual is 10w-40(winter or all year round) to 15w-50(summer time).

Personally,i use 10w-40 all year round and sometimes 15w-50 in the summer,but i live in moderate climate.Car is near 300k km and it runs like new.

Post by **rspi** » 23 Jan 2012, 17:20

Full synthetic.

http://volvoforums.com/forum/general-vo ... use-59853/

Roadrunner · Post by **Roadrunner** » 23 Jan 2012, 17:22

If your new block is past the break in phase then yes switch to any real full synthetic oil. Like Amsoil, Mobel 1 or royal purple.
Most of the other so call full synthetic oil are not true full synthetic oil but a blended synthetic. You can read about oil in the Oilbible.com or something like that listing. It has a court paper from Mobel 1 sueing Castrol over its Syntec prodict for not being a true synthetic oil.

Post by **FlyingVolvo** » 23 Jan 2012, 17:25

Non turbo? Go ahead and use a high quality regular oil. Most of today's best dino oils can easily go 7,500 miles with no problems, depending on your driving conditions and style of course.

You can use full synthetic as well, but if you do anything less than 6-7 thousand easy mile changes, you're just wasting money.

Also, you should probably just ignore the arguments over what is a "true" synthetic oil. Mobil 1, Pennzoil, Castrol all are extremely good products. People who get crazy about this stuff argue they aren't "true full synthetics" because they use a part non-synthetic base oil. But it's almost completely irrelevant now, as the technology these days is incredible. Use any of that stuff with FULL confidence.

meteg · Post by **meteg** » 24 Jan 2012, 03:20

maybe I did a mistake.. I have used the full synthetic since the engine block is installed.. I didnt use mineral oil in the break in period.. I hope it didnt cause any damage.. I was only having doubt that full synthetic oil could be too thin for a normally aspirated engine.. however the engine performs and sounds perfect... especially the videos were really good and it was well explained...

thanks for all the replies.. it's been very helpful and appreciated..

Post by **misha** » 26 Jan 2012, 19:40

You couldn't made a mistake by any chance.

Fully synthetic oils are much,much better than mineral oils.They provide much better protection to engine than mineral oils.

If you used fully synth,i guess that you didn't used anything thinner than 0w-40 or 5w-40 for your climate conditions.

0w-30 or 5w-30 are preety thin for n/a engines in these cars,especially in the summer(see the table from previous post).

Post by **cn90** » 01 Apr 2013, 08:03

misha wrote:It's really up to you.Both of them are great oils.If you live in moderate or mediteranian climate area i suggest 10w-40,because in those areas the winters are not that cold.

Check this Volvo oil viscosity recommendation:
Volvo oil viscosity recomendation.jpg
... sometimes 15w-50 in the summer,but i live in moderate climate.Car is near 300k km and it runs like new.

"misha" is right though. Although the Volvo owners manual stops at 10W40, Haynes manual says you can go up to 15W50.

Anyway, I just changed the oil using Mahle Oil Filter and Mobil 1 synthetic 15W50 just for the summer. In the winter I use synthetic 5W30.
For high-mileage vehicles (mine has 150K miles), thicker oil such as 15W50 is often used.
Car "seems" happy LOL.
I will report back from time to time.

PS: I have used 15W50 and 20W50 in my high-mileage BMWs in the past, zero problems.

Post by **jblackburn** » 01 Apr 2013, 08:15

Omg, 15/20W50 in a modern engine? What are you doing?!

Post by **cn90** » 01 Apr 2013, 08:24

LOL, it is no longer modern engine, it is 15 years old with 150K miles.
At that mileage, the rings, valve seals, crank bearings get a little worn, so the thicker oil "may" be better, especially for my turbo engine.

Data straight from Mobil website:

: oil.JPG (162.33 KiB) Viewed 1766 times