Valvoline Motor oil

[KICK]

MikePa, Harley was good for it..not that they have much to do with tractors but selling your own oil is a form of marketing and profit intensification.

not unlike the old "keep your GM car all GM" sticker that used to be under the hood.

Harley was telling you the only oil rated and approved for use in their air cooled engine was genuine harley oil with the 360 rating and you should only use oil with this rating. they didn't quite come out and say you would void your warranty because you didn't use their oil, due to the constraints of the Moss-magnuson act but they sure implied it. And plenty of people bought into it. My buddy still does, he pays 5 bucks a quart for Dino oil from the dealer. I buy Mobil 1 for the same price.

no other oil manufacturer knew what the 360 rating entailed nor was Harley telling.

harley used to tell you to stay away from synthetics, that is until they came out with their own version.

when we first started buying Cummins engines at my job, they insisted we use Premium Blue.

the tractor guys may not be as over the top as I said , but don't think for a moment that they don't like somebody to come in their and buy that overpriced genuine JD, NH, Cat, Kubota or whatever oil compared to Rotella or Delo. they mark it up and its a big profit for them.

Marketing.

 

[MossRoad]

I could see going down 5 points from 10W to 5W. I would think it would just be a bit easier flowing on cold startups and would thicken up as it got hotter. However, why would an engine manufacturer spec 30 if they didn't mean it? Does their literature say to use 40W? Most of my engines secify straight 30W for normal summer temps, or 5W30 for winter, or even 20W for extreme cold. But none of them spec 40W for my summer temps. I would think you would only want to use that at extremely high temps. But even then, your engine cooling system should keep the engine at the proper operating temp and the thick oil would not flow as easily as the thinner 30W.

So, I guess my question now is, if an engine is spec'd at 30W for normal operating temps, will 40W hurt it at those same temps?

 

[jayhaitch]

Excellent question. The answer is maybe but probably not.

To get a multigrade oil, you need to go against nature. The hotter a liquid is, the thinner it is, and vice versa. How do you make an oil get thicker when it's hotter? Viscosity index improvers (VI). These are molecules that change shape at different temperatures. When hot, they "grab" onto the oil molecules and make the whole muligan stew thicker than it wants to be naturally. However, the more VI improvers in the oil, the less lubricating oil is present. Plus VI improvers degrade rather quickly. That's why you don't see too many dino 10w40 oils anymore. They "shear back" to 10w30 rather quickly, and have less lubricity than 10w30. Group IV PAO fully synthetic oils have more natural VI properties, and need far less VII's. Amoil's diesel 10w30 is rated as a straight 30 weight AND 10w30, because it meets the specs for both simply by it's formulation.

A large amount of engine wear occurs on startup. So a slightly thicker oil at hot temps shouldn't cause significantly more wear. A thicker oil taking longer to get up to flowing pressures to lubricate bearings/cams etc will definitely cause more wear. I used 20w50 Castrol dino oil in my 86 911 Carrera last summer. The owners manual allows its use. But, it was noticeably longer on startup before the oil pressure gauge showed good pressure than with Amsoil 10w40 I used the year before. I changed back to Amsoil 10w40 last fall, much quicker oil pressure rise again. No more 20w50 for me, at least in this climate. Maybe in Yuma, AZ it would be ok. Almost moved there some years ago.

 

[KICK]

So, I guess my question now is, if an engine is spec'd at 30W for normal operating temps, will 40W hurt it at those same temps?

IMHO, the answer would be NO.

but that is just an opinion based on experience, without any technical specifications or lab test results to back it up.

lot of auto manufacturers are specing 5W20 oil in their engines nowadays... but do you think using 5W30 will hurt.???

the auto mans do that kind of thing for fuel economy reasons, tractor man probably has other reasons for specing 10W30. figuring a tractor doesn't run as hard, it might sit for long periods and endure more cold starts than a heavy duty truck etc may combine to make that weight oil their choice.

diesel truck engine mans seem to universally spec out 15W40. Old days it was Sae 30 or 40 for same application. do these large Diesel mans ever spec 10W30?? yes, for cold climates where cold starting is a problem.

my NH skid steer loader has specced 10W30 as the oil of choice, I use 15-40 due to availability and price, Am I worried about it??? NO. it wont hurt a thing.

people forget that manufacturers are telling you what to use is a recommendation, its not set in stone like the ten commandments.

 

[DieselPower]

Actually they spec 10W30 in a lot of the new 2007 engines in OTR trucks/tractors. Caterpillar is a good example. In my climate here at the MD/PA border, going by the manual for a C7 10W/30 is the "prefered" viscosity. However, most of my customers are still using 15W/40. It's a hard old rule of thumb to break, that being that the newer thin viscosity oils will work and still offer protection. There have been numerous real world test done over the years showing that the modern lower visosity oils can perform as well as their older counterparts. In the auto world the 5W/20 is a good example. A cab company in Nevada did a test on 5W/20 in their cabs that call for 5W/30. Half of their fleet was switched to 5W/20 while the other half was run on 5W/30. After one year a couple of each batch of cabs were pulled from service and had their engines pulled apart. There was no noticeable wear differences between the two.

An easy rule of thumb for diesel engine oil when 10W/30 or 15W/40 are both listed is if you run the heck out of your equipment and it sees hot temperatures use the 15W/40. If it only sees mild use and in colder temps use the 10W/30.

 

[Matt_W]

Just to ask... the book calls for 10W-30. What is the reason you want to switch to 15W40? Just curious.

Kick is right, Easier to find. My thinking was that if Valvoline is Kubota branded oil then that is how I made my brand choice. But I did not see any Valvoline 10w-30 oil that was rated for diesel and 15w-40 was. So that is what raised my question.
I really have never started the tractor below 20 degree, I consider our winters mild summers 80-90 degree and humid.

 

[AlanB]

No.

I just don't see the people who write the manuals sitting around with the marketing people trying to figure out how to write the manual so they sell more oil. You give them far more credit for coordination than they deserve, or what's possible, in a large corporation.

Anyone who'd be 'tricked' into buying from a mfgr or a specialty oil seller is an order of french fries short of a happy meal.

Actually Mike, I am with Kick on this one.

I think this is a way for a manufacturer to get around the Mangusun Moss act, depending on who you are speaking with, it either insures the quality of a product used in their product, OR, it raises their revenue by selling more of the service Products.

They cannot force you to use their oil, but if only their oil meets the spec called out, and you choose not to use their oil, then they have an "out" for warranty.

Polaris does it as well.

 

[MikePA]

...then they have an "out" for warranty.

No, they don't. They still have to prove that using, in this case, 10w40 oil caused the failure.

 

[Marcussen]

My manual says:

Above 25ºC (77ºF) use SAE 30, SAE 10W-30, or 10W-40
0ºC to 25ºC (32º to 77ºF) use SAE 20, 10W-30, or 10W-40
Below 0ºC (32ºF) use SAE 10, SAE 10W-30, or 10W-40

That being said my dealer uses 15W-40 in all the tractors they service.

I have used the 10W-30 oil, but I am switching to 5W-40 synthetic at 100 hours.
My crystal ball is not good enough to predict what the temperatures ar going to be before my next oil change so I don't use straight weight oils in any vehicle or tractor.

 

[AlanB]

No, they don't. They still have to prove that using, in this case, 10w40 oil caused the failure.

I guess we will just disagree then. Guess that is why there are courts, to settle things like this when there is money or value at stake.

My belief is that if they specify what to do, and you fail to do it, then YOU have voided the warranty.

For anyone interested, the businessmans guide is here.

A Businessperson's Guide to Federal Warranty Law

Added in on edit, most folks I doubt care enough to go through the document, but cut from the "tie in" section of the aforementioned document.

While you cannot use a tie-in sales provision, your warranty need not cover use of replacement parts, repairs, or maintenance that is inappropriate for your product. The following is an example of a permissible provision that excludes coverage of such things.

While necessary maintenance or repairs on your AudioMundo Stereo System can be performed by any company, we recommend that you use only authorized AudioMundo dealers. Improper or incorrectly performed maintenance or repair voids this warranty.

To me (and as I said earlier that would be something that would end up in a court if money or value was involved) but to me, that pretty clearly states, you use something other then what we told you and you are without warranty.