What Oil To Use?

[Gabrielpr12]

I have a 1989 318i with little over 110k miles, what oil do you recomend me to use on my car?

[alanh]

20-50

[FastSeb]

Hi gabriel !

The best oil would be a 05-50 like mobil one or Esso Ultron, there is no better oil for your car ! a 20-50 would have been enough for somebody living in california but in belgium ( ) were temperatures can go way below zero in winter, a 05-50 is surely needed in order to keep the engine going for many more years.

just keep in mind that once you have changed your oil for that kind of synthetic "super"oil, you must stick with synthetic oil for the future, coming back to mineral cheap oil would be bad for the engine.

Take it easy man !

Seb.

ps : i am from belgium too ! close to Nivelles (Nijvel).

[alanh]

yeah my bad i do live in california, do what he said but if you haven't switched to syn..dont

[FastSeb]

hey Gab' !

I am not a scientist in oil development but I believe they use synthetic oil for rally cars and other competition cars, ,this is probably the because synthetic product offers a better protection in extreme conditions.
I still am pretty sure a synth' 05-50 is better than any mineral oil anyway !

Seb.

[jze325i]

Here is a good link for you to check... good info..

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/oil_viscosity.html

[85-325e]

why would it be a bad idea to switch to synthetic? What advantages and disadvantage come from synthetic motor oil?

[CiscoKid]

it may begin to leak. It will probablly leak out of the valve cover gasket, which isn't that hard to fix, or it may leak in other places that may be trouble.

What is the temp. that the car will be operating in?

[Gabrielpr12]

It will be operating at 30 degrees half the year and the other half will be around 60 degrees.