0W-30 okay to use? Castrol "German Synthec"

parshisa

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"The bearings are instead cooled mostly by, first, heat conduction in the metal away from the surface, and then oil flow around the bearing. Which is not so sensitive to the viscosity of oil."

I'd expect much of the heat transfer from the turbo would be via the coolant loop through the unit. The coolant temp is likely lower than the oil temp and the coolant flow rate may be higher as well.

Don't know why one would use oil which isn't 0w-20. Are you more knowledgeable than the Honda folks about what's good for this engine?
Here we go again. Aren’t y’all tired of this yet?
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civicls

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Whatever you imagine, the engineering and physical truth is that the lubrication and cooling effectiveness in these engines doesn't depend much at all on the viscosity of oil over the common weight range of 20 -40. Honda recommendations are motivated by maintaining the advertised fuel economy depending on regulations in different countries.

Your cooling misconception is that you imagine that bearings are cooled by oil flowing through "small clearances." That flow-through is way too small even with the lightest oil to dissipate much heat out of a bearing. The bearings are instead cooled mostly by, first, heat conduction in the metal away from the surface, and then oil flow around the bearing. Which is not so sensitive to the viscosity of oil.

Your lubrication misconception is that you imagine that lubrication depends on oil flow through small clearances between surfaces. It doesn't. It depends on oil remaining there as a dynamic layer. Oil has to be supplied only as fast as it flows out. As it happens, low viscosity oil flows in faster than thicker oil, but it also flows out faster. So if the clearances are small, there is little dependence of lubrication quality on the viscosity over a wide range of viscosities, but a thicker oil always creates a bit thicker lubricating film. But if the clearances are large, thin oil will form much thinner films.
All this means is that you can't use too thin oil in a large clearance bearing, but small clearance bearings are very tolerant to oil viscosity over a wide range.

This is shown here:
http://www.substech.com/dokuwiki/do...y_on_hydrodynamic_friction_of_engine_bearings

In addition, because of friction, a small clearance bearing will tend to have a bit higher temperature with higher viscosity oil, and this temperature increase will work to reduce the viscosity of the lubricating oil layer inside the bearing, causing a reduction of its viscosity and friction. The effect is that the viscosity of the oil film itself doesn't change as much as you could expect. If you change the weight of the oil by a factor of 2 (20 to 40) the actual viscosity of bulk oil at 100 C will increase by less than a factor of 2. But the viscosity of the oil film inside those small clearances will increase even less than that, because the temperature of that film will be just a little hotter. You won't see it on your ECT or oil temperature gauge, since it causes only a very tiny increase of the bulk oil temperature.
Finally someone who knows their stuff!
 

absolude

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You're all "out of speK".

Ha!
 

civicls

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Well excuse me for recommending using the proper viscosity oil. What's IKR ? Probably something obvious that I ought to know, but I can't think of it and am curious.
:lol:
Oh boy, what world are you living in?
 


Gruber

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Are you more knowledgeable than the Honda folks about what's good for this engine?
No, I'm not. I'm somewhat knowledgeable about the difference between a purely engineering, or car enthusiast perspectives, and the car manufacturer perspective.

Honda folks are infinitely more knowledgeable than me on their engines.

The point you miss is that for Honda as a corporation, the longevity of their engines past 100, 150, 200, 250 miles is progressively less and less of a priority. Their only priority is to keep making good profit by selling cars today and for a "long time" into the future. Making car engines last for million miles is not the way to achieve this. Therefore, they have other considerations to balance with "what is good for the engine" such as fuel economy and long oil change intervals, which are more important. Yes, they sure are happy when they can publish information that some taxi driver in Sri Lanka has 400,000 miles on his Honda and it still rolls. But this is just some weird exotic stuff for "Honda folks," and they do not build cars with this goal in mind.

I believe every civicx engine can run to 100,000 miles with any oil*. If it's nicely driven and well taken care of I expect it will also easily reach 150,000 miles and some more without wearing out the engine. For a large majority of owners that's more than they need. They want a new car long before that time.

So if you don't have a hobby of making your car engine last for a ridiculously long time and/or mileage, and you don't race it, you are OK with any oil.* If this is the case, why not use the recommended 0W20 blend, which will also save you a couple percent on gas. In the end, the money spent on gasoline and fancy oils is all the same green dollars as those spent on new cars. Honda corporation understands this very well, and they understand CAFE and other regulations they need to comply with even better.


* "any oil" means any major brand modern oil between 0W20 and 10W40 that meets all the other Honda specifications. 0W16 would be OK too, but I would watch more closely for fuel dilution and change more often.
 

civicdabest-foo

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Where do you guys live? In Canada at least, a jug of brand name fully synthetic 0W20 from one brand name or another is usually on sale for half retail price. At a place called Canadian Tire, Castrol Edge 0W20 is being sold at half price. 6 months ago it was Quaker State.

If you're concerned about the cost of 0W20 oil, surely you can find a jug sold for half price somewhere. :D

Folks, there is really no reason to think about anything other than 0W20. Amazon Basic is selling 0W20 cans and I'd rather put that in my car than 0Wsomethingelse.
 


Lifesabeach

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European Civics can use 0w20, 5w30 or 0w30. Thats whats printed in my uk owners manual.
 

absolude

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my civic 2017 owner manual says use 0W20 or 5W30...I can't see why 0W30 would then be an issue.
European Civics can use 0w20, 5w30 or 0w30. Thats whats printed in my uk owners manual.
Off course you can use those and anything in between. So can we in North America, even if it's 0w20 only in the manual...
 

civicdabest-foo

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The transmissions and engines for these things are built all over and wind up in different markets and are assembled somewhere here/there.

The manual for the UK cars may say ok to use other than 0W20, but perhaps those are slightly different motors in UK/Thailand than in Canada/USA?? Maybe the engine/transmission combos that are put into cars assembled in North America use components that require 0W20?

Just being cynical :D
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