Oil Weight Recommendation after GM engine recall (2 Viewers)

[Bret_T]

Frankly, if you do mostly gentle highway driving, then whatever cheapest generic synthetic API SP 0w20 oil will be perfectly fine - probably for hundreds of thousands of miles.

I do highly recommend shorter oil change intervals though - 10k miles is simply too long unless you buy expensive boutique oils and pay for oil analysis every time (at which point it's the same cost as two 5k oil changes with cheaper oil).

This is spot on and exactly what I do.

 

[Cajun Heat]

As a rule for changing oils to a different blend, you can lower the first numbers and go up on the second. Not the other way around.

Check this video out and jump to 9:10 for an explanation.

 

[cmfhsu]

And for anybody worried about main bearing failures, there are at least a few people I've seen with 100k+ miles on their recalled 3rd gen Tundras running 0w20 oil - one of which even claimed to do 10k mile oil changes. Universally, though, they tend to be pure low stress highway cruisers.

 

[cmfhsu]

As a rule for changing oils to a different blend, you can lower the first numbers and go up on the second. Not the other way around.

Check this video out and jump to 9:10 for an explanation.

Maybe with a more specific caveat - you can go up or down in the xWyy oil viscosity rating all you want and still have a reliable engine - but only if you know why your application would benefit from it or need it. As evidence, BMW back-rated all of their engines that used to run 10W60 and xW40 to universally use 5W30 instead (though I wouldn't recommend it for the 10w60 engines).

As a general, safe recommendation without having much data, I can recommend 0W20, 0W30, and 5W30 weight API SP oil for people in climates that fall down to 0F / -20C. If your temperatures regularly fall below that and you don't tow, then I recommend 0W20 year-round. If your temperatures never fall below freezing AND you tow all the time, then I recommend 0W30 or 5W30 (and honestly - even 10W30, if that even exists, would be fine).

I can't confidently recommend xW40 oils as broad guidance without a few oil analyses as evidence, but I'm sure somebody who tows through the UAE could run that with very little penalty. I also highly recommend against 0w16 or 0w8 oils, especially as oil pressure already dips down to like 7-8psi at hot idle with 0w20.