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Oil Oil Trouble Toil

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Post by 71_georgia_beetle Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:20 am

A short time back I purchased a case of Brad Penn 20W 50 Semi Synthetic oil. I used it for one oil change and sold the rest (just to make a buck and help a friend), not because I didn't like it. Other than being a little thicker when cold, I noticed no difference from your conventional motor oil. Keep in mind that this is from a user aspect not a chemist. I'm sure it's doing wonders in the engine. Very Happy My engine ran the same, idle the same, temp was a tad bit cooler but from a surface level, no difference. I have a few push rod seals leaking so that coupled with it's normal consumption, about every 4 fill ups I'd have to put in about half a quart of oil. This was about the same as when I was using conventional.

So, this time I found a deal on a Full Synthetic Maxcycle Royal Purple 20W 50. I did my standard and usual oil and filter change and only on my second fill up did I check the oil and it was a quart and a half low. The next fill up, half a quart again. I have not noticed any change in the amount found in the catch pan in the garage. I did however have someone at the last cruise tell me that I was smoking a bit.

My question: Could this be the new "Full" synthetic oil? Also, I am out of the Royal Purple and now I am filling it back up with conventional 20W 50. Is it OK to mix oils?
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Post by vwgirl Thu Feb 18, 2010 7:46 am

You were a quart and a half low on a stock aircooled engine? So you had less than half of the amount of oil that you were supposed to in there?

Synthetic will show you where you have leaks that you didn't know you had because of the molecular structure of the oil... Your engine oil may run a few degrees lower, but the head temps probably won't change... and your recommended oil change intervals also stay the same...

So really... it's like throwing away money... but anyhow... let the war of which oil is better begin...

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Post by vwtattooed Thu Feb 18, 2010 9:08 am

THIS IS A HEADS UP FOR ALL AIRCOOLED ENGINES...our engines use solid lifters in them, that is why we have to adjust our valves so often! the oil manufacturers in order to meet EPA standards have removed all zinc from conventional oil...this is wreaking havoc on solid lifter camshafts!! it causes the lobes to be wiped off the cam. if you are using conventional oil you should also be running an oil additive(zinc additive), this can be found at all the local parts stores. if you choose to switch to full synthetic you must keep in mind that these oils are designed to penetrate into metal and leave a coating that protects. aircooled engines are made of aluminum and magnesium, two very porous metals...i have actually seen these engines "sweat" out a full synthetic at operating temps.
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Post by Damn-it Don Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:02 pm

Wow! Thanks for that insight. I didn't know the 'whys', but everyone I know who has run synthetic in their ac engine had it coming out eveywhere! (Sweating like stated above) I got to see it in person once, about a week after synthetic was put in. Ditto on the zinc too. I heard from Steve at ProFlow that the Lucas oil additive is good to use. That's currently what I'm running (when she runs)
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Post by bumblebuggy Thu Feb 18, 2010 10:54 pm

No synthetic oil in Air cooled VWs for all of the reasons above and you're supposed to be changing the oil (in a non filtered engine) every 1500 miles or so. That will get expensive real quick running syn.
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Post by Grifspop Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:01 pm

You can change the oil in a Beetle? I thought you just topped it up from time to time. lol!
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Post by vwgirl Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:09 am

Never heard of it sweating out. That certainly didn't happen in mine...

Funny thing is, if it is so bad for aircooled engines, someone should notify Porsche and harley Davidson as both recommend full synthetic in their aircooled engines.

The real problem with synthetics is the same problem with Dino oil. New environmental regulations require less of the additives that are good for our engines. I know zinc is being removed, I believe phosphorous is the other, and they are being replaced by boron which just doesn't do the same thing.

It is kind of like removing the lead from gasoline... and adding ethanol. These things are not better for our cars, just the environment

So really, no matter what oil you Put in your acvw, make sure you put the additives back in.

Oils are not created equal. Let's stop repeating things we hear about synthetics seaping out of the case unless we include some reasearch behind it. It didn't happen to mine in the year and 60k I drove it. I'm sure it isn't the reason Porsche and Harley recommend it either. When did it even happen? You realize petroleum products are constantly changing right?

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Post by vwgirl Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:28 am

After reading soooo many of these threads, reading the manufacturers recommendations, the oil companies statements, my own personal experience and the experience of others, I think that someone just needs to send this in to mythbusters. Then we would know once and for all how today's oil (not tomorrow's or yesterday's) works in our engines.

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Post by Hobug Fri Feb 19, 2010 11:17 am

I know Scott has posted this link before, but this is the best info available about the best oil for our air-cooled cars.
http://www.lnengineering.com/oil.html
Charles and Jake did their testing in real world conditions not in a lab.

Brad Penn is the oil my VWs get.
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Post by Damn-it Don Fri Feb 19, 2010 11:31 am

I agree that all this info does get mind-numbing. But here's what I have read and witnessed.

I have never run partial or full synthetic in my VW, but I do in my chevy truck without troubles. I have had three friends try it and two had leaks 'all over the place' they said. When they switched back, the leaking at least improved a lot, or stopped completely.
The third was a newbe- and he had a non leaking engine when we first met. I saw him a few weeks later (a few days after an oil change to synth.) and he was leaking oil, slinging it all over the engine compartment.

The other side of the coin-
HVW's magazine did some testing a few months ago in an article, and one oil was a synthetic.....they never said a word about leakage.

scratch study confused study scratch confused study scratch confused

I'm going to stick with my engine builders recommendation- Zinc, and Lucas additive. (I'm using a Castrol 'Racing" blend that has zinc, and throwing in the recommended amount of Lucas)
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Post by 71_georgia_beetle Fri Feb 19, 2010 12:20 pm

Hobug wrote:I know Scott has posted this link before, but this is the best info available about the best oil for our air-cooled cars.
http://www.lnengineering.com/oil.html
Charles and Jake did their testing in real world conditions not in a lab.

Brad Penn is the oil my VWs get.
Agreed. Jon and I sat through the same oil class and Brad Penn is my usual brand. I just found a better deal on the RP. I'll be changing back to the Penn.
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Post by vwtattooed Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:33 pm

well i am sure since you are so knowledgeable about Harley Davidson and Porsche...you already know that they use ALL aluminum cases in their engines, unlike VW which has a very high content of magnesium and is more porous.VW switched to all aluminum cases in the later years as well. i never said i was an expert but like Don i am speaking from personal experience and instances i have seen personally with others engines.
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Post by vwgirl Sat Feb 20, 2010 8:40 am

and I am sure since you know so much about the makeup of VW engines then you know that they are still mostly aluminum... I looked it up one day (it's been a few years, I must have been bored, if you bother to look it up you should post it cause it is a cool read)... was extremely hard to find the composition of VW's alloy for the engine block casting... but it was very interesting... and yes, it did significantly decrease over the years... To almost nothing...

BTW Porsche does still use magnesium in their engine blocks (i am sure that you know exactly which engine codes are all aluminum though, I am talking about the other ones)... BMW too... and other manufacturers are also looking at switching to it (or back to it). It is still quite common in the drivetrain in other areas like the transmission. Wheels, body parts and chassis too while we are at it...

Also... after rereading about your "sweating" incident... I was reminded that my sedan sweated dino oil when it got up to highway speeds... granted, the block was cracked and you couldn't see the crack because it only opened up after driving on the highway for a good 20 min... but it did happen... with dino oil... and it took 3 shops 3 months to figure out where it was leaking from. I still have that case... you still can't see the crack, but after the case was replace I put full synthetic in an AS41 case and it didn't leak a drop for the next few months... til the rubber o-ring under the alternator stand went bad and started leaking anyway... but switching back to dino oil (because of budget and my car running too hot) didn't help any.

So which engine codes sweat which brand, weight and composition (year) synthetic oil so we will know not to use those together.

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Post by Grifspop Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:00 am

From what I understand, a small leak with dino oil will often collect dirt and will mostly stop leaking, but running synthetic will wash out the dirt that seals it and begin leaking like crazy. The early oil cans would leak holding synthetics (like Mobil 1), and synthetics were put in oil bottles, which are common now.
Harley used to advise against synthetics, but then came out with their own synthetic (Syn 3) which is safe to use in the crankcase, primary, and transmission. I've got a lot of friends that run synthetics in their Harleys, and I run Syn 3 in mine.
I know that Jake experimented with ceramic lifters, until the manufacturer went out of business.

Just my 2 cents worth.
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Post by vwtattooed Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:01 am

TOUCHE' vw girl. as i said i DONT know everything and am only speaking from personal experiences. thank you for your insight on this matter. now that being said...everyone run whatever oil you want to run and create your own experiences!!!
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Post by bumblebuggy Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:34 pm

All I know is for 10+ years I've been running Castrol GTX 20-50 dino oil in two different engines. One engine had 100+ thousand miles on the rebuilt longblock (including 2+ years hard driving around Y2K delivering pizzas). It was still running when I pulled it out of my bug because the clutch started slipping.

The GEX engine I got with the Jolly Rancher was running fine except the pulley was slinging oil when I stopped running it a few weeks ago (in all fairness I think the heads were were going to give out shortly). That engine had untold ammount of miles on it before I got it and at least 60K since I got my bus back on the road. The pulley wasn't the culprit. It appears that GEX (or whoever rebuilt it last) decided it was a good idea to weld the key to the end of the crank and that caused the pulley (out of center) to wear grooves into the case which, I suspect, was was the cause of the leak. Still, since I bought The Jolly Rancher for $250 bucks, I think I got my moneys worth.

IMO it's more imortant to drive and maintain your VW regularly (oil changes and valve adjustments) than which oil you run in your engine. That and the chapter in the idiot book that covers how to drive your VW.
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Post by vwgirl Sun Feb 21, 2010 8:54 am

bumblebuggy wrote:All I know is for 10+ years I've been running Castrol GTX 20-50 dino oil in two different engines. One engine had 100+ thousand miles on the rebuilt longblock (including 2+ years hard driving around Y2K delivering pizzas). It was still running when I pulled it out of my bug because the clutch started slipping.

The GEX engine I got with the Jolly Rancher was running fine except the pulley was slinging oil when I stopped running it a few weeks ago (in all fairness I think the heads were were going to give out shortly). That engine had untold ammount of miles on it before I got it and at least 60K since I got my bus back on the road. The pulley wasn't the culprit. It appears that GEX (or whoever rebuilt it last) decided it was a good idea to weld the key to the end of the crank and that caused the pulley (out of center) to wear grooves into the case which, I suspect, was was the cause of the leak. Still, since I bought The Jolly Rancher for $250 bucks, I think I got my moneys worth.

IMO it's more imortant to drive and maintain your VW regularly (oil changes and valve adjustments) than which oil you run in your engine. That and the chapter in the idiot book that covers how to drive your VW.

I am amazed when I hear the few stories about GEX engines that actually work... yours makes two that work out of the hundreds of stories I have heard about ones that had problems from day one... I would suspect that it was GEX, not a PO who messed up the pully.

My 78 westy, 160k+ miles, never been split... always run on dino oil

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Post by Georgia Cracker Sun Apr 04, 2010 3:26 pm

Valvoline VR-1 20W50 has ZDDP (zinc) added. This is my oil of choice for all my classic cars. It may not be good for catalytic converters, this is why zinc was removed from the oil. But for all flat tappet cars it is the oil of choice. Unless you want to pay extra for zinc additive. And this could get expensive with 1500 mile oil changes.
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Post by Bugman114 Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:32 pm

thats the oil i use in my dubs. Very Happy
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Post by buggin70 Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:36 pm

Bugman114 wrote:thats the oil i use in my dubs. Very Happy

i use vr1 also
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