More and more oil companies are coming out with "high mileage" oils, some

recommended for engines with as few as 75,000 miles on them. So what is a "high
mileage" oil? Very generally speaking, these oils have two additives in them that are
more suited to older engines. The first is normally a burnoff-inhibitor which helps prevent
the oil from burning off if it gets past an engine seal into the combustion chamber. The
second is a "seal conditioner", the exact makeup of which can vary, but it's designed to
soak into seals such as head- and rocker-cover gaskets and force them to expand.
Thus if one of the seals is a bit leaky, the seal conditioner will attempt to minimise the
leak.
A few readers who have experience with high mileage oils have e-mailed, passing on
various tales from it being the miracle cure to it making no difference at all. The general
rule-of-thumb though should be "if it 'aint broke, don't fix it." Just because an engine has
over 75,000 miles on it, doesn't automatically mean it needs a high mileage oil. Is the
exhaust sooty or smokey? Are there noticeable oil leaks? Is the engine consuming oil?
If the engine is working fine, the exhaust is clean and there's no noticeable problems,
chances are it doesn't need high-mileage oil.

WHAT ABOUT OWN-BRANDS?

The big names in oil can be expensive - a cheaper option can be own-brand oils. These
are usually badged oils from one of the larger companies but sold without the name,
making them cheaper. Check the standards and grade ratings on the pack first! The
example on the left is a local store in Chelmsford in England who sell their own label oil
which is bottled for them by a volume retailer. The label tells you all you need to know.

VISCOSITY AND VISCOSITY INDEX (VI).

The proper viscosity is the single most important criteria of a lubricating oil. The basic
performance of machinery is based on the viscosity of the lubricant. Viscosity is the
resistance to the flowability of the oil. The thicker an oil, the higher its viscosity. The
chart on the right shows a rough guide to ambient temperatures vs oil viscosity
performance in both multigrade (top half) and single grade (lower half) oils.
Multigrade oils work by having a polymer added to a light base oil that prevents the oil
from thinning too much as it warms up. At low temperatures, the polymers are coiled up
and allow the oil to flow as it's low number (W number) indicates. As the oil heats up,
the polymers unwind into long chains which prevent the oil from thinning as much as it
normally would. The result is that at 100C, the oil has thinned only as much as its
higher rating. Think of it like this: a 10W30 oil is a 10-weight oil that will not thin more
than

30-weight

oil

when

it

gets

hot.

The viscosity index of a lubricant is an empirical formula that allows the change in
viscosity in the presence of heat to be calculated. This tells the user how much the oil
will thin when it is subjected to heat. The higher the viscosity index, the less an oil will
thin at a specified temperature. Multi-viscosity motor oils will have a viscosity index well
over 100, while single viscosity motor oils and most industrial oils will have a VI of about
100 or less.
Viscosity and oil weight numbers is quite a nauseatingly detailed topic. So if you're
curious about why a 15W50 oil is so-called, then put on the geek shield and pop over to
the Viscosity Page.....

SERVICING AND CHECKING

For God's sake don't skimp on either of these. You can never check your engine oil too
often. Use the dipstick - that's what it's there for - and don't run below the 'min' mark.

Below that, there isn't enough oil for the pump to be able to supply the top of the engine
whilst keeping a reserve in the sump. All oils, no matter what their type, are made of
long-chained molecules that get sheared into shorter chains in a running engine. This in
turn means that the oil begins to lose its viscosity over time, and it uses up the additives
that prevent scuffing between cams and followers, rings and cylinder walls etc etc.
When this happens, fresh oil is the key. Don't worry about the engine oil turning black. It
will lose its golden-brown colour within a few hundred miles of being put in to the
engine. That doesn't mean it's not working. Quite the contrary - it means it is working
well. It changes colour as it traps oxidised oil, clots and the flakes of metal that pop off
heavily loaded engine parts. Just don't leave it too long between oil changes.

SO HOW OFTEN SHOULD I CHANGE MY OIL?

You can never change your engine oil too frequently. The more you do it, the longer the
engine will last. The whole debate about exactly when to change the oil is somewhat of
a grey area. Manufacturers typically indicate every 10,000 miles or so. Your mate with a
classic car says every 3,000 miles. Ole' Bob with the bad breath who drives a truck says
he's never once changed the oil in his ve-hicle. Fact is, large quantities of water are
produced by the normal combustion process and, depending on engine wear, some of it
gets into the crank case. A good crank case breathing system ensures the water gets
removed from there PDFQ, but even so, in cold weather a lot of condensation will take
place. This is bad enough in itself, since water is not noted for its lubrication qualities in
an engine, but even worse, that water dissolves any nitrates formed during the
combustion process. If our memory of chemistry serves us right, that leaves a mixture of
Nitric (HNO3) and Nitrous (HNO2) acid circulating round the engine! So not only does it
suffer a high rate of wear at start-up and when the engine is cold, it suffers a high rate of
subsequent

corrosion

during

normal

running

or

even

when

stationary.

The point we're trying to make is that the optimum time for changing oil ought to be
related to a number of factors, of which distance travelled is probably one of the least
important in most cases. Here is my selection in rough order of importance:

Number of cold starts (more condensation in a cold engine)

Ambient temperature (how long before warm enough to stop serious

condensation)

Effectiveness of crank case scavenging (more of that anon)

State of wear of the engine (piston blow-by multiplies the problem)

Accuracy of carburation during warm-up period (extra gook produced)

Distance travelled (well, lets get that one out of the way)

If very clever (or obsessive) owner could probably come up with a really clever formula
incorporating all those factors. However, we would give 1, 2, and 3 equal top weighting.
Items 1 to 3 have to be taken together since a given number of "cold" starts in the Dakar
in summer is not the same as an equal number conducted in Fargo in January. The
effect in either case will be modified by how much gas gets past the pistons. What we
are really after is the severity and duration of the initial condensation period. All other
things being equal, that will indicate how much condensate will be produced and we
would suggest that more than anything else determines when the oil should be dumped.

DAMMIT - GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!

Hang on a moment - if you really want the answer, there's a couple more factors that
need to taken into account: Crank-case scavenging (that's the clever term for sucking
the nasty fumes back out of the crank-case) - or lack of it - is a crucial multiplying factor
affecting all the other items listed above. As an example, the worst we've heard of was a
Ford Fiesta of the mid 70s or so. Its crank-case fume extraction was via a tiny orifice
directly into the inlet manifold which obviously could not handle any significant volume
of crank-case fumes without upsetting the carburation. The car in question had been
used almost exclusively for 5 mile journeys to/from work, shopping etc, and it had

always been serviced "by the book".

Despite (or because

of) this, the engine was totally buggered at 40,000 miles. Alternatively its possible to find
a car that by virtue of excellent crank case fume scavenging could tolerate many more
cold starts than one without.
Taking all these into consideration, our philosophy would be to totally ignore the
distance and change the oil twice a year - about November and March. Move these
dates a bit according to the severity of the winter. An average family car will do around
14,000 miles per year and about 2/3 of that will fall in the March - November period. At
the end of that period, the car will be getting close to the manufacturer-recommended oil
change interval - but all that distance will have been done at reasonable temperatures,
including long distance runs during vacations and good weather. During the November
to March period it may accumulate only two or three thousand miles, all low temperature
starts

and

mostly

short

runs.

Around 1995, an article in the ANWB journal (ANWB is the Dutch equivalent of the AA or the AAA in the American case) reached more or less the same conclusion that
distance was not very important. In their case they applied this to their road service
fleet, which once started in the morning never got cold. In effect, they hardly ever
changed the oil. It worked out at something like 30,000 miles between oil changes. They
also had some kind of water or acid indicator attached to the end of the dipstick and
went by that rather than distance.

THAT'S A POLITICIAN'S ANSWER - TALK

ABOUT DODGING THE ENTIRE ISSUE!

Dodging the issue? We don't know how far a car is driven in a year, where it lives, the
driving style of the owner, and many other things, so we can't tell what's right for any
particular car. This author changed the oil and filter in his 1985 Audi Coupe every 5,000
miles. It had done over 150,000 miles when it was finally sold, wasn't leaking and didn't
consume any oil. My Subarus got oil changes at 10,000 miles but were newer cars in a
warmer environment. My VWs got oil changes at 8000 miles or so. If you must have a
figure, then 8,000 is it.

MAINTENANCE MINDERS - WHEN THE CAR

TELLS YOU WHEN TO CHANGE THE OIL

A lot of cars now come with maintenance minders - inbuilt systems designed to tell the
driver when to change the oil rather than leaving it to guesswork. First generation
systems were nothing more than mileage counters. When the car reached an interval of
3000 miles, the light came on. Now they're more involved. The system typically monitors
driving style (in terms of how long is the throttle open for any given duration of driving),
air intake and external temperatures, coolant temperatures and variations and engine
timing (determined by load on the engine and octane of fuel). There's a clever formula
that each manufacturer keeps to themselves that can take in any or all of these factors
(and probably more) to determine how fast an average oil will be ageing in the engine.
When it gets to the point where the system decides that time is up, a light will come on
on the dash - typically "Maint Reqd" or "Service Reqd" (Note - this is NOT the "check
engine" light). On some cars the various trip computer settings can be cycled through to
see an oil life remaining readout - normally given as a percentage. This is a
convenience function so the driver can tell at any point in time roughly how much longer
to before an oil change. That's useful for planning road trips - don't go on a 2000km trip
if the oil life remaining indicator shows 10%. On cars with these systems, I would defer
to the onboard computer rather than trying to work it out for yourself. When the system
tells you to change the oil, just do it. I've found that my 8,000 mile guesstimate above is
pretty close to when the maintenance minder in my cars has indicated an oil change
was due.

WHAT ELSE HAPPENS WHEN THE OIL IS

CHANGED THEN?
Engines pump about 10,000 litres of air for every litre of fuel consumed, and along with
all that air, they suck in plenty of dirt and grit. A good air filter will stop everything bigger

than a micron in diameter - everything smaller mostly just floats around harmlessly in
the 0.001 inch minimum thickness oil films that separate all the moving parts. Despite all
of this, there will always be submicron particles that get in and there will be places in the
engines oilways where they will gather. Every time the oil is emptied from the sump, the
fine grit is being drained with it.

CHECKING THE ENGINE OIL, AND TOPPING

UP.

Note that this section only applies to wet sump engines - the type found in most
consumer vehicles. For more info on sump types, see Wet sumps vs. dry sumps below.
To a lot of people, this little section could be categorised by the rearranging the words
"granny eggs teaching suck your to". But it is surprising the number of people that don't
know how to do even this basic task. When checking the level of oil in the engine, the
car should be on a level surface, and should be relatively cold. Some people will insist
in keeping the crankcase topped off completely, and they invariably check the dipstick
just after shutting down the engine. Checking the oil this way results in an erroneous
reading because a quantity of oil (usually about half a litre) is still confined in the oilways
and passages (galleries) of the engine, and takes some time to drain back into the
crankcase. (On the image, the blue areas are where oil is likely to still be running back
down to the sump). On seeing what appears to be an abnormally low level on the
dipstick, these people then add more oil to the oil filler at the top of the engine. The
oilways and passages all empty, and suddenly the engine becomes over-filled with oil,
going way above the 'MAX' mark on the dipstick.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN ENGINE IS OVERFILLED WITH OIL?

So the engine was topped up when it was warm, after getting a faulty dipstick reading,
or it had too much oil put in during an oil change. What's the worst that could happen?

The problem with this is that the next time the engine is run, the windage in the
crankcase and other pressures generated by the oil pump, etc. place a great strain on
the

seal

on

the

rear

main

bearing.

Eventually, often much sooner than the ordinary man in the street might expect, the rear
main bearing seal ruptures, and the engine becomes a 'leaker'. With a manual gearbox,
this means one thing: this oil goes right onto the flywheel and the face of the clutch disc.
A lubricated clutch is A Bad Thing. If this still goes unnoticed, the front seal is the next to
go, and the engine then becomes a 'gusher' (or to be more colourful, it starts pissing oil
all over the place). As well as smothering the clutch with oil from the rear, the oil now
coming from the front leak will be neatly distributed about the engine bay as it hits the
front pulley - often propelling it out as far as the brake discs. At the same time as this
Hollywood disaster movie is unfolding outside the engine, things aren't working out any
better on the inside. As indicated in the diagram, the correct oil level is really close to
the rotating crank. Overfilling will mean the crank dips into the oil and churns it into a
froth. Froth is good on certain types of coffee but not good in an engine. The mixture of
aerated oil will be forced into the bearings and in case it wasn't obvious, air is not a
lubricant. Typically this means that bearing damage will follow quite rapidly, especially if
when driving on a motorway or at high speed. Drivers will know bearing damage when
they get it. The engine smells like a garage mechanic cooking over an open flame and
the noise coming from the engine is the sort of thing normally heard in vaudeville plays
when a piano is pushed down a flight of stairs. As if that all wasn't bad enough, the
excess oil gets thrown up into the piston bores where the piston rings have a hard time
coping with the excess oil and pressure. It gets into the combustion chamber and some
of it will get out into the exhaust system unburned resulting in a nice patina of oil all over
the platinum surfaces of the catalytic converter. This renders it utterly useless for good.
Well, you did ask...

SO WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO CHECK THE OIL LEVEL?

If the engine is cold (for example it has been parked overnight) the oil level can be
checked right away. The oil will have had time to settle back into the sump. Just make
sure the car is level. If the engine is warm or hot (after driving) then it is wise to wait for
30 minutes or so to let as much oil as possible drain back into the sump. Checking it

first

thing

the next morning

is

ideal.

It's worth pointing out that you should double-check your owner's manual too - some
cars, like I the '92 Porcshe Carrera, require that the oil is checked while the engine is
running and the oil is at temperature.
Like the site? The page you're reading is free, but if you like what you see and feel you've
learned something, a small donation to help pay down my car loan would be appreciated.
Thank you.

WET SUMPS VS. DRY SUMPS.

Almost all passenger cars, trucks and SUVs use what is called a wet sump system.
Looking at the diagram above, the sump (or oil pan) is the lowest part of the engine. In a
wet sump system, excess oil drains back into the sump when it has passed through the
engine, and the oil pump then sucks it out of the sump and pumps it back to the top of
the engine. The advantage of a wet sump is that it's cost effective to build and maintain
and it makes oil-checking easy for the average driver. The disadvantage is that
cornering and braking can cause the oil to slosh around in the sump. This can cause the
oil to not cover the oil pump pickup tube, which could starve the top end of oil, or it could
get deep enough in a severe cornering maneuver to bog-down the crank, which is A
Bad Thing. To counter these problems, a lot of wet sumps have baffles in them to stop
the oil moving around so much, and for the average road-going consumer-level vehicle,
this is a fine compromise.

DRY SUMPS
When it comes to racing vehicles, wet sumps simply have too many disadvantages.
Instead, race engines typically use a dry sump. As its name implies, the sump of the
engine is dry - it never fills with oil. In a wet-sump system, the sump has to be large

enough to accommodate all the oil from the engine when it is turned off. In a dry sump
system, that requirement is gone so the sump can be much much smaller. (In the image
on the right, the right-most sump is representative of a dry sump). A smaller sump
means the engine can be mounted lower down in the vehicle, which in turn lowers the
centre of gravity - great for racing. So how can this be? A dry sump system uses a
remote oil reservoir or tank, and either a second oil pump, or a single multi-stage pump.
In a double pump system, one oil pump works just like a wet sump - it distributes oil to
the top end of the engine, but it pulls the oil from the reservoir instead of the sump. The
second pump scavenges the oil from the sump and returns it to the reservoir. In a single
pump system, one pump is either a three- or four-stage pump. It has multiple circuits
running off the same pump to pressurise the engine and scavenge oil back from the
sump. The pumps typically don't run off the crank-driven belts so no engine power is
sapped in driving them. The remote tank or reservoir can be pretty much any size and
be mounted anywhere in the vehicle (usually low down again for centre of gravity
reasons). There isn't oil sloshing around in the sump so there's no risk of bogging down
the crank. For all these reasons, dry sumps are considered to be safer and far more
dependable than their wet counterparts. So if it's that much better, why isn't this system
found in consumer vehicles? Simple - increased weight, complexity and cost of having
larger or more pumps and a remote reservoir with all the additional high pressure oil
lines involved. For a racing team, this isn't an issue, but for Toyota or Ford, adding that
sort of cost and complexity to their passenger vehicles is just a no-go.

CAN CAR ENGINE OIL BE USED IN A

MOTORBIKE THEN?
No it

can't.

Or

at

least

we

wouldn't

recommend

it....

The real answer to this question lies in the type of motorbike. If the bike has with a wet
clutch (ie. where the clutch sits partially submerged in the sump oil) and the engine is
filled with car oil, all sorts of nasty things happen. Oils formulated for car engines have
friction modifiers in them. When the engine oil gets into the clutch, the friction modifiers
get to work and the clutch will slip rather than bite. Which isn't ideal. In addition, the
chemical makeup of some car oils has been known to soften the clutch material on

motorbikes to the point where the entire clutch pack fails. Bike oils generally don't have
friction modifiers, so they don't have this problem. Check for a JASO MA spec on the
bottle to be sure. If that is on the label, then it means the oil has been tested and
confirmed to work with a wet clutch. Mobil have cautionary information on exactly this
subject

on

their Motorcycle

Oils

FAQ page.

The other side of this coin is for bikes with a dry clutch bike, like some BMWs. In this
case, the clutch is configured similar to a car in that it's never in contact with the engine
oil, and if that's the case, then regular car engine oil might provide all the protection and
lubrication needed for the bike. The issue then becomes a question of the exact
formulation of the oil. The additive packages for car engine oil are typically balanced
differently than those for motorbikes with fuel economy and emission system protection
being the higher priorities. A typical passenger car engine doesn't rev to 12,000 rpm
either so stuffing normal car engine oil in a motorbike engine that can run to double or
even triple the rpm of a car engine could cause all sorts of problems.
The debate about whether any of this is true is burning in many forums across the
internet. One site in particular casts some doubt on the issue, claiming the only
difference between car and bike oil is the price. We don't subscribe to that theory but
here's a link for information-seekers: Testing motorcycle oil.

SULFATED ASH
There's a second good reason car oil should not be used in a motorbike - sulfated ash.
It's common in many American & Canadian modern oils; without burnt oil discoloring it, it
normally has a light-gray to pale-tan colouration which may become visible if a bit of the
oil debris is sheared. When coloured by oil, it looks like the dreaded sludge.
Unfortunately, the API SH-SN ratings are not strict enough on sulfated ash content. It's
an issue that's fairly well known in some motorcycling circles, and the Japanese
motorcycle industry recognized the issue very early on, creating a new oil specification
specific to their needs (one, that among other things, caps the sulfated ash content very
low): JASO-MA, recently revised further into to JASO-MA1 & JASO-MA2. For
motorcyclists, the sulfated ash content poses a secondary issue: it means higher
quantities of sulfuric acid if water gets introduced into the oil (such as from condensation
within the galley spaces); since most motorcycle engines share the oil with both the

engine and the transmission, the sulfuric acid is particularly problematic as the metals
used in the transmission selector forks are made of cheaper steels that don't stand up to
the acid nearly as well as most engine components.

CAN DIESEL ENGINE OIL BE USED IN

PETROL ENGINES?
This is an awkward question to answer. Diesel engines run much higher compression
ratios than petrol engines and they run a lot hotter, so the oil is formulated to deal with
this. Plus they produce a lot more dirt in terms of combustion by-products. Diesel-rated
oils typically have more detergents in them to deal with this (see Using Diesel oil for
flushing above). It's not unheard of for diesel oils to clean a petrol engine so well that it
loses compression. Diesel-rated oils also have an anti-foaming agent in them which is
unique

to

diesel

engines,

and

not

needed

in

petrol

engines.

So is that the be-all and end-all answer? Well not really and that's why this is a difficult
question to give a straight answer to. The above statement is more relevant to
commercial diesel engines. Nowadays, just about all passenger car / light commercial
oils (including OEM ones designed for both petrol and diesel engines) will carry the
ACEA A and B specifications. ie. formulated to satisfy the requirements for both types of
engine. So just because the oil is labelled "Diesel" doesn't mean it's not suitable for
petrol engines - it will more than likely carry an ACEA A3 / OEM petrol spec as well.
However care must be taken that the right diesel spec is being chosen - modern
common rail / direct injection diesels typically require at least an ACEA B4 spec to cope
with the higher piston temperatures that can cause piston deposits (and stuck rings).
ACEA

B4

is

fine

where

B3

is

recommended.

Of course following the VW Dieselgate fiasco in 2015, this could all be a moot point if
light duty diesel engines disappear from our cars.

AND SO TO ENGINE ADDITIVES

An engine is designed to be lubricated by oil, formulated by big petro companies and full
of additives that perform anti-wear, heat transfer, lubrication and detergent functions.
That doesn't stop dozens of companies formulating extra additives and selling them as
pour-in-the-engine and pour-in-the-tank solutions for problems an engine may or may

not have. In the bad old days, these were known as snake oil - back when putting
Teflon in an engine seemed like a good idea. (Here's a famous old snakeoil article.)
In our opinion (and that doesn't mean we're right) a large number of additives are
placebos to put minds at rest. It's not common to find properly independent lab analysis
of

the

products

that

will

support

their

claims.

There is a page dedicated to this topic that covers, primarily, the endless lawsuits for
false advertising against many manufacturers. Does this mean the product didn't work
at all, or it didn't work as the advertising had promised? Hard to tell but head over to
my additives page for more information.

NANOLUBRICANTS
Not something off Star Trek, although it sounds like it. Nanolubricants use the
geometrical properties of miniature particles to provide lubrication. A couple of
companies are working on these new generation lubricants; New York-based Applied
Nanomaterials (ApNano) is one of them. Their R&D lab in the commercial arm of the
Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel is initially developing an onion-type
nanostructure, i.e. a multilayered hollow structure of nested spheres called NanoLub TM.
According to the theory of the company's founders, such a structure can replace
lubricants, because it works like a box moving along a near infinite layer of superminiaturized ball bearings. They claim that respected institutes worldwide have proved
that powder made from these nanostructures is six to ten times more effective than
regular

lubricants.

In their case, the nanospheres are built from tungsten disulfide (WS 2). The layers slide
past each other, reducing friction, while the hollow cores provide flexibility. Applied
Nanomaterials claims the materials can withstand immense pressures. The material
acts as a kind of solid ball bearing between the metal layers, rather like the wheels of a
tank tread. In addition, the nanostructures insert themselves within each metal layer,
while other nanostructures slide over them, creating a smooth layer at the molecular
level.
The idea is that unlike oil, the nanolubricant never wears down; it is permanent and

requires no maintenance. Theoretically, a nanolubricant can be used for various friction

reducing applications, such as on the outer coating of ships and planes to reduce water
and air friction, respectively. Think of what it could do to the sex toy industry....
The powder will eventually stand on its own as a lubricant, however Applied
Nanomaterials realizes that recognition of the technology requires collaboration with
lubricant manufacturers as an additive to existing lubricants. The problem of course is
that if this lubricant never needs changing, anyone who decides to mass manufacture
and market it is going to lose a chunk of revenue - once a Nanolubricant is put into an
engine, the customer never needs to buy any more. Great for the customer, bad
business

model

for

the

company

who

dares

to

market

it.

Applied Nanomaterials competitors are developing similar materials, but based on

nested carbon nanotube structures that over time tend to disintegrate under friction from
the materials they lubricate.