[ryangus]

I've just returned from Supercheap getting some oil. Was going to buy 10W40, but the Penrite book stated HPR 15, which is a semi-synthetic 15W-60.

Is this suitable for a daily driver 95 model Vitara with EFI?

[Taylor74]

If its a 95 model and never been recoed id save your money and use a 20w50, works well in all the vitaras i service of that age but yes is fine other wise.

[shep]

i would say no, stick to the recommended viscosity oil. 15w40

[squizzytaylor]

Ive been running it in the Jim since I bought it with no dramas at all, I highly recommend it.

GT

[Fatzook]

15W-60 would be better suited to a very high mileage motor that uses oil.

[stocker]

Just food for thought, i've just started running that same penrite oil, and mine now seem's to need topping up every couple of weeks, goes through probably 600mL more or less.

just wondering if its a bit thin???

My Vit was Reco'ed about 20xxx km's ago.
Any Advice???

[atari4x4]

15w-60 is a thick oil.... i would run a 10w-40 or what ever is suggested by the manual.

[Fatzook]

I'm running 15-40 diesel oil in my vitara, and sierra. goes good.

[ajsr]

Fatzook wrote:

I'm running 15-40 diesel oil in my vitara, and sierra. goes good.

x2
I use 15w 40 diesel oil in all my stuff, machinery cars and trucks.
it has a high zinc content that older tech engines (pre 95) like/need for scuff , shim and lifter protection but its removed from a lot of modern oils to meet emissions regs.
plus its a good weight for nearly all engines ,high load rated and has a very high detergent content and is usually turbo rated.

oh yeah and I feel the penrite is a little thick for a little zook engine and is probably robbing you of a small anount of power and fuel economy.
Too thick an oil can also cause lifter and valve timing problems in some engines that require the correct grade of oil around these areas.

[stocker]

i might give that a go...

has anyone had a problem with fouling spark plugs? i just fouled a set after 8000km's of not very hard driving, could it be related to the Penrite oil?

[Benz]

20,000 since a re-con' and it's already burning oil.
that's a bit of a pain.

[shep]

it probably has a billion psi oil pressure cos of the 60 weight oil.

[Bruce]

Fatzook wrote:

I'm running 15-40 diesel oil in my vitara, and sierra. goes good.

Peter, is that Castrol RX Super?

[stocker]

Benz2369 wrote:

20,000 since a re-con' and it's already burning oil.
that's a bit of a pain.

yeah it is a bit of a pain seeing as i was recommended to use that oil from the place that did the recon...

[Fatzook]

Bruce wrote:

Fatzook wrote:

I'm running 15-40 diesel oil in my vitara, and sierra. goes good.

Peter, is that Castrol RX Super?

\

Not sure. I'll have a look

[joel]

ive used penrite in every car ive owned and its a winner in m book, but ive always used the the weight that is stated in the car manual.

[shep]

joel wrote:

ive used penrite in every car ive owned and its a winner in m book, but ive always used the the weight that is stated in the car manual.

haha didn't ya last sierra put a leg out of bed?

[ryangus]

On another note, is there anything you recommend when doing an oil change to clean out all the old oil, rather than simply draining it? e.g. engine flush type liquids, or are they crap?

[atari4x4]

nulon oil flush, then once all the oil has drained pour a little in to wash out the remainder of the old oil.

[ryangus]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll grab some Nulon oil flush and swap this 15W60 for some 15W40 diesel oil tomorrow.

[ajsr]

if you use a good oil and change it regularly it shouldn't need a flush, just so you know

[squizzytaylor]

I thought if I could I might add a little bit of tech to this, I worked for Penrite in the 90's for a few years and have a pretty good understanding of oils in general. First a few points.

1) The only cars I have ever seen have an adverse reaction to any Penrite Oil were an old tech Subaru which exhibited lifter rattle on start up, and a 30 year old jag which had been run on straight 30w mono grade since new, it had built up sludge behind the oil pressure relief valve on the oil pump and blew an oil filter apart.

To make a call on what is a thick or thin oil you need to look at both numbers, for example a SAE25w50

Sae is the Society for Automotive Engineers

The 25 refers wholly and solely to the viscosity or "pump-ability" of the oil at 0 degrees Celsius. Typically start up.

The 50 refers to the viscosity of the oil at 100 degrees Celsius. Typically operating temp.

Therefore the fact that the big number is last does not mean that the oil gets thicker, it is being measured on a different scale alltogether as are gear oils, hydraulic oils etc. Oh yeah, so the guys that tell you they put gear oil in an engine to stop it smoking are full of shit, not withstanding that there is enough phosphor.sulfur etc in gear oil to destroy valve guides and soft metal bearings in about 10 mins flat.

The next and possibly biggest point with all this is ambient temperature, most car companies and oil companies are based in Europe, Asia and America where cars constantly have to start in temps well below 0 degrees Celsius, the pump-ability of oil massively decreases as it gets colder so it makes more sense for them to use a low viscosity oil all round, also in the USA the manufacturers are fined if thier new production cars do not meet fuel usage and emission standards (CAFE = Corporate average fuel economy)
So the point about fuel usage does hold some truth the thicker the oil you will increase fuel usage however I would challenge anyone outside a lab to prove it.

The final and biggest point is the little diagram below (from my jimny manual)which is everyones owners manual. The reason it does not list an SAE 60 anywhere is that at the time of printing SAE did not recognise and possibly still don't, the existence of 60w engine oil, this may have changed since however.
Now have a look at the ambient temps in Australia and ask yourself what oil you should be running.
Happy to answer any questions on this that I can (or that I can remember)

[stocker]

Right so i guess people were just waffling. about the whole oil thing and i guess it doesn't make to s**ts of a difference as to what oil you use?

i still might try that diesel oil, might give it a bit of a flush out... as for my oil consumption.. its still a mystery, i got a mate to drive behind me the other day whilst i gave my vit a bootful and he said it blew maybe half a puff just when i put my foot down then it went away... i did go from 3rd to 2nd and it jumped upto about 4500RPM. and i put my foot down.

and i can't seem to find a leak anywhere... so umm... Vanishing oil?

I might pull the intake manifold off this weekend and have a squiz...?

[squizzytaylor]

stocker wrote:

Right so i guess people were just waffling. about the whole oil thing and i guess it doesn't make to s**ts of a difference as to what oil you use?

i still might try that diesel oil, might give it a bit of a flush out... as for my oil consumption.. its still a mystery, i got a mate to drive behind me the other day whilst i gave my vit a bootful and he said it blew maybe half a puff just when i put my foot down then it went away... i did go from 3rd to 2nd and it jumped upto about 4500RPM. and i put my foot down.

and i can't seem to find a leak anywhere... so umm... Vanishing oil?

I might pull the intake manifold off this weekend and have a squiz...?

It does make a difference and the fact of the matter is you should use less oil if your car uses oil from blow by with the penrite than you would with a 15w40.
I don't think anyone's waffling just voicing observations from their own experiences. Give it a go and see what you come up with.

GT

[ajsr]

squizzy whats your opinion on the zinc content of oil , or the lack of in oils for late model cars?

[squizzytaylor]

ajsr wrote:

squizzy whats your opinion on the zinc content of oil , or the lack of in oils for late model cars?

Penrite have always used Zinc Dithiophospate ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_dithiophosphate ) in thier oils, to my knowledge they still do, Having said that I suspect that some of the new PAO poly-alpha-olefin full synthetic oils probably have additives that exceed the anti-scuff properties of Zinc based additives anyway.

The larger oil companies will always steer clear of anything hard to break down, toxic etc quite often at the expense of quality.

Just copied this off the MSDS for HPR15, it indicates that it does still have zinc based additive (probably zddp)

HAZARDOUS DECOMPOSITION
PRODUCTS: Combustion may produce oxides of carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, zinc and small amounts of boron, smoke, irritating vapours as well as possibly small quantities of hydrogen sulphide and alkyl mercaptans.

Also from Wiki...
,The main use of ZDDP is in anti-wear additives to lubricants such as greases, gear oils, and motor oils, which contain about 1%. For applications in oils for gasoline engines, zinc and phosphorus emissions could damage catalytic converters and have had their quantity reduced in standard formulations.[3] Aftermarket additives are available. The same compounds serve also as corrosion inhibitors and antioxidants.

[ajsr]

I belive the mian reason the oil comanies are shying away from zinc as an additive besides its toxic nature is that in modern common rails diesels the zinc component is not particulate filter friendly and maybe not super cat friendly.
A lot of these modern oils are multi fleet listed , both for petrol and diesel and this may cause issues with the dpf.
hense the range of envio plus range penrite make and the low saps range all oil manufacturers have.

the problem with all these low saps oils is that the quality standards the base oil is made to has gone through the roof to make up for the lack of additives such as zinc, and to be honest I'm not convinced its nesessarily better in the long run.and its causing the oils to cost more

we use a high zinc % hydraulic oil in my offroad cherry pickers as it surpasses the best syn oils by miles in terms of high load scuff damage in the wheel motors.
all good diesel oils have a high zinc content unless they are rated low saps

[squizzytaylor]

Interesting, ironically the thing that always seperated Penrite from "other" oil companies was thier base oil. The industry Norm was a product called Solvent neutral 100 which to look at was very thin and therefore had to be fortified massively with additives, Penrite used a product called Brightstock 150 which cost around 3 times more than the sn100 and was a considerably thicker oil.
The issue was always that the base oil was the dearest single component of a bottle of oil so the "biggies" would use cheap base and spice it up, after a life of use the additives would shear and break down leaving nothing more than shit base oil.
The Penrite still had similar although better quality additives however after breaking down was still capable of performing at an acceptable level and delivering acceptable oil pressure.
Multi use oils were never my cup of tea and to be honest Ive been out of that game long enough that when I left penrite had all of 3 diesel oils which were effectively low ash. high ash and universal diesel (hpr diesel) so thats about where my brain runs dry, One major issue with Diesel oils was the content of Detergents and dispersants and the effect on "older" engines as they very effectively flushed out and suspended all sludge which had potential to cause old engines to hemorrhage oil from major gaskets and seals remembering that the classic/performance/oil burner markets is where Penrite came from.

[Lokidog]

[flatcat_auz]

Just dropped in the 15w-60w Penrite today.

My mechanic's opinion on oils especially semi and fully synthetic is this. If your running an older car and it has never used semi of fully synth then don't use it. It is his opinion that the detergents/cleaners in the synth will 'clean' the engine to a point where it may cause oil leaks or other engine damage (he explained it better but cars aren't my thing, hence the mechanic). He recommended that I use semi until about 50,000kms and then fully synth which is what I did.
I only use to use Shell Helix Ultra but Repco in town doesn't stock it anymore and so I'm now using penrite.

There are also some quite good yet costly synthetic gear oils also now available.

FFS why didn't they make the sump in the GV 5lt and not 5.5. Such a pain trying to source a litre top up bottle.