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Car Forum / MINI / October 2005Which Oil?
Which oil do you recommend using in our precious A series engines? Many claim Duckhams Q 20W50 to be the best, some use specialist Millers oil which is a bit pricey and some use semi-synthetics which others claim to be harmful to the gearbox. Mine's a 90 mainstream Cooper and for a long time I've used Castrol GTX 15w50, but I'm told I should be using a good 20W50 oil so as to prevent wear of the gearbox. So what's the best stuff to use? Taffy All what you say is true Duckhams is a good oil. The arguement is still ongoing about synthetics. Tell you what, if you stick a decent quality 20w50 in it, and change every 3000 miles or so, no one will argue with you, as the oil won't be in long enough to do damage. 15w50 is a little thin for the engine though. Some people sware synthetic does no harm, but we all know someone whos 90 year old and been smoking since 10... RS > Which oil do you recommend using in our precious A series engines? Many > claim Duckhams Q 20W50 to be the best, some use specialist Millers oil [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Taffy Castrol recommend 10/40 magnatec from their literature. Seems a bit thin for my liking , but then depends on the costing of your oils as some aren't all they seem > Which oil do you recommend using in our precious A series engines? Many > claim Duckhams Q 20W50 to be the best, some use specialist Millers oil [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Taffy > Castrol recommend 10/40 magnatec from their literature. > Seems a bit thin for my liking , but then depends on the costing of [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >> >> Taffy If you value your gearbox don't use magnatec!!!!!!! It really doesn't like the gearbox and it wasn't recommended at Rover dealers on the A-series engine. I am trying motorbike oils in my engine as no one seems to have had a play with them and most bikes use combined gear/engine/clutch oil I have used 10w60 castrol rs before with no probs, go for the thickest you can find! A lot of modern oils have friction modifiers and detergents in them which do not play the game in a helical cut gearbox as there is a lot of metal on metal sliding contact! miniman >> Castrol recommend 10/40 magnatec from their literature. >> Seems a bit thin for my liking , but then depends on the costing of your [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > > miniman Hi Taff I personally use Castrol GTX , I think this is the closest you will get to the original Castrol lite oil that was used in the early 60s, my second choice would be Duckhams, and I would not even consider any synthetic or semi-synthetic, Fitzy Since miniman brings up avoiding using modern oils in a Mini's gearbox I feel compelled to do my usual rebuttal. Hopefully this will be taken in the sense of comaraderie it's offered.. A number of manufacturers recommend standard, and I dare say modern, engine oils in their gear boxes. Of course, now they mostly recommend automatic transmission fluid for manual gearboxes. ATF is about 20 weight has a huge amount of detergent and it's own significant friction modifier package. No manufacturer I know of disallows the use of synthetic ATF in their gearboxes. Synthetic motor oil must work pretty well in sliding contact otherwise piston rings would wear at an incredible rate. Cam lobes would also wear badly. Lastly, there are only a few anecdotes documenting failures in Minis using synthetics. I know more people using the product, long term, with no failures. It's probably best to use as heavy a synthetic as you can find in a Mini since the clearances are a bit larger than one typically finds in modern engines. If you want to run longer change intervals you should change the filter at the same interval you would do an ordinary oil change. The main advantage to synthetics in a Mini is that you can often significantly lower the running temperature of the engine. Until next time. Cheers, Kelley >If you value your gearbox >don't use magnatec!!!!!!! [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > >miniman > Since miniman brings up avoiding using modern oils in a Mini's gearbox > I feel compelled to do my usual rebuttal. Hopefully this will be taken [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] >> >> miniman maybe I should reword my reply before I get shot down in flames, I always use synthetics in my engines as they are better oils, my point about magnatec is that it is a semi synthetic and I have used it in two engines and have had major gearbox failure after low mileages (diff pin and main bearings) I have used AGIP 10/60 and castrol rs 10/60 and after an engine strip down I have found there to be minimal wear on all components. What I think has given synthetics the bad press which they don't deserve is the general ignorance of consumers that don't even know what oil thickness their engine requires and therefore buy a can from the service station which only stocks limited ranges which tend to be for modern engines eg0w30 etc A mini needs a 50 or 60 weight! I also want to know, if someone says I never use synthetics, they are no good, how do they know? I do notice a lot lower oil temps with synthetics! In my rally Mini I use Quaker State SAE 20w-50 Performance Motor Oil. Many of the danish Mini-racing/rally drivers use this oil .... Kenneth > In my rally Mini I use Quaker State SAE 20w-50 Performance Motor Oil. > Many of the danish Mini-racing/rally drivers use this oil .... > > Kenneth is it a synthetic? >> In my rally Mini I use Quaker State SAE 20w-50 Performance Motor Oil. >> Many of the danish Mini-racing/rally drivers use this oil .... >> >> Kenneth > > is it a synthetic? dont think so, http://www.pzlqs.com/Tech/Pdsheet/QuakerState/EngineOils/pdf/PeakPerformanceConv entionalMotorOil.pdf Steve. >Which oil do you recommend using in our precious A series engines? Many >claim Duckhams Q 20W50 to be the best, some use specialist Millers oil which [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >15w50, but I'm told I should be using a good 20W50 oil so as to prevent wear >of the gearbox. So what's the best stuff to use? No problem with what you are using. Regards, David Betts davidb@minilist.org The Mini Gallery: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?m=64635537103&n=1366070334
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