Engine oil advice

N9eav

Wife bought a Diesel PT Cruiser and its due it's first oil change.

Manual says use API B4 Have you seen the price of that stuff??????:eek:

Why can't I use B3?

dannymccann

Because the engine has been developed to work within tolerances provided by the type of oil. Im sure it would run fine on B3 - depends if its a run into the ground car or if its one you are selling on in the future.

knightstyle

Have a look on eurocarparts.com for a price for your oil.

mikey72

B4 has better cleaning properties than B3.

colino

Check the oil specs with Castrol/Halfords online checkers, but don't use cheap oil in an engine that'll cost you an arm and a leg to fix!

bigjl

Depends how long you want the engine to last, I am sure that this has the merc engine in it, and as has been mentioned try EuroCarParts, though I always found German & Swedish to have better quality parts, though this opinion is a bit old and the companies may have changed, I ran a garage back in the 90's and we specialised in german cars like VW, Audi, Bmw and Merc. From my experience don't buy the cheapest parts, but rather buy the OE spec parts as they tend to be exactly the same as main dealer just in the original manufacturers box rather than a BMW or Merc box.

Though I have bought oil from my local German & Swedish and they are well priced, my car also needs an expensive oil, 5w30, minimum semi synthetic my wifes Clio also needs an expensive oil, 15w40 from memory but has to be a fully synthetic.

Remember the economising on oil is normally a false economy, if say you save £10 by using a cheap oil, that is then over say 10000 mile, so the saving per mile is minute.

But then I never stick to the manufacturers schedule for oil changes, my Mondeo TDCi is a 12500 interval but I change it every 6000-8000, depending on how much free time I have, the wife's car is a 12000 interval and I do that at 8000 aswell.

Some may say I am wasting money and to stick to the manufacturers interval, but these are normally worked out to get fleet buyers interested as less servicing makes the car look more attractive, but fleets also change cars regularly. I used to do 70/80k miles a year when self employed and never had and engine break or wear out, one car I sold to a mate had 200k on it and his brother used it for another 5 years, it did over 350k in the end, believe it or not it was a Renault 21 GTS, K reg with the 1.7 fuel injected engine. The engine was still good, the gearbox packed up and it was scrapped for that reason.

For example my current employer, London Ambulance Service changes oil every 2/3000, or every 6 or 7 weeks.

A._Badger

bigjl wrote: »

Some may say I am wasting money and to stick to the manufacturers interval, but these are normally worked out to get fleet buyers interested as less servicing makes the car look more attractive, but fleets also change cars regularly. I used to do 70/80k miles a year when self employed and never had and engine break or wear out, one car I sold to a mate had 200k on it and his brother used it for another 5 years, it did over 350k in the end, believe it or not it was a Renault 21 GTS, K reg with the 1.7 fuel injected engine. The engine was still good, the gearbox packed up and it was scrapped for that reason.

For example my current employer, London Ambulance Service changes oil every 2/3000, or every 6 or 7 weeks.

Of course, this is the irony. Like you, I set my own schedule (my Honda's book says every 9,000 miles - I religiously change it at 4,500) but the real beneficiary of this will be whoever ends up owning it when it's an old banger.

Still worth doing, though, I always feel. Oil is cheap: engines aren't.

As for the absurd oil change intervals on some modern cars (notably the German ones) I wouldn't dream of letting a car run that long on unchanged oil.

bigjl

When we first went over to Merc Sprinters, about 7 years ago, fleet where all full of the "look how long between oil changes", we can save money, I think it was a 20k interval.

They now change the oil every 6 weeks or so, roughly 3000 miles.

Oh, and the engines are really expensive, they had to buy a few.............................

N9eav

Using various sites, all recommend the expensive oil for our car. Castrol Edge, etc
But.

Castrol GTX seems to be B4 rated, yet no site suggests using it.
Am I missing a trick here? It's only £16 in Tesco

cyclonebri1

N9eav wrote: »

Using various sites, all recommend the expensive oil for our car. Castrol Edge, etc
But.

Castrol GTX seems to be B4 rated, yet no site suggests using it.
Am I missing a trick here? It's only £16 in Tesco

Still a fossil fuel mineral oil though, the manf will specify semi or full synthetic to align with there schedule

Kilty_2

The mineral stuff would probably be OK but you'd need to change it more often, defeating the cost saving.

5w40 fully synth can be had for about £25 on eBay....