In a message dated 4/6/2004 8:47:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time, peb3@cornell.edu
writes:
> Just to throw some fat on the fire...... I am of the opinion that any
> good mineral oil of the right viscosity will work fine in our cars.
> We're not talking about jet engines here, guys. The engines were
> designed 40 years ago and the oil can be changed quite easily.
Oh, I'll jump in, too; we haven't had a good...er...discussion on this list in
a bit.
I'm with you, Phil. Over the years I've used pretty much every "name" brand of
motor oil that could be found at one time or another. That includes whatever
was in the drum at the local service station (yes, back in the days where the
attendant was as likely to fill the oil pitcher from said drum as he was to
grab a can off the rack next to the pump), whatever was on sale at the local
discount or auto parts store. Heck, at one point I bought two-gallon cans of
some non-detergent grade Sunoco-packaged oil to keep my
30-mile-per-quart-of-oil Mk3 Spitfire going just that much longer. (Strong
little 1296; just leaked and burned copious amounts of oil!)
The only engine in the family over the past 40 years or so that I remember
having any real sludge problems was the 390 2V in mom's old '68 Ford Country
Squire (local garage swore that sludge buildup was common with those engines).
Back then, it probably got mostly Mobil oil, since that was the oil company
affiliation of our local mechanic. But who knows?
My late and somewhat unlamented Ford Explorer with the 4.0 V6 was oft praised
by my mechanic for how clean it was inside. Reasons for having to be inside the
engine several times had nothing to do with oil. Of note, the Explorer's left
side valve cover actually rusted through from the outside; maybe if it had
leaked more oil from the start, I'd not have had such a bizarre problem! :-)
But that engine accumulated over 217,000 miles on nothing but Quaker State,
so....
For many, many years, I used nothing but Quaker State in all my cars -- Triumph
and otherwise -- without problems. I guess I always figured that if it was good
enough for Bob, Brian, Lanky and the other kids at Group 44, it might even be
good enough for me. Nowadays I go back and forth between QS and Castrol. That's
partially because, for whatever marketing reasons where I am, it's easier to
find Castrol GTX in the 20W-50 weight I prefer in the Triumphs. But Castrol and
Triumph do seem to go together traditionally, don't they?
Bottom line: I wonder how much of a given "sludge" problem is due to oil
formulation and how much is due to neglect. I suspect that the latter was a
factor on the Country Squire back then; mom and dad were never quite as
diligent about oil changes as I (now) am!
--Andy Mace
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