Oil 5w50 On 2000 Es300 ?

[john_letour]

Hi,

a.) what do you think of using Castrol 5w50 in the ES300 (2000) ? (I live in Florida) (in Europe I was even using 0w40 in a '86 6 cylinder Mercedes)

b.) what is that black thing that is under the oil cap and that one has to pour the oil through ? Can it be removed?

c.) you guys often mention "drain-flush-refill" - am I correct in interpreting that as: drain the old oil - put new oil in and drive around a bit (how many miles ?) - drain that oil - put new oil in again... ?

d.) where is the socket for the odb tool ? How do I reset the error codes after I made the repair ?

Sorry, if this sounds stupid - I am TOTALLY new at this ...

Thanks,

john

[mburnickas]

Welcome to LOC. :)

Well the oil debates go on forever and have been talked about more times then anything. Most times I am involved since it was a huge “hobby” with me.

Answers..I hope

A ) Castrol syntec is a good german made oil. Group 4 based and green in color (was gold). Some engines like it some do not.

B) Oil baffle and no it can not be removed to look inside.

C)I do not do “drain-flush-refill”. For me I say it is a waste of time and resoursces. Drain and do proper oil change.

D) The socket for OBD should be under the steering wheel. Reset is either pull battery cable for like 15 minutes OR have a code reader like me and reset it.

Not stupid man, questions are good but in general try to use the search since the old info is great. Just a global statement

[john_letour]

Thanks mburnickas!

As far as the oil baffle is concerned - can it be cleaned somehow ?

I guess I'll go aahead with the 5w50 oil - see how it runs...

[Toysrme]

50 weight? WTF this sin't 1957. LoL! j/k The engine family is now rated for 5w-20 up to 110*F Florida aint that *BLEEP*ing hot LoL! I ran 5w-20 m1 synthetic from January through November on this one. (Alabama)

I digress. 5w-30 is the specified oil for all operating ranges, 5w-20 is a preffered oil.

AFA a drain & refill. We normally reffer to using an extra solvent in the oil for a short term to flush the oil with (Really, just dissolve crap & let it be dissolved, or float down to the pan), or we're talking about the transmission fluid.

[BenjiNtheES300]

Yeah, i have not heard of anyone using 50 weight. 5w 30 or 5w 20 do good. I also think its a huge waste to do the drain flush and refill, plus i dont think very many people could or would want to afford that so a drain and refill is good.... and just like mburnickas said remove the battery terminals or just the positive for about 15 minutes and you will be good.

[john_letour]

Ok, got it - thanks !

@Toysrme - what do you mean 1957 ? I thought the second number indicates a better protection film at high temperatures. Is it a question of damaging the engine ?

Anyway, with my previous car, I had the feeling it was nimbler and used less gas with xw40 or xW50...

And it's done now - synthetic Castrol 5w50 it is - Indy here I come.....

[Toysrme]

When I said 1957, I simply meant it as a metaphore to, "way back in the day when oils were god aweful, engines were not machined as closely, asembled as well, or for all intensive purposes engineered worth a crap compaired to more rescent times".

The numbers tell you the rough viscosity of a liquid. Barring any technical explinations you probably don't want to know (Google if you do), viscosity is the measure of the resistance of a liquid to change its form. For our applications, it means how easily will it flow down a pipe. Lower is faster, higher is slower. Which generally directly corrilates to thinner VS thicker.

5w-30 would be a 5w when cold, a 30 weight when warm

30 would just be 30 weight most of the time

50 would be really damned thick LoL!

For our applications, it's too thick. It's not even recommended. The farthest Toyota would go on the engine is 10w-40, and even then, if you're under 110*F, or above -20*F 5w-30 is still most currently recommended above anything else. Minus the newer engines that come with 5w-20, or 0w-20 factory.

But it's your car man, aint anybody going to stop you. If you want to see what kinda differance it'll make, I'll tell you what we'll do. You keep track of the mileage on the 5w-50 you've got. I'll mail you my gtech pro/comp if you'll take some tests of it & mail it back. That'll tell us roughly the amount of power you're getting down without you spending $180 for two trips to a dyno.

From there; change your oil to 5w-30, or 5w-20. Keep track of the mileage & we'll do the gtech over again.

Then you'll know the economy & power differance between the oil weights.

In general, the lighter the oil, the more power you'll make & the more economical it is.

As far as damaging the enigne, no. The easy case to make would be you're damaging it from using too thick a fluid. The medium case would be that since the engine wasn't originally meant for 5w-20, you may not want to run 5w-20 even tho they have cleared all of the v6's they've ever made OK to use 5w-20. The easyest case would be that 5w-30 is the best oil to use since that's what Toyota designed it for, has recommended for all the v6's almost regardless of where they're operated & that's what Toyota brand oil (Mobil1) has been as long as anyone I know can remember. :)

It's like this. It went down to 10w-40 along time ago when I was a bitty boy. Then it went down to 10w-30. Then 5w-30 & now everyone & their brother is, or has begun going with 5w-20 or lighter. It's a combination of that automakers needing / wanting more economy & power across their product lines. (In most cases, governments forcing them to do so.), and the oils simply being better than they ever use to be.

Now we have high grade dino oils, and more avalible / less costly good synthetic oils.

But just to reiderate. I honestly don't care if you drop ATF fluid in there, or not. It's your car. ;)

Aslong as it doesn't blow up, or wear abnormally fast. There is no wrong answer, just better answers. :)

[mburnickas]

I agree 50 is thick but I use 15-40 in my diesel and works fine at -10 F. But in my post I made no ref to oil weights, just oil brand.

I also agree "thin is in" but the delta increase in mpg (if you get any) will be offset by wears numbers.

Being he is in FL should not be any issue. Not saying I would use it in my car but my tractors loves thicker oils. Most times thin is because of EPA issues.

Ps. Also I would have to see the cSt rating on the oils. Most times that are on the low end and made to thin over time; based on design.

[john_letour]

Weeeell - Thanks for all the input, but I disagree with some of the things you guys said:

Speaking of "thick" - now as we know oil does not thicken when it heats up - it thins.

So you have to agree that a 5w oil is pretty "thin" - designed for cold winters.

And it doesn't get "thick" to 50 weight when it heats up - so it is NOT 5 weight when cold and 50 weight when hot - what happens is that because of additives (certain polymers) it maintains the viscosity of a 50w oil (is there such a thing ?) - that is, it behaves like an oil that was 50 weight when cold and is now hot. As far as its flow is concerned, it flows at least like a 5w.

(If Iremember correctly, they way they test it, is by checking at what temperatures the film, that is the coat, of oil breaks = is no longer continuous, meaning there would be no longer any full lubrication.)

I stole this quote from here http://www.repairfaq.org/filipg/AUTO/F_oil_facts.html:

"Multi viscosity oils work like this: Polymers are added to a light base (5W, 10W, 20W), which prevent the oil from thinning as much as it warms up. At cold temperatures the polymers are coiled up and allow the oil to flow as their low numbers indicate. As the oil warms up the polymers begin to unwind into long chains that prevent the oil from thinning as much as it normally would. The result is that at 100 degrees C the oil has thinned only as much as the higher viscosity number indicates. Another way of looking at multi-vis oils is to think of a 20W-50 as a 20 weight oil that will not thin more than a 50 weight would when hot."

Anyway, thanks for all the input and

@Toysrme - thanks for the offer with the measuring tool - I am really not that deep into all these things. So I am not all thaaaaat interested - but I can of course do the measuring should you or anybody else want to know...