AOA,
With so much said about the brands and types etc; I would like to share the following;
- Doesnt matter how many times you shift brands, no harm to engine.
- The most important factor is viscocity i.e. 20~40 or 10~50 etc.
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What most of us think of as "normal" driving is actually "severe service" driving. This includes frequent short trips (less than 30kms, especially during cold weather), stop-and-go city traffic driving, driving in dusty conditions, and driving at sustained highway speeds during hot weather. For this type of driving, which is actually "severe service: driving.
Recommendation of car manufacturer should be followed. Change the oil every three to six months regardless of what type of driving you do. A new engine with little or no wear can probably get by on 5000km oil changes. But as an engine accumulates miles, blowby increases. This dumps more unburned fuel into the crankcase which dilutes the oil. This causes the oil to break down. So if the oil isn't changed often enough, you can end up with accelerated wear and all the engine problems that come with it (loss of performance and fuel economy, and increased emissions and oil consumption).
Regular oil changes for preventative maintenance are cheap insurance against engine wear, and will always save you money in the long run if you keep a car for more than three or four years. It's very uncommon to see an engine that has been well maintained with regular oil changes develop major bearing, ring, cam or valve problems under 100,000 kms.
An engine's main line of defense against abrasion and the premature wear it causes is the oil filter. The filter's job is to remove solid contaminants such as dirt, carbon and metal particles from the oil before they can damage bearing, journal and cylinder wall surfaces in the engine. The more dirt and other contaminants the filter can trap and hold, the better.
As you must have noticed that the oil filters on most engines today have been downsized to save weight, cost and space. The "standard" filter that was once common on most engines has been replaced by a smaller filter. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that a smaller filter has less total filtering capacity. Even so, the little filters should be adequate for a 5000km oil change intervals -- but may run out of capacity long before a second oil change.
Replacing the oil filter every time the oil is changed, therefore, is highly recommended.
I have Toyota Corolla 1993 (Indus) with 183,500kms running on CNG 365 days for past many years (since CNG was made available), never followed the mith start on petrol.
We have been using Shell/PSO/Total etc. oil with local oil filters every 5000kms.
What else can I say.
