Here’s a shot I took during my spring maintenance. Both the VW and I got a multi grade fluid.
The VW gets the Castrol 20W-50. Everyone seems to have a strong (and different) opinion on what oil grade to use in air cooled VW’s. My engine builder insisted that my newly rebuilt 1200 was clattery because I was using straight 30 weight and not 20W-50. Of course following his suggestion changed it not one bit. 🙁
The Neustadt 10W-30 is for me. It’s a brown ale, dark and nutty and not hoppy. Also the can has an MG TC on it, so it combines two of my favourite things, beer and old cars. The brewery (in the village of Neustadt Ontario) was built in 1869. Neustadt Springs Brewery has been in operation since 1997, the dawn of the microbrewery boom and although they do not have the marketing panache of more recent startups they do have good beer.
A great combination of fluids for a Saturday morning, but don’t mix them up!
Hmm, a bit like IPA – India Pale Ale or Iso Propylene Acetone. Best not to mix those two up either!
A little ale for this Thanksgiving weekend Doug?
The 20W 50 reminds me of a local Lotus dealer in Edmonton way back when who recommended that viscosity for my 74 Vega GT during the summer. The only car I ever used that weight of oil. Perhaps it was of benefit?
I am VERY scientific about my motor oil selection:
Grade: Whatever is specified in the owner’s manual
Brand: Whatever is on sale.
+1 on both selections! You know you’ve got the air-cooled fever when you can do a valve adjustment in 15 minutes or less.
I saw your post last night and previewed it, and became curious as to the issues of proper viscosity in VW air cooled engines. I ended up at the samba.com where there is an extensive forum thread on the subject, and it was quite enlightening. Obviously not everyone agreed, but here’s the gist of it:
Unless you have an un-worn, 100% factory original engine (a unicorn), the factory viscosity recommendations may not apply to your engine. Here’s why:
Tolerances that affect oil pressure vary widely due to the various aftermarket parts used, having a case align-bored, and the technique of the builder. Then there are also intrinsic variations in different vintages of engines. And then folks mix and match parts, like oil pumps.
All of this can result in overly high oil temp, the kiss of death in a VW engine, since it depends on oil for part of its cooling and tends to have high oil temps. The reason is that if the tolerances in any area of the oil flow are a bit tight, that will increase oil pressure at speed (obviously), but if that pressure exceeds the oil bypass valve, the hot oil will mostly bypass the oil cooler, thus becoming increasingly hot.
The upshot is this: an oil temp and oil pressure gauge are needed in order to determine what viscosity oil is best for you particular engine, depending on its tolerances and such. In many cases, oil temps dropped after switching to thinner oil, as the oil pressure reduced and kept the bypass valve from being opened, thus keeping the full flow to the oil cooler. Obviously if tolerance were too loose, pressure would be too low (ideal is 10lbs per 1000rpm), which would suggest using a higher viscosity oil.
The upshot is that the folks who used this technique almost invariably use quite thin oil, as in 2-20, 10-30 or even 0-20 in some cases. They found that 20-50 is too thick typically, and resulted in higher oil temps. Never mind straight 30, which they felt might only be suitable in the hottest tropics.
Obviously oil is always a hot topic, and oil brand/additive debates were forbidden in this discussion, rightfully so. But I have to admit that this approach to determining ideal oil viscosity for any particular engine did make quite a lot of sense to me, especially as I did not understand the risk of having the oil bypass the cooler if the pressure is too high, which can readily happen depending on tolerances and viscosity of oil.
The thread is here:https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=467803&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
In any case, straight 30 in Canada does strike me as being a bit..thick; possibly the 20-50 too. Maybe you should have given it the 10-30, and you have the 20-50? 🙂
The last air cooled VW’s produced in Mexico called for only 15W-40, which was not even available when the owners manuals for most of our older collectible VW’s were produced. That is what I now use (Chevron Delo 400). Granted, Canada is not Mexico and I live in a very temperate climate.
There was one important change to the VW oil system for 1970, the dual relief system. This somewhat separated basic oil pressure and oil cooler pressure regulation. The last ones imported to the US in 1979 did recommend just about any available multigrade, including 20W-50.
If you want to run 15W-40, then get one quart of 20W-50 and one quart of 10W-30 of the same kind of oil 🙂 Pour them both in, as the crankcase takes 2 and a half quarts if I remember my VWs correctly. Buy one more of each, pour half of each into an empty bottle and top off the dipstick and keep the excess for the inevitable drippage
Aircooled VWs don’t leak oil, they mark their territory.
I get the joke about leakage but not the point of mixing. I just buy three quarts of 15W-40, put in 2.5 and save the rest for top off.
Exactly. Thinner oil for better flow or thicker oil for more pressure? My engine is a 1200cc 40hp so it has single relief and it was a mish mash of parts. Basically I’m holding my preference to new clean oil being better than old dirty oil.
My duty cycle isn’t that tough, so beyond that I’ve decided no to sweat it too much.
Motor oil nerds hang out on a forum called BobIsTheOilGuy.com where there are as many opinions as there are members. I spent a few years studying there, and my takeaway was this…
Wal-Mart’s house brand of oil, SuperTech, is made by a company named Warren Petroleum Products, a company of good renown. The full synthetic is considered to be about 90% as good as the big-name synthetics, at the price of a big-name conventional.
That’s what I use anymore, in the weight recommended by the manufacturer. But be careful – sometimes manufacturers change their recommended weight *after* the manual is printed. The forums for your make and model will have this information.
If you go to wal-mart and ask for their $19.99 pit crew oil change, you’ll get Supertech Oil and a Supertech filter only. They don’t top off other fluids or vacuum
“That’s what I use anymore, in the weight recommended by the manufacturer. But be careful – sometimes manufacturers change their recommended weight *after* the manual is printed. The forums for your make and model will have this information.”
that’s less common on modern cars; manufacturers will typically only list the grade of oil they performed all of the certification testing with. since oil viscosity has a minute (but measurable) impact on fuel economy.
as opposed to motorcycles, which will list several viscosity grades for various operating temperatures.
I once tried the MG beer – Old Speckled Hen. Not sure if I got a bad example but it tasted like something drained out of the sump of an old MG. I felt a bit ill after as well. Sounds like yours is better.
I really don’t understand the beer being called 10-30 and having the picture of a car that predates the commonality of multigrades. Plus 10-30 is the least gearhead oil there is. 30 of course is the old old standby and moving to multigrades, 10-40, or 20-50 are what many people think of when they think of oils for old cars, or hot rods.
I never thought of that, and although you are right you should just drink one and not worry about it 🙂
This is not exactly on topic, but may be informative to some. Until the early 2000’s I was involved in gasoline and oil detergent production. 14% of the country’s supply from an small plant in Indiana. So I can only speak up to that point in time. All gas detergent was the same, for every region, brand, time of year, etc., except for tiny changes for seasonal and regional/emissions/brand identification etc. The core components for engine cleaning etc. were the same except for one. BP Ultimate had a unique base all it’s own, completely different and more expensive. Around the time BP was marketing Ultimate as “clear”, it was actually such a pale yellow you couldn’t tell. It was better at what it did. I probably am still subject to company privacy stuff from 20 years ago so I will stop it there. I was amazed at how by the time the additives got in the fuel how miniscule the amount was. The gas additives in the stores are mostly that same stuff too, just diluted to a laughable degree with cheap solvents and useless crap that just takes up space. Hint: The gold color STP is good stuff. They contained something that let them determine whose brand gasoline it was from a trace amount for warranty claims, etc. Oil additives were more or less all the same but had bigger differences than gasoline’s and I know less about them so I don’t want to mislead.
This reminds me of a tale told in a Facebook car group that I belong to.
14-year-old protagonist decides to perform maintenance on the parental unit ’61 Pontiac Tempest with automatic transaxle. Not knowing any better, he dutifully pours 90-weight gear oil into the transmission, neglecting to refill the differential…
For my 2 cents on air cooled vw oil specifications, having put over 200 000 miles on a pair of 73-74 vans with the 1800cc pancake engine. I ran 20w50 in the summer and 10w30 in the winter. This was in Calgary Alberta 1990-2001. I had one motor with over 200 000 miles on it finally have some bottom end damage (which I put about 100 000 on). The second was running strong when I sold it with at lest 200 000 miles on as far as I could tell the original motor, with 100 000 put on by myself.
I made the mistake of not changing the heavy oil (20w50) early enough in the fall one time. The darn thing wouldn’t start with the molasses viscosity of the oil due to sub zero temperatures. Had to wait a week or two until the weather warmed up and changed to the thinner stuff. I probably could have run 5w30 but once I got a second car with a heater I tried not to drive it below -10 Celsius. I also changed the oil and filter every 3000 miles and adjusted the valves so that probably didn’t hurt. That said if the engine rebuilder or manual suggests something different I would stick to those recommendations.
I have one of those 20W50 stories. But let me tell you about the car. Some years ago I had a 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ. 14″ version snowflake rims, factory moonroof, 301 4bbl, limited slip diff., leather seats, factory air shocks and an actual 4 speed manual trans. It was black and had the partial vinyl roof. I bought it off the original owner who had ordered it that way. It wasn’t valuable, but was only one of 400 or so sold with the stick shift and probably one of a kind with how it was optioned out. About 80,000 on it. Not fast at all, but fun and could do a great burnout. I had never driven a “posi” before and driving through snow the first time I almost got it sideways. Anyway my friend loved it more than me so I sold it to him right before the next winter. I forgot it had 20W50. Now that I recall it is what I had around from when I had an old Honda bike and figured it wouldn’t hurt it. So it sat until it was about 10 degrees out and he decides to take it for a drive. It wouldn’t start and barely would crank. Oops. He was stubborn so we push started it. But I winced when I could hear it attempting to idle with that tar in it. Didn’t seem to hurt anything though. Too bad his clutch went out later that summer and it sat for years. Water leaked in, the bumper fillers sort of disintegrated and it the frame rotted away. It looked like new when I had it and made me sad to see it rotting away. It actually started with starting fluid after at least 10 years sitting. Started right up! But it sits there to this day, Hoosier white letter tires long flat, air shocks deflated, and animals nesting in it. It is returning to nature. Sorry I do tend to ramble on…
I would suggest that the proper order is crucial with those lubricants. The 20 W 50 is always to be poured first, with the 10 W 30 to be used strictly at the very end.
Air cooled Harleys take 20W-50 as well.
My E30 Cabrio uses 20w50 (OEM spec). I generally can get that done at certain Jiffy Lube locations, but I will settle for 15w40. Right now I’m experimenting with running Rotella (I usually use Pennzoil). Seems to quiet up the top end some. My former mechanic started buying Valvoline 5w30 in bulk; that stuff just burned away…