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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Can different oil make such a difference?


Jake

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I used to run my car on Mobile One fully synth oil. I always averaged about 18mpg. I had my oil changed a couple of weeks ago but this time it was refilled with 'Royal Purple' oil. I'm now averaging 21.49 Miles per Gallon (288 miles from 60.82 Litres at last fill-up)

Can a different oil really be responsible for such a difference in fuel economy? I've never managed 20mpg from a tankful before.The car is being used for the same commute each day and nothing else has been changed.

 

Also the car now doesn't smoke in the mornings like it used to. It's needed the valve stem seals doing for the last 25,000 miles but suddenly it's stopped smoking.

 

Seems to good to be true.

It is too good to be true, I doubt even lab standard engine dynos can measure any HP gain or MPG change using oils you'd want to put in a road car. Swindon Racing Engines (www.swindon-engines.com) ran several F3 engines under lab conditions and using cheapo oil or Neo zero weight mega expensive, strictly race only oil showed no truly measurable gain or loss.
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Pimping certainly not ;)

 

Usually lower viscosity oils give better fuel consumption, i.e. you would expect a 5w-30 to give better MPG than a 10w-60 but it does appear that in your case the change was not in this direction vicosity-wise.

 

I have no scientific explanation on this one.

 

Oh and yes you will gain around 3% extra BHP at the wheels by using a 5w-40 over a 15w-50 and I have the data to prove it ;)

 

Cheers

Simon

 

PS: Not a mention of Silkolene (oops, damn!)

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