Oils...

[CMSMJ1]

I use semi synth only in my motorbike - change it every 3 months or so and a new filter.

revs to 15k and is 20 years old

full synth in a bog standard, N/A car seems to be a waste IMO

Better to change it more often.

[xpensive]

Hi, I would like to gather information and experiences here, about oils for streetcars.

Any experience, weird or not may be posted.

Right now I am using a 15W-40 semi-synthetic multigrade oil in my Audi 1.8T 20v engine.

What do you think about changing that to this:
http://www.opieoils.co.uk/pdfs/castrol/ ... 10W-60.pdf

I suggest you ask for a Viscosity - Temperature chart and fitration efficiency numbers next time buying oil and filter.

[F1_eng]

If I were you, I would be looking for a good quality 5w-40 for the 1.8T engine, there is no need for 10-60 or whatever it was.

Them engines are renowned for oil starvation, the strainer on the oil pick-up in the sump clogs up with carbon/gunk if you don't change oil regularly, they deposit a lot of the combustion chamber material in to the crank-case due to the nikasil bores and their well documented problems. No-one has picked up on the fact its oil requirements are slightly different with it being a turbo.

I think the recommended oil for that engine is Shell Helix Ultra? or perhaps that is 5w-30? Can't remember exactly

[Skunk0001]

BMW had some bad problems with Nikasil bore liners in the UK about 10-15 years ago, they eventually switched to Alusil in 1998. They claimed it was due to high sulphur content in poorer quality fuels and extended the warranty on the engines to 100k.

I guess crap oil could have the same effect. No idea about Audi though.

As for oil, I'd just check the manual, if the engine had high mileage and had started burning too much oil I'd maybe go up a grade.

[F1_eng]

safeaschuck, I worked for VAG trying to minimize this effect on the next generation of engine itterations.

The problem was all of VAG's engine manufacturing plants that could handle the volume of engines required were tooled up for a bore to bore axis distance of 88mm. Because of the cooling and block design, this left less material adjacent to the bores than was required for inserts, this is why nikasil coating of the bores was done.
Changing the whole engine production line for a larger distance than 88mm would have virtually bankrupted the group.

There is an alternative piston ring kit available from Volkswagen which features softer material for people that perform a rebuild but do not re-plate and hone the bores.
Why do you think that VAG specify an enormous ammount of oil usage for their engines in opperation, something like 1L every 4000 miles.

Also as has been said, BMW also had issues with Nikasil, Jaguar also had major issues with their bore coatings on the 8 cylinders. Porsche have had problems but have been using it successfuly now for years.

"my guess is the (iron) bores are shot and the turbo is happily assisting in blowing the 'gunk' past the rings."
It's a mixture of the bores pitting and the rings wearing in a non-uniform manner due to the bore surface.

Lamborgini engines were not designed by VAG.

[safeaschuck]

O.K. O.K. I am prepared to have my ass handed to me here, but before I get the slap I possible deserve, Are you telling me that the 1.8T engines did not have an iron block?

please find the following: The Audi AEB engine is a 1.8l DOHC 20v turbo charged and intercooled inline 4 cylinder with an iron block and an aluminum head.
here: http://www.phonecallsfromthedead.net/th ... /A4_1.html

Not the most reputable website but one of many that came early in the listing when i googled 1.8t block/iron block. All the listing that I could be bothered to read mentiond iron as a material.

Having to make a brand new engine block out of iron, with it's weight penalty and expansion characteristics in relation to an ally head must be a hard pill for any top level designer to swallow especially with advances in cost effective new tech in many other areas outstripping engine blocks but on production engines whih high cylinder pressures, i.e. turbo's and deisels it is a very attractive solution. No need for a dissimilar bore material which means a one part block rather than five (liners) which in turn means far lower machining and assembly costs, plus you get increased stability (if designed right) around those highly presurised bores.

To make and iron block and then Nickasil plate it??? really??? tell me I'm wrong and that after using the cheapest solution on the table they then complicated matters almost out of sight and plated it using, what in mass production terms is a fickle, slow and ultimatly very expensive process?

What you are saying about the tooling makes total sense..... on the new generation of engines, i.e. 2.0t which I heard were ally, since I left the industry about that time I have stopped following developments as closely so would take your word on it.

And yes, what skunk said is pretty much the problem, condesation in the cylinders formed between engine uses would mix with the sulpher in low quality fuels forming sulpher dioxide which would attack the nickasil. Lots of short journeys would excaserbate the problem, all damage was irreversible and as the damage was different in nature to the simple 'smoothing' of iron bores by wear over time. The consequences were more severe and failures could potentially be more serious than drinking oil. Engine seizures were a potential, although unlikely side effect.

Panic, a lack of understanding and mounting warranty repair costs caused the phasing out of Nickasil by BM and Jag and it even though all fuel's have improved, particularly with respect to sulpher content since the initial problems, Nickasil's return to the mainstream has been slow.
Mass producers of sports bikes have been one of the few to carry on using it consistently during the 'dark' years, being unable to accept the trade off associated with alternative materials/process's (possibly also happy that countries with very low fuel quality possibly also had the odd pothole or two in their roads, therefore orders for Fireblades and the like were unlikely to suffer too badly )

A lot has happened since I last tried explaied all that to anyone so I reserve the right to correct small discrepancies that have crept in due to poor memory! but essentially F1eng, is that pretty much the case?

[safeaschuck]

O.K. O.K. I am prepared to have my ass handed to me here, but before I get the slap I possible deserve, Are you telling me that the 1.8T engines did not have an iron block?

please find the following: The Audi AEB engine is a 1.8l DOHC 20v turbo charged and intercooled inline 4 cylinder with an iron block and an aluminum head.
here: http://www.phonecallsfromthedead.net/th ... /A4_1.html

Not the most reputable website but one of many that came early in the listing when i googled 1.8t block/iron block. All the listing that I could be bothered to read mentiond iron as a material.

Having to make a brand new engine block out of iron, with it's weight penalty and expansion characteristics in relation to an ally head must be a hard pill for any top level designer to swallow especially with advances in cost effective new tech in many other areas outstripping engine blocks but on production engines whih high cylinder pressures, i.e. turbo's and deisels it is a very attractive solution. No need for a dissimilar bore material which means a one part block rather than five (liners) which in turn means far lower machining and assembly costs, plus you get increased stability (if designed right) around those highly presurised bores.

To make and iron block and then Nickasil plate it??? really??? tell me I'm wrong and that after using the cheapest solution on the table they then complicated matters almost out of sight and plated it using, what in mass production terms is a fickle, slow and ultimatly very expensive process?

What you are saying about the tooling makes total sense..... on the new generation of engines, i.e. 2.0t which I heard were ally, since I left the industry about that time I have stopped following developments as closely so would take your word on it.

And yes, what skunk said is pretty much the problem, condesation in the cylinders formed between engine uses would mix with the sulpher in low quality fuels forming sulpher dioxide which would attack the nickasil. Lots of short journeys would excaserbate the problem, all damage was irreversible and as the damage was different in nature to the simple 'smoothing' of iron bores by wear over time. The consequences were more severe and failures could potentially be more serious than drinking oil. Engine seizures were a potential, although unlikely side effect.

Panic, a lack of understanding and mounting warranty repair costs caused the phasing out of Nickasil by BM and Jag and it even though all fuel's have improved, particularly with respect to sulpher content since the initial problems, Nickasil's return to the mainstream has been slow.
Mass producers of sports bikes have been one of the few to carry on using it consistently during the 'dark' years, being unable to accept the trade off associated with alternative materials/process's (possibly also happy that countries with very low fuel quality possibly also had the odd pothole or two in their roads, therefore orders for Fireblades and the like were unlikely to suffer too badly )

A lot has happened since I last tried explaied all that to anyone so I reserve the right to correct small discrepancies that have crept in due to poor memory! but essentially F1eng, is that pretty much the case?

[F1_eng]

Yes, the blocks were mostly iron but again Nikasil plated, even the base engines like the 1.4 and 2L petrol were plated, again with a large oil consumption tolerance more or less from new.

It is true about motorbike engines using Nikasil, in fact most high performance bike engines have Nikasil plated bores. It's very awkward for people to re-build these engines if they need, any work done to the bores would mean a re-plate which can be very expensive. There is one very very good company in the UK that does it reliably but it's expensive.

My oppinion is that Porsche has had the most success with this plating technology, they have actually been using it in various forms since the 80s.

[safeaschuck]

Never! I find this so hard to beleive. Although nickasil is an excellent material in very high output engines with a very heavy duty cycle it is utterly unnecesary to plate an iron block with the duty cycle of a road car. Also plating iron can be very challenging due to incosistencies in the material causing plate failure in areas of poor bonding. Plus to plate an entire block is an utter --- to do, risking writing off an otherwise finish machined muti op part in a good number of cases. The primary reason for choosing iron as a block material is that it makes a good bore material, and by your own post, in which you seem to mention the problems of bore spacing and the possibility of weakening and/or breakthrough when machining the bores, Nickasil would not help in this instance. If anything it would make matters worse as you would have to overbore to allow for plate thickness, further weakening the block.
It all comes down to why, give me a good reason why they would incur this extra expense and I will beleive you wholeheartedly. Sorry to sound like a potentially very wrong sceptic.
Also using nickasil instead of iron would not make the difference in oil consumption we are talking about here, Unless a mistake had been made in specifiying or producing bore finish. In the long run the oil consumption would actually be better than an iron engine, not worse, due to the improved wear of the harder (Nickasil) bore material.

Porsche have been using Nickasil in aircooled 911's since the late 60's and even today they don't plate entire blocks in one go. The liners found in the 996/997 GT3 & turbo feature it, wheras the 2 part block found in the 996/986 carrera's boxters et al relies on alusil.

oh and sorry, Bellati, I have found oil grade to make very little difference on a road car. Is your engine using a lot of oil? if so there is only one real cure and that is a re-hone, usually coupled with new rings, and in an ideal world, oversize pistons. usually the cost and down time rule it out for roadcar drivers, just keep pouring it in.

Unsuprisingly the oil consumption levels of competition cars are less critical. When the budget allows custom pistons, ring tension can be slackened off to create less drag. This can give pretty significant power increases at all RPM's but it would be unaceptable, both in terms of emmisions levels and inconvinience for the driver being under the hood twice a week, for this to be the case on road cars.

The racing oil you are looking at is designed to function in a specific set of circumstances, and those who use it may well have already done work on developing other areas of the piston/ring/bore interface. Even if they are just experimenting they will have a pretty good idea whether it is helping because they will have the engine in peices every other week, plus they will be able to pay more attention to consumption levels etc.
I wouldn't waste your money at this time.

[safeaschuck]

Right, couldn't leave it. 'Audi 1.8T nickasil' returns nothing on google. This very thread here is the top result, some forum discussion from 2005 came in at number 3 and it was a guy discussing getting his 1.8T block Nickasil coated to improve wear on the bores, strongly suggesting they are not plated from the factory.

Usually when something is a bit unusual, and particularly where the engine gets a lot of attention from tuners these things are widely disscussed on-line and without having a block here or a VAG technician on hand (not that they would neccisarily know) this is my only avenue of investigation at the mo.

Could be because Nickasil is a trademark and Audi may be using their own proprietary process but for now I'm reasnobly happy that what I thought I knew hasn't been totaly blown out of the water! If you have any links to VAG dealer documentation on maintenance of 1.8T bores, PDF's or some such lets have it, otherwise I stand un-corrected .

[Belatti]

oh and sorry, Bellati, I have found oil grade to make very little difference on a road car. Is your engine using a lot of oil? if so there is only one real cure and that is a re-hone, usually coupled with new rings, and in an ideal world, oversize pistons. usually the cost and down time rule it out for roadcar drivers, just keep pouring it in.

Thanks for the concern, a lot!
But I never said my engine was drinking too much oil. After 5000 miles I could not find any evidence of having consumed any drop of oil and the engine has 85.000 miles.
Its just that I could get that Racing synthetic Castrol 10W-60 for free and summer is getting close... and I was told the 1.8 Turbo + high temps were not good friends... so the question.
For the next oil change I have a 5W40 synth waiting in the shelf

[Krispy]

For all your oil related questions, check out "bob is the oil guy" BITOG is a good resource for oils, It is my second favorite technical discussion fourm (second to this

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com

Also, about Fram filters. I used them for a while, mainly due to the easy grip on the bottom of the filter. But after looking at the construction of the Fram compared to an M1 there is no contest.

Here in the states Advanced Auto Parts has a sale that put up ever few weeks or so. I am able to buy 5 quarts of Mobil 1 Full Syn (I run 10W-40 in my Honda) and a Mobil 1 oil filter. For less than $30.00 USD. It is a savings of about $15.00 USD.

I have been doing this on my Honda since I have owned it at it just turned 180,000 miles (289,000 + km for all you sane minded folks out there)I use 7,000 mile oil change intervals

[mx_tifoso]

...

For winter you might want a thinner oil maybe 10-30/40 or even 5-30(or 0-30). Summer, depending on the heat 15-40 should do you well... the best bet is to check your owners manual, especially with cars made by ZEE Germans.

....

Why a heavier weight in the summer? My summers can get up to 120 degrees ambient. And now it's mostly city driving.

[autogyro]

We have an old 1800 Ford Focus Zetech used as a hack.
It has only used BP synthetic oil changed at service intervals and mostly BP cheapo petrol. It often goes to Europe from UK and is driven fast (that is as fast as it can go).
190.000 miles and only has oil at the oil changes.
Only one thing I always do and that is to run the engine on cold start up at 2,000 rpm for 20 seconds to get the oil round the system.
We were going to scrap it in part X but it is so reliable I think we will just drive it until it is dead.

[Belatti]

Only one thing I always do and that is to run the engine on cold start up at 2,000 rpm for 20 seconds to get the oil round the system.

It is broadly said that its no good, but then if your engine has 190.000 miles, then it must not be that important