Synthetic or Semi-Synthetic oil for TD5?

sierrafery said:

take into account that the Td5 has electronic unit injectors and a loom with plugs within that oil... i completley disagree with mr. Charles Y's theory when it comes about Td5(or other unit injector/pumpe duse/PD) engine, cos that;s what the Td5 is...that theory is valid for other TDI or petrol engines,...there are specially engineered oils for this kind of engines which have a certain electric conductivity... what ever oil you use make sure is suitable for unit injector engines if you want the best for your Td5, you'll even feel the difference in noise and smoothness... i can agree with the fact that the engine will work with any oil(even with sunflower) just that not in the best conditions

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true engines have moved on

Oil companies spend millions developing different oils every year. I've seen unregistered Peugeot 405's petrol and diesel being tested on different grades of oil in Stanlow under strict laboratory testing. If "any oil will do" why do the evil oil companies pay for this?

"Take into account that the Td5 has electronic unit injectors and a loom with plugs within that oil... I completely disagree with Mr. Charles Y's theory when it comes about Td5 (or other unit injector/pumpe duse/PD) engine, cos that;s what the Td5 is...that theory is valid for other TDI or petrol engines,...there are specially engineered oils for this kind of engines which have a certain electric conductivity... what ever oil you use make sure is suitable for unit injector engines if you want the best for your Td5, you'll even feel the difference in noise and smoothness... I can agree with the fact that the engine will work with any oil (even with sunflower) just that not in the best conditions"

So from that comment, it implies stick to fully synthetic 10w30 (e.g., Castrol Magnatec GTX) . now even that's £24 from Costco . So what do you use ? I've recently acquired my first 110 Td5 , and thought to initially change all the fluids, so a basis to start from.

hawky99 said:

So from that comment, it implies stick to fully synthetic 10w30 (e.g., Castrol Magnatec GTX)

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not at all especially that 5w30/40 is recommended for Td5 in european temperature ranges, 10W40 is for tropical areas, though i insist that fully synth is the best for Td5 due to high resistance to thermal breakdown in the turbo and if it's suitable for unit injector engines it's even better

Its not something you change once a week so why not use the fully synth, modern engines have a lifetime which far exceeds the older units, my dad would have fainted if I told him I bought a vehicle with 100K mls on it, you can find TD5s with double that on them going strong, modern oils are part of that story.
It seems around Christmas Halfords do an offer on their own oil (supplied by comma) I stock up then and change it at least once a year, engine sounds better with 5W40 than 5W30 takes out some of the sewing machine noise.