which engine oil is best?

when i bought my landy 2 years ago i flushed the engine and put valvoline 15/40 semi synthetic in..no particular reason but it was expensive so i thought it must be good
a friend said castrol magnatec is the best there is
someone else said such a old design engine will run better on mineral oil
another said dont EVER put magnatec in - its just not good for a high flow low pressure system as in the v8 landy!

now I'm nervous! can anyone advise pls

any oil is better than no oil and noo oil is always better than old oil.

As long as you have oil in the car its just personnel prefrance as to what and how much you want to spend, You could top your landy with £15 worth of halfords oil or £50 worth of castrol.

Oil Is Oil, any oil as its been said is better than no oil so i guess its upto you, Just make sure you use Diesel Oil if you have a Diesel engine

a lot of oil is now suitable for both petrol or doozil.

The Mad Hat Man said:

a lot of oil is now suitable for both petrol or doozil.

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Tractor Universal!

There's nothing finer for Landies!

10/40 semi.

^ WRONG!

20w50 is ideal for the RV8.

Halfords Classic will do but we've recently confirmed it's got a less than ideal amount of zinc in it, which is great anti wear for pushrod motors.

Try to get hold of 20w50 Comma Sonic, that's a beauty.

And yes, the owners manual, Haynes and workshop manuals are wrong - 10w40 was specified because it will suffice and asking people to find 20w50 in the 90s was not acceptable.

Your engine was designed in the 60s

I use 20/50 as i was told by V8 specialist and agree with Mr Noisey, but also i change the oil a little less often than specified (every 6,000) as it runs mainly on LPG.

Nick.

I change the oil when it gets dirty.

If you can see the oil getting darker week by week you know it must be absorbing ****. If the oil is brown and it ain't getting browner who's to know that **** ain't making little barricades inside the engine?!

I change when i can't see the words on the dipstick anymore, usually about 3-4 months on my mileage

I have to agree with both juicy and noisy here lol

in my 72 3.5 rrc it doesnt like anything but 15 or 20w 50 but when I put the 15w50 in my 1990 3.9 motor its doesnt like it , especailly when its cold- sounds quite tappety but it is fine on the 10w40 magnatec. I think it depends if your running a 3.5 or a 3.9 even though the 3.9 is based on an old design it is a slightly newer engine with some mods.

Fair play fett...

As far as my 3.5 is concerned it is tappety on 15w40 and loses oil pressure at tickover when very hot.

20w50 sorted that.

Hows your 3.9 on 20w50 njh?

mine is a 1998 3.9 "Saudi Spec" disco 1 but dont know if there were any other mods apart from the air conditioning in the rear compartment - not found much info even on google as to what mods were carried out
considering its heritage it copes reasonably well with the british winters (even my water pump seems to have quietened down again) ...thats saved me the lousy job of changing it!

Mr Noisy said:

^ WRONG!

20w50 is ideal for the RV8.

Halfords Classic will do but we've recently confirmed it's got a less than ideal amount of zinc in it, which is great anti wear for pushrod motors.

Try to get hold of 20w50 Comma Sonic, that's a beauty.

And yes, the owners manual, Haynes and workshop manuals are wrong - 10w40 was specified because it will suffice and asking people to find 20w50 in the 90s was not acceptable.

Your engine was designed in the 60s

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Good call Sam!....
Yeah, I'd been using 10w40 semi synthetic, but have heard a noticeable improvement in the '92 3.9Efi RRC (on-roader) when I replaced it very recently with a 20w50 enhanced mineral oil (I think the sonic is similar?).
I think I shall probably do the same with the '90 3.9Efi off-roader come next oil change.
Please also be aware that a lot of those really cheap 'happy shopper/ tesco value' 20w50 oils out there contain 'recycled reprocessed oils'/ Great for lawnmowers...and thats about it!

Cheers Joe, yeah I was looking at cheaper options than Halfords and came up with Carlube formula 1, 9 quid plus vat. I'm thinking winner, then I read on and it turns out it's unclassified, ie, so **** it can't pass any existing standards.

Cheers

Mr Noisy said:

Cheers Joe, yeah I was looking at cheaper options than Halfords and came up with Carlube formula 1, 9 quid plus vat. I'm thinking winner, then I read on and it turns out it's unclassified, ie, so **** it can't pass any existing standards.

Cheers

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I bet it is a very competent engine oil.
Here's their site.
Carlube Motor Oil - Ancillary Products
No, this isn't spam.

why don't you email them to say their product is ****?
here's their contact email address: [email protected]

Thanks charlesy.

Sound like a great idea you're suggesting there, but I'm afraid I haven't got a sacrificial unit to test the oil in, only my own motor that I'd like to keep in good order.

I'm probably missing out because of this, but I decided that at £9+ per gallon and with no API spec the gear probably wasn't for me.

Therefore it is ****. But I do use the term loosely on occasion

LOL, I just thought, I wonder if they already know it's **** anyway, hence the low price tag and "unclassified" status

Mr Noisy said:

LOL, I just thought, I wonder if they already know it's **** anyway, hence the low price tag and "unclassified" status

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Ask Castrol and the other big name brand people to tell you honestly, what proportion of the cost of their fancy-named oils are due to ADVERTISING costs.

Way back in the early days of GTX, Castrol had to admit that it cost them more for advertising than it cost them to make the oil in the bottles. But they don't care, do they? They are NOT in business to supply you with good oil. It would be a big mistake to think that.

They are in business ONLY to try to make a PROFIT, and as much profit as possible. The way they do that is to hype up their product with lots of expensive marketing tricks, price it high to make people think it must be good at that price, and stand back as the gullible ones queue up to hand over their money.

I don't fault anyone in this, because everyone ends up happy. It's just that the oil company shareholders get richer, while the oil users get poorer.

That's a fair point when you look at it that way mate, but on the reverse I'm sure they churn out poor quality oil at the bottom end and tell you it's alright, in the same sort of fashion.

You can't say that they're not in business to supply good oil though, its about selling the best oil at the best profit. You also get what you pay for though...

That's a fair point when you look at it that way mate, but on the reverse I'm sure they churn out poor quality oil at the bottom end and tell you it's alright, in the same sort of fashion.

You can't say that they're not in business to supply good oil though, its about selling the best oil at the best profit. You also get what you pay for though...