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Toyota 0W-20 is a Mobil brand

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Troy Heagy, Apr 21, 2013.

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  1. Bill Norton

    Bill Norton Senior Member

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    Troy,

    Thanks for the analysis! This will be good info, with no opinions involved.

    Eventually ( this Fall ?) , I will be posting an analysis of Mobil 1 Extended Performance 5w-20 after 15k miles.
    If it tests well, would this mean we could lessen our environmental impact and maintenance time 50% ?
    I am also using a Mobil 1 oil filter with this fill. It definitely looks different from OEM and Wix oil filters.

    After all, 3k, 5k, 10k are all somewhat arbitrary, averaged numbers. It's the condition of the oil that matters.
     
    #21 Bill Norton, Apr 23, 2013
  2. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Senior Member

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    We did this analysis once before on here but I can't find the post so your results will be of interest. As I recall from the last time we found the Toyota oil was a little thinner and contained more molybdenum.

    I still use Mobil 1 0W20 and, of course, have had no problems at 77K miles. But despite what the purists have posted I admit to being a little suspicious of the long term results of using such thin oil. I suspect the engine might be better off with 5W20 or 5W30.
     
    #22 tumbleweed, Apr 23, 2013
    frodoz737 likes this.
  3. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    I'm switching to Mobil1 0w-30 next time, so I can analyze the 20 versus the 30 metal wear. Over in Europe they run the thicker 30 weight oils, and in Australia they run REALLY thick oils. (Their Toyota manuals recommend 5w-40 for normal conditions, and 5w-50 in hot desert conditions.... would love to see a foreign Prius manual someday.)

    I suspect the water-like oils we run in the U.S. are to help boost the CAFE results, at the cost of lower protection. In the EU and AU they don't have CAFE so they recommend proper oils. Anyway I will run an analysis to see how 0w-20 versus 0w-30 turns out. It will be posted at Used Oil Analysis - Gasoline - Bob Is The Oil Guy
     
    #23 Troy Heagy, Apr 23, 2013
  4. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    About a year ago, a lube expert stopped by here and gave a lot of favorable data on the Toyota synthetics. But as someone else mentioned, these products are probably under constant revision, so we here have no chance to know what is really going on behind the scenes. Any updated info we get is good, but we are doomed to guess-work unless Consumer Reports or someone does some serious annual testing of specs. My *impression* is Toyota synthetics are top notch quality.

    P.S.- What was impressive about the Toyota brand was, in the prior data posted by another guy, superior low-temperature viscosity (ie low visc). Conceivably you could test this at home just by seeing how fast the oil flows through a tube at room temp.
     
    #24 wjtracy, Apr 23, 2013
  5. Troy Heagy

    Troy Heagy Member

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    Or you could just read the cold flow datasheet. ;-)
    The absolute thinnest passenger oil is from Honda. It was originally released as 0w-20 in Japan but will be redesignated as 0W-16 under the new SAE rules.
     
    #25 Troy Heagy, Apr 23, 2013
  6. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    A few decades ago that would have given a reliable indication of the relative low temperature viscosity of oils as oils were rated then. The low temperature ratings (0W, 5W- etc) are now determined by two more complex tests because oil is a non-Newtonian fluid and it's viscosity varies with shear rate.
     
    #26 xs650, Apr 23, 2013
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