Post oil change feeling. Placebo effect?

Coleman camping fuel.

Dammit, missed my chance for a joke. They only sell it in Greenwich, ct?

My 02 wrx had this same thing- post oil change felt fantastic and "alive" for between 50-200 miles post oil change. Royal purple lasted 200, Castrol Syntec 50, mobile 1 about 100.

Joe Gearin wrote: I"m bumping this, as we have a through discussion of oil that you guys may find interesting on our "Shop Talk" forum. Can be found here: http://www.performanceracingoils.com/PDF/PCA_Club_Racing_News.pdf

Here is the link to that thread: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/advertiser-playground/wanna-learn-about-oils-look-here/103227/page1/

Never noticed a change in performance or even oil pressure after a chnange. Always run good synthetic oil, did a 3K interval on the camaro, whatever the indicator says on the vette and 5K on the truck.

Never had anything fancy with VVT though, and even when the 300K mile 4.7 is way past due its still jsut as quiet as when I put new stuff in.

Had more than a few tell me they notice a difference in VVT mod motors though, with noise and performance. They almost all say theys get a little rattle-y

Cone_Junkie wrote:

chiodos wrote: In reply to svxsti: Tell me more about the euro formula, my little brothers e39 went to an indy shop for something and they freaked out that he wasnt running euro formula $40 a gallon oil.

The euro oil has different specs than US/Japanese oil specs. Euro (ACEA), which is run by the manufacturers, is interested in high load/high heat specs. US/Japanese (API), which is run by the manufacturers, is interested in cold start specs. So a 5w-30 API oil is most likely very different from a 5w-30 ACEA oil, even from the same manufacturer. The main reason BMW and MBZ have thier own specs is for long life. So if you change it every 5K instead of 10-15K like they want, it's a moot point.

There's a bit more to it than that. ALmost all modern oils are both API and ACEA rated. ACEA just has more binning. Fuel quality and type are big inputs, as is longevity. The ACEA is a bit more descriptive in that it has A, B, and C, and has grades 1-3 of each, and there is a lot of overlap. There are low and mid SAPS (Sulfated Ash, Phosphorus, Sulfur) oils. The US is particularly interesting, as the sulfur content in gasoline here is very unusal. The EPA requires an overall low amount of sulfur; however, they allow much greater batch to batch variation.

BMW handles it one way, VW and Mercedes handle it antoher way. BMW specifies their (mid SAPS) LL01 oil in the US, and (low SAPS) LL04 in most of Europe. The "dirty" fuel countries get LL98. Mercedes and VW both specify their low SAPS oils (229.51 for MB, and there are about 367 different VW specs that are almost all the same.....but I digress) for both the US and Europe. There have been attempts to get BMW to change to follow the rest of the OEM's, but they aren't overly compelled to do so.

Anyway, most of the ACEA C3 stuff is the low SAPS stuff and is API SN. The ACEA A#/B# stuff is mid SAPS and is API SL. They are both typically API CF.

The Europeans also want for their oils to be good for both gasoline and diesel (but you already knew that since they are both S and C rated). Good news is that the detergent packs that make a good longlife oil also make a good diesel oil.

It is very peculiar to read that an oil can give better fuel economy when fresh. I would expect the opposite, and fuel dilution, and VI improver shearing will both make the oil thinner. The only reason I'd expect new oil to get better mileage is that the old oil is not very robust to the harsh environment and starts allowing sludge to form more quickly. I would not expect that a good, higher quality oil with a longlife detergent pack would do that.

I echo the

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Coleman camping fuel.

Yup except in this case it was a generic brand. I haven't seen Coleman brand for a while.

novaderrik wrote: i have had to change the idle speed on a couple of my carbureted cars after changing the oil- the 355 in my Nova gained 200rpm in hot idle speed when i switched from regular Valvoline 10w-30 oil to mobil 1 10w-30, and there wasn't really that many miles on the old oil when i changed it..

Changing from regular oil to synthetic will do that.

Ian F wrote: Possibly... Ages ago I had a '91 Acura Integra. I generally changed the oil every 3000 miles. The weird part was if I tried to stretch it out much past that, the gas mileage would go from its typical 30 mpg down to around 26 or 27. Change the oil - right back to 30 mpg. Everything I've read says it shouldn't have done that, but I drove that car for 150K miles and it exhibited those symptoms more than just a few times.

My most recent VW would progressively burn more oil until the oil would get changed.

You would think that burning up to a quart every 200mi would be just like getting an oil change, but no! It must have been drinking the new stuff first

My cars always seemed to run a little better after a fresh oil change.

iceracer wrote:

novaderrik wrote: i have had to change the idle speed on a couple of my carbureted cars after changing the oil- the 355 in my Nova gained 200rpm in hot idle speed when i switched from regular Valvoline 10w-30 oil to mobil 1 10w-30, and there wasn't really that many miles on the old oil when i changed it..

Changing from regular oil to synthetic will do that.

not always... that was the first time i'd had it happen, and i don't think i've run regular oil in anything since then to find out..