Very cold here in winter, lots of snow/ice----thoughts?

 

What kind of temps are talking here? If they are in the negative 0 area, Shell makes a Rotella 10W-30 for this very reason, to help with cold starts in extreme environments. You could even go with the synthetic Rotella T6 5W-40 which has superior cold start characteristics and maintains an operating temperature of the dino Rotella you are using now. It's your money though and spend it how you see fit.

Also, the Chevron Delo and Mobil Delvac oils are also very good and will meet your needs. They all come in conventional/dino 15-40 and 10-30 as well as the 5W-40 synthetic grade.

I would recommed, during the summer and spring the 15-40 would be better suited and the 10-30 for the fall/winter months. The T6 synthetic is good for year round use if you are looking to simplify things. All are readily available and are priced aggressively too.

 

I switch over to 10w-40 in the winter and 15w-40 for summer. Our winters see alot of 10-20 degree mornings. I would not use the t6 5w-40 it is just too thin for these old v8s. I know it has the 40w rating but when I was using it is when my rover started the ticking and never stopped. When I drained it out hot it was as thin as water, nothing like when you drain a conventional 10w40 or 15w40.

 

http://www.carbibles.com/images/saerates.jpg

 

It seems they don't like you linking to their photos.

 

Does the link not work?
It works for me, if I knew how to copy and paste a photo from a web site onto here I would do it but I have no idea how.

 

Ok, had to do it the long way, but here it is.

 

Not to flame here but that information is just plain false... The 5W or the first number of the xW-xx is the weight of the base oil or viscosity of the oil when it's cold. A 5W will have superior cold start properties than ANY 10W, 15W base oil and will only benefit your engine in the long run. 50% of wear occurs at start up and using anything else besides the lowest number base oil possible is just starving your engine for oil. Also, the larger number between the two viscosities (5-40, 5-50, 0-40) is an indication of the quality of the oil you are using as opposed to (10-30, 15-40, 20-50) . To say a 5W-40 is too thin is also saying a 15-40, 10-40 is too thin, they both have the same operating temp viscosity. I mean Mobil 1 0W-40 actually has a thicker viscosity index rating than almost any other 40W oil on the market while retaining great cold start performance being a 0W base oil. Any oil will come out like water when hot no matter the viscosity... Dino or synthetic.

OP, a synthetic not only has better additive packages than dino's but will always have better start up performance just due to the lack of contaminants (waxes mainly). I would use the T6 5W-40, Delvac 1 ESP 5W-40 or Delo Syn 5W-40 for year round use and are highly recommended being heavy duty engine oils with robust ad packs. There are also other passenger car motor oils that will perform admirably like the M1 0W-40, Pennzoil Ultra 5W-40, Kendall Liquid Ti 5W-40 and a host of others. If you can't justify the price difference, go for a conventional the 10W-30 Rotella like I suggested earlier in the winter/fall or a 10-40 (Pennzoil yellow bottle recently has had a formulation change and is a VERY stout oil) if you want to keep that operating viscosity a 40W.



Usually these are based on engine type but probably similar to what yo would see in some owner's manuals. Personally, I would NEVER use a 10W oil if temps were below 20*F. 5W or less would be optimum.

 

Kurt -

My D1 was starting to sound like a bag of wrenches in the cool mornings (like 30F), just until truck warmed a little, so I swapped from 15W40 Rotella to the 5W40 syn Rotella. Now I don't have to wait a few seconds for oil light to go out, it goes out before the brake light does, and the noise is 100% gone. While you can run the 15W40 down to 14 F, you would probably notice an improvement with the syn version even before you got to that temp.

I also run that 5W40 Rotella in off road power equipment, much of it powered by John Deere, and their engines from the 70's are hardly what would qualify as high tech.

 

FTR, I still have the Rotella 15w40 in mine, and after setting for 5+ hour outside in 30*+/- temps, my oil light goes out before my srs light within a second or two.