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I’m seeing a lot of misinformation about oil specifications in JLR vehicles. I am not a mechanic I do not profess to be an expert but I have owned quite a few vehicles in my lifetime (I am retirement age.) as well as over a half dozen Jaguar sedans and now my first Land Rover.
Since there are so many choices in oil products these days, I found it inundating and with the first year XF that I (Previously) owned, I decided to educate myself as much as possible about oil. The reason I thought it necessary is I found it odd that the specifications in my owners manual didn’t match what was being sold on the market so I wanted to know more about why.
Please, you do not need to ONLY use the specification of the year your car was manufactured. It may be out of date now. You wouldn’t use gas that’s several years old would you?
It turns out (Oil) manufacturers are typically the driving force behind the changing of oil specifications. (As well as meeting the requirements for increased fuel efficiency, etc.)
When I first started driving, there was primarily single weights like SAE 30 (Or SAE 50 for high performance racing & hot rods) and then (A few years later) there started to be multi viscosity oil like SAE 20W-50! And with the purchase of my first Tata manufactured Jaguar, we’re now looking at 5W–20. And even specifications for these oils are becoming outdated.
The new Ilsac standard is GF-6A. Since my Jaguar XJL was older, it was listed as compatible with GF-3 which then was superseded by GF-5.
GF6-A is designed to be backwards compatible so it will cover all the superseded specifications which are done on a periodic basis in their manufacture.
WSS is a European Ford spec and ACEA is also European. ILSAC is international and API is American. Jaguar/Land Rover has their own specification because they’d like you to only have your vehicle serviced at the dealer which I last looked was $300 an hour. (And as I discovered when my first Jaguar in the 1990s needed an electronic part replaced that took five minutes, they happily charged me a full hour!!!
In the last decade or two, JLR has began recommending fully synthetic oil. However, any oil that meeds (Or exceeds) the recommended standard is fine. The difference being, synthetic is of a superior quality & therefore lasts longer. My XJL (Owner’s Manuals) recommend 15,000 miles between oil changes. Every owner’s conditions vary but even for high mileage driving, that works for me. With synthetic blends I’d suggest more frequency. Standard oil is suggested changing even more often.
In my opinion (From having driven dozen’s of vehicles—from a beat up station wagon to $100K sedans) Changing the oil more frequently then needed is unnecessary & wasteful. (Plus harmful to our environment.) But you must make your own determination what ‘necessary’ is.
A mechanic who’s paid to change your oil may not say the same thing but someone like Scotty Kilmer, who was first on public access TV and then now primarily YouTube has been a mechanic for over half a century; he’s not paid by anybody and he’ll tell you exactly the same as I did!
Now again, you must make your own determination maybe your towing something. My new Discovery V is equipped to do so, but I don’t think I will be. Certain driving conditions and even certain climates may necessitate differentiating from JLR‘s “recommendation”. (It’s ONLY that!) Again, you must make your own determination. API & ILSAC certification seals.
Last edited by mc690; Nov 17, 2024 at 11:47 AM.
Reason: Punctuation errors
Go for it if you so choose but one thing that is well documented is the 15,000 mile interval is terrible for the AJV8/SCV6 family of engines. There are plenty of options out there for compatible oils, is it really worth it to save a few bucks on oil type and change frequency?
Maybe you’re right, but maybe I drove a 2012 Jaguar XJL with a 5.0L NA V-8 ‘til it almost had one quarter million miles and I mostly I just changed the oil every 15,000 miles. (Plus recommended maintenance.) I’d still be driving it today it if the brakes didn’t fail (w/o warning.). Perhaps JLR didn’t think that car would last that long, but on the Land Rover side they recommend getting that inspected and/or swapped out at a 150K. Maybe there’s a chance I know what I’m talking about since that was the seventh Jaguar I owned in three and a half decades!
Couple thousand miles before the brakes failed.
000 to 200,000 miles.
Perhaps what you’re failing to realize is that most everyone recommending that you change your oil at higher intervals than what JLR recommends, is either selling product or service. Now JLR even says: (From “Passport to Service”) “NOTE: The maintenance intervals listed are for vehicles operating under normal driving, road, and climatic conditions. More frequent attention may be necessary if the vehicle is subject to routine stop & go driving, extreme temperatures, dusty conditions, off-road driving, or frequent trailer towing. Consult your Land Rover Retailer for more information.”
Last edited by mc690; Nov 17, 2024 at 02:49 PM.
Reason: Correction
In recent years, the cost of inappropriate drain intervals to the economy, to the environment and to car owners has received closer inspection. In the United States, the average car owner changes his/her oil at just less than 5,000 miles. Conversely, in Europe the average oil change interval is more than 10,000 miles.
Assuming 10,000 miles is a more optimum interval, approximately 300 million to 400 million gallons of engine oil (worth about $1.5 billion, not including labor) in the United States are consumed unnecessarily. With increasing environmental and economic pressures, the potential waste can no longer be easily glossed over.
There are, however, negative consequences to overextended oil drains. In diesel engines for instance, overextended oil drain intervals have been shown to increase engine wear by more than 20 percent with a corresponding reduction in horsepower and fuel consumption. One could safely project that overextended drains in passenger car applications would have a similar negative outcome. This of course presents a real dilemma to the car owner.
What exactly is the correct interval? In the quest for optimum lubrication, car owners often receive conflicting advice from vehicle owner’s manuals, mechanics, quick-lube operators and auto parts merchants. Some of this advice is peppered with strong admonishments for bucking conventional wisdom.
As a practical matter, we must consider a range for an oil change from around 2,000 miles to well over 15,000 miles.
Land Rover recommend changing the oil for automobiles and light trucks burning gasoline once a year or every 10,000 miles (Up to 16,000; depending on model.), whichever occurs first.
If you read the fine print in your car owner’s manual, you will see that the 10,000-16,000-mile change interval is for vehicles driven under normal or ideal conditions. This is where the problem lies. What exactly are these ideal conditions and what are the consequences of not ideal with respect to motor oil condition and engine wear?
What many perceive to be “normal” driving is actually “severe service” driving from the standpoint of the oil. For instance, the following are examples of severe service driving: frequent short trips (especially during cold weather), stop-and-go driving, driving in dusty conditions (gravel roads, etc.), and high-temperature conditions. Under such conditions, the general recommendation found in owner’s manuals is to change the oil at half recommended intervals & time.
The real problem rests in the attempt to generalize. In reality, there are many unique conditions and factors that influence the decision. For illustration purposes, these conditions and influencing facts can be categorized in two ways as shown in the lists below:
1. Factors and Conditions That “Shorten” the Oil Change Interval:
Short-trip Driving - The problem is most pronounced for frequent trips under five miles in cold wintertime conditions. Water and fuel have a tendency to accumulate in the crankcase when the oil temperature doesn’t reach the thermostat setting.
Road Dust - Driving in dusty conditions (dirt/gravel roads) with an economy-grade oil filter can turn your motor oil into more of a honing compound than a lubricating medium. The dirty oil generates more wear metals which increase the risk of sludge formation and corrosion from acids.
High-Mileage Engine - Engines with more than 75,000 miles generate more blow-by gases, unburnt fuel and corrosive agents that enter the crankcase oil.
Diesel Engines - Diesels produce more soot and acidic blow-by products.
Flex Fuels - Alcohol-gasoline blends are prone to accumulate water in the crankcase.
High Oil Consumption - While on one hand high oil consumption replenishesadditives, on the other hand the affliction is also associated with high blow-by of combustion gases into the crankcase.
Hot Running Conditions - Hot running conditions, including desert terrain, in general can lead to premature oil oxidation, volatility problems and rapid additive depletion.
Desire for Long Engine Life - Shorter drain intervals increases the safety margin in the event of premature oil failure.
Towing/Heavy Loads - Generally relates to hot running conditions, thin oil films, higher shearing of viscosity index improvers and more wear metals in the oil. Wear metals catalytically shorten oil life, causing premature oxidation, sludge, acids and deposits.
2. Factors and Conditions That “Lengthen” the Oil Drain Interval:
High-Capture Efficiency Oil Filter- Controls catalytic wear metal production.
Highway Miles (predominate) - Lower average engine revolutions and fewer operating hours per distance traveled (miles) compared to slow-speed urban driving.
New Engines - Low levels of engine blow-by after the first 500 to 5,000 miles and less than 50,000 miles (unless oil consumption is high).
Frequent Oil Inspections - Simple and frequent oil inspections can be effective at identifying various motor oil problems. Refer to the article titled “Dipstick Oil Analysis” in the November-December 2003 issue of Practicing Oil Analysismagazine.
Low-value Vehicle - Many owners of automobiles with low resale value prefer extended drains to keep their costs low. Others use frequent oil changes as a strategy to limp along a car in its twilight years.
For most of us, distilling all this down to an optimum oil change interval is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall - too many variables and too much guesswork. There has long been a need for a practical and effective workaround. Rather than attempting to quantify the collective impact of these many conditions and factors, the best approach might simply be for the oil to tell us when it needs to be changed. Oil analysis - now there’s a fresh idea!
More and more oil analysis laboratories are targeting passenger car owners to grow their market. However, as a practical matter, laboratory oil analysis is out of reach for nearly all except for hardcore car enthusiasts. This has led to a flurry of new onboard sensors and related technology being advanced by companies with sizeable research budgets, eyeing the huge transportation industry. The following is a review of these many new and evolving innovations.
If you’d like to see the rest of the article which features new technologies being mentioned regarding this subject, go to the site address listed below.
They’re the same. In 2013 they have the same 3 L supercharged engine in a jaguar as they do in Land Rovers and it’s been that way for a long time. The parts are interchangeable. They just have different part numbers, but they’re (A lot of) the same parts. I know because I used them.
And 1/4 million miles tops 100,000 anything. Whatever some people are just clueless. Some people think you should only use the oil spec in your manual even if your car’s 20 years… old they just don’t get it! Believe what you want but I’ve been driving for over half a century so I might know a thing or two.
Last edited by mc690; Nov 17, 2024 at 08:02 PM.
Reason: oops
is it better to run a motul or liqui moly oil compared to the mobil even if its 5w30. How much could the high saps really do would the higher hths cancel it out
is it better to run a motul or liqui moly oil compared to the mobil even if its 5w30. How much could the high saps really do would the higher hths cancel it out
The low SAP is the most important factor, for the DPF.
Oil brand is not the important factor when is come to the modern diesel with DEF fluid and a DPF.
A little something about oil.
