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Date:         Fri, 20 May 2011 16:29:57 -0500
Reply-To:     Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject:      Re: Mixing oils with different weights.
Comments: To: Don Hanson <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <BANLkTi=kQ9EW_nrkH4T1Hu3ac3z7DMhqzA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

To qualify for the ASE rating, all oils must be compatible, in other words you can mix any ASE certified oil with any ASE certified oil.

This also leads into another "secret" that most engine oil manufactures won't tell you because it blows their marketing plans. To guarantee that anything will mix with anything they all have to be using the same basic additive packages and this includes the viscosity indexers. They may tweak percentages here and there but the additives are all basically the same.

One exception is base stock, the raw oil that becomes engine oil. And base stock is what makes full synthetic better than DINO engine oil. Also, base stock is the starting point of multi-grade oils. For example the base stock for 5w-30 is lighter or less viscous than the base stock for 20w-50. The viscosity indexers add range to the base stock and are what make a 10w oil into a 10w-40.

I suspect that mixing oils will net an average as long as the base or bottom number is the same but mixing different base numbers is too complex to figure out. But like I said earlier, anything can mix with anything or the oil would not be ASE certified.

Thanks, Tom Hargrave www.stir-plate.com www.towercooler.com www.kegkits.com

-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Don Hanson Sent: Friday, May 20, 2011 2:01 PM To: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com Subject: Mixing oils with different weights.

If you were to mix 20w 50 weight with say..5w 30, would you expect an end viscosity somewhere proportionate to how the ratios were 'blended'? I inherited a bunch of oil, mostly pretty light weights...like maybe 5 cases, ranging from 10w to 10-40 and straight 20 and 30w. I like to run about 15w 40w in my inline Jetta motored van and I change it out at 3000 (+/-) miles...With all this light weight oil kicking around, I would like to just buy some heavy oil and mix in a quart or two of the lighter free stuff...Use it up... Acceptable? Don Hanson ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1375 / Virus Database: 1509/3649 - Release Date: 05/20/11


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