Date:         Thu, 14 Jul 94 09:24:19 CDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      

On Thu, 14 Jul 94 09:21:43 CDT John Kaufman said:
>I just read a post from someone who mentioned the 'evils' of 10w40 oil
>used in their bus.  Are these perceived 'evils' only a problem in air
>cooled engines or is there something basically wrong with 10w40 altogether?

i haven't heard of any 'evils' of 10W40. the only 'evil' that i've heard
about multi-grade oils is that you want to keep the two numbers as close
as possible. that is, 10w30 is 'better' than 10w40. and 20w40 is 'better'
than 20w50. why? i do not know. if this is true, then would not a single
oil be much better?

>I use 10w40 in both the Vanagon and my '78 Scirocco, which I've owned
>since it was new. Is there an advantage to using 20-50?

the ONLY reason i used 20w50 in my 88 bus is that i changed one winter
(cause i was going up to rhode island and was worried about not being able
to crank the bus in the cold with its normal 30w) ... and the temp gauge
showed that the temp dropped quite a bit. so i kept on using it, and sure
enough, it ran cooler in the summer too. why? i don't know. now, that was
Kendall brand 20w50, and it is more expensive than Castrol or whatever,
and it became difficult to find hereabouts, so i've gone back to Castrol,
but stayed with the 20w50.  i'm thinking about going all the way back to
straight 30w again.

oh, so why don't *I* use 20w40 instead of 20w50? cause i can't find it
around here! it's really funny to me how motor oil is handled differently
from town to town ... like shoes or blue jeans or something. whatever sells,
i guess.
joel