What grade engine oil to run in a 2003 P5??
 

My stupid manual says nothing about viscosity. I bought 4 quarts of Mobil1 5w-30 and assume this should be fine. Anyone else run this?

BTW - The car has 600 miles on it and I will be switching over to synthetic very shortly for good.

thanks all!

I have an '02 DX and my dealer puts in 10W-30. It really doesn't matter much since the difference between 5W-30 and 10W-30 isn't much at all. Either way, your motor will run great.

that would make sense since down there in TX it gets a lot warmer then up here in the northeast, I think 5w-30 year round will be fine especially since the car is kept in a garage overnight which keeps the engine considerably warmer then if it were outside overnight.

Re: What grade engine oil to run in a 2003 P5??
 

you're not reading the manual hard enough... it's in there

Are you talking about that bar graph with the temperatures??

lol my dealer put sum garbage 5w - 20 in my car :eek: Iwas like wtf!!:mad:

Re: What grade engine oil to run in a 2003 P5??
 

I have been running Mobil1 5W-30 since my first oil change at 2k miles. Have been really happy with the results thus far. After much research and searching I came to the conclusion that if your going to go synthetic this is the one to go with in terms of performance and cost. Just be aware that if you start running synthetic it's not suggested that you go back to normal oil after you have been running it for awhile.

Jrod - thanks for your reply, where did you get your "bug guard" and is it plastic or vinyl??

Thanks
Mike

It's a plastic one that I got from a mazda dealer who sells on Ebay. Mazda of Wooster. They are based in Ohio. I have been really happy with it thus far, no paint chips in my hood :D

Cool, I just located them on Ebay, how does it attach to the hood anyway? Does the plastic part actually contact the painted hood?? Any scratches from the protector yet?? Do you have any more pictures of your car that I can look at? I have a 2003 Blue P5 too and want to get that same piece.

Thanks
Mike

jrodhotrod-

Most synthetics say that they are fully compatible with regualr dino oil! How come switching back will cause problems? I had synthetic oil (Formula 1) and switched back at only one change as I noticed no real diff. After reading more I will try synthetic again, but would like to find out if you can switch back or not! :(

I never heard what is above about switching back to non-syn, I heard the opposite. i heard not to switch to synthetic on high mileage cars, if it hasn't used synthetic its entire lifespan, because it can shrink seals on certain types of engines. I have never seen this varified and I changed to synthetic on a 93 PGT with 127,000 miles on it. Never leaked a drop nor burned abnormal amounts. It could be true about certain engines disliking it, or it could have been some jackass that put Mobil 1 in his old cavalier, revved it like a F1 car, and then blamed the mobil 1 when he found oil vomiting out of the side of engine.

I can't remember where I read it so I can't quote it exclusively now. Essentially the point of most of what I read was, don't switch to synthetic on high mileage cars that had been running normal oil. The same with not switching to normal oil after running synthetic for quite sometime. Essentially it was find a type of oil and stick with it. I can't speak from any kind of experience here, just summarizing what I read and figured out from research. In the past I have always run standard oil in my vehicles, this is the first time I have run synthetic. If nothing else you get the added benefit of going longer between changes. I change my synthetic at every 5000 miles but you could go 7,500 is what I read. Just some info, take with it and do as you want. Just sharing my minimal experience thus far with synthetic and what I gleaned from researching.

the original oil is 5w20. I beleive that this is a synthetic blend but I may be wrong. Seems that Ford anyway and other manufacturers are using lighter weight oil to improve emissions and economy stuff. Don't know how much this will effect the life of the engine. Any opinions?

5w-20 is really light, especially in warmer months.

I finally got my god damn factory oil filter off last night (what a pain in the ass) and put 5w-30 Mobil 1 in it and will stick with it going forward.


regarding changing back and forth from organic lube to synthetic, I believe that there is absolutely no problems if you go syn 1 oil change then regular the other. Going back and forth does not affect your car whatsoever. BUT the question is "why would you"????????