alexb76

I found the 2006 technical bulletin for the list of Porsche approved oil, most of the approved oils expired in 2008 or 2009. So, I assume there must be a new list of them, but couldn't find it?!

Anyone's got the new list? or knows of the motor oils that were added/removed?

Thanks

Bijan

At RennTech.org there is a TSB 37/08 date March 10, 2009
(Need to be a member to view)

box986

Is there an updated 2010 or 2011 one, I googled and searched in the forum but the latest one seems to be from 2009.

utkinpol

i don`t beleive there is one, also do not beleive it is worth experimenting with 'new oils'. M1 5w50 works fine.

Macster

I got one dated July 29, 2010 from my local Porsche dealer.

The oils certification expiration dates run out to in most cases sometime in 2012 or 2013.

Sincerely,

Macster.

pcostinha

I every one. I'm new in the Forum.
Here you have the last list that I know (from last year).
Cheers.

gpjli2

Thank you. I was obsessing about whether to use Motul 8100x-cess or x-clean. I see it doesn't matter to Porsche.

mdrums

During the Sebring 12hr race....actually in the paddock the day before I saw the ALMS Falkin 997GT3 RSR getting refilled after an oil change.....guess what they were using? Mobil 1 0w-40. Also go to you tube and you can see a ALMS 12hr 5 min clip of highlites of Team Falkin and their RSR and you'll see them putting this oil in the car.

gpjli2

I would think they were a sponsor.

alexb76

I am quite surprised NO ONE has ever done a proper independant oil test/comparo... almost EVERY other product has had extensive testing/reviews!

mdrums

Not sure if they are or not but that is what they raced...Mobil 1.

simsgw

It's a little tough to organize. Oil compounds are designed for a specific operational scenario. The oil you'd put in a Prius isn't appropriate for a Porsche, and conversely. Independent testing is done by engineering organizations, but not in the style you're picturing.

Consumer oil gets compounded in these specific ways by the millions of quarts normally. This process is computer controlled and a lot more stable, but nevertheless picture the way Consumer Reports does a write-up on tuna fish and translate that to cars: "Our panel will try a set of ten candidates in their vehicles for 100,000 miles. Each. The engine will be disassembled for a standard set of tests after each oil is used. After the end-of-life tear down, we will... [...]

"Right now, we can report that we judge that the oil type specified by the automobile manufacturer is your safest choice. Two Porsches exploded at seven thousand rpm on the Prius oil type and all six of our Prius drivers using the oil type specified for Porsches reported an increase in fuel consumption that ranged from 11% to 19%. Our double-blind procedure was modified to accommodate this finding. As to the manufacturer's recommendation of a specific brand of oil, we are skeptical, and will post reports as the remaining Porsches in our sample reach the million-mile mark. The Prius drivers do not expect to live that long. Please keep checking this space annually."

Gary

alexb76

Great points, most probably it's due to cost and complexity of it... but I am sure if someone was inclined could test oil in a more controlled laboratory environments, for instance testing viscosity at different temps, to verify if what company X claims is accurate.

I guess nothing beats oil analysis of your own car's oil at this point.

simsgw

Definitely to that last point. Besides identifying wear patterns a mismatch can be spotted between the compound and your usage pattern in your car. The viscosity testing and examination of several other parameters is the sort of thing done by engineering standards organizations. Actually, they set the conditions and supervise, with the producers paying for the testing. (Something like the way "the government" does fuel economy testing. They watch, specialist engineers do, manufacturers pay.)

The tricky part is that viscosity test results are subject to a lot of factors that must be standardized if you want to compare two different samples. Mind you, I'm not a petroleum engineer, let alone one of the specialist engineers who design lubricants from a combination of base stocks and synthetic compounds, but let me try to give an example. We speak of flow viscosity vs temperature as if it were a single curve relating the two, but I'm pretty sure that the viscosity measure varies with several other factors simultaneously, like the pressure and the presence of shear. Not only must those be standardized to keep the tests consistent, but different compounds will respond differently to variations in those other values in the field. That response can't be ignored because it is important to the type of service the oil is suitable for.

The most important difference between mid-twentieth century engines and their oils and ours today would be in the meticulous demands of pollution control, fuel economy, and especially in our p-cars, the extremely high specific power output. In ye olden days, our MG tended to show low oil pressure when we ran it on freeways for long runs. Fair enough, just use 50W. That'll do it. One guy even tossed in automatic transmission fluid or something like that. 80W I believe it was. Seemed to work. That was with an engine that produced... getting old... I think it was 65 hp from 1200 cc or 54 hp/liter of displacement. Old feeble post-war English horses. It was so tractor simple we tore down the heads and did valve jobs a couple of times. When the need arose, we did a full tear down and replaced the main bearings as well. Still in a carport because we had no garage in those days. (That did wonders for the oil pressure. For a while anyway.)

Compare that to the mid-range (sorta) engine in my Carrera S. 384 hp from 3800 cc. Stout 21st century Teutonic horses. Allow another 12% or so for the difference between advertised horsepower in British sports cars of the sixties and the current German practice. At least. That gives us 113 equivalent hp per liter, or... well, to avoid all the changes let's just say my current Porsche engine is putting out almost exactly twice the horsepower per cubic volume the pistons displace.

Horsepower is just 'power' of course and producing it from chemical energy sources implies waste heat as well. In fact, one measure of horsepower involves... nah, too much boring detail. Simple version: hotter under there. Harder on the primary cooling fluid, the oil. More pressure under there. Harder on the primary lubricant, the oil. More dynamic range of conditions too and the oil helps the engine take up the slack as things change from minute to minute and month to month. Our MG survived all that, but not with the grace of this car.

The oil is a complex compound designed to help the engine designers with all that. Oil designers do not necessarily do a boutique blend for each car, but the exotics like Ferrari and Porsche do get the leading edge designs. That is, the new engines coming from designers at the exotic factories are built with consultation from the oil designers. When some new design direction requires 'help' from the oil compound, they will in fact come out with a new blend for the first car to use that technique, and because they are working with the other engine designers concurrently (under non-disclosure agreements), they adapt the compound they create in ways that meets all of their needs at once. If they can. (Formula One oils are a special class of problem with blends that might change from week to week. I suppose that an occasional car from Ferrari or McLaren might need a derivative of the Formula One oil blend. God knows. I've never even considered buying a million-dollar toy like one of those, but if I did, I doubt I'd care whether they had to custom blend each gallon of oil. What's another $100/mile of operating cost?)

Once those leading edge engines are sold to buyers like us in sufficient quantities, the techniques of their design get adapted to more mundane cars. The oil companies move the compounding techniques into the mainstream.

A classic example of all this is the change in additives over the last few decades.

So the observation that Mobil One has viscosity traits that are different from say... SzChuan Special Blend, a case of which you picked up while traveling, does not easily translate to action, to an informed decision. Would it be better for your Porsche during the months when you never leave downtown Manhattan and get in your acceleration runs on the ramp at the parking garage? Or would it not?

I'm speaking lightly, but this isn't really a facetious topic. Back when Mobil One was first released for consumer use, I was flying light aircraft regularly. If you think a Porsche and Prius make odd bedfellows, look into a Chevy and a Cessna some time. People wanted to use Mobil One in their aircraft engines because it obviously was a better oil, right? Mobil refused to condone such use for years. They weren't just being litigation sensitive (although that's always a factor). Basically, the engineers just had no idea whether the radically different operating conditions of a light aircraft engine might expose some problem with the blend that they hadn't considered in their design work.

All that talk about variations and maybes and operating stress is why I just buy whichever oil the manufacturer recommends. I might feel different if I owned a plain vanilla car, where I could exercise my own judgment on other factors. Then I could buy Pennzoil for my Kia because they sponsor all those race cars. But I don't feel like rolling the dice that way with a Porsche.

I hope you realize I'm just sitting here killing time while Cindy naps. I can't fix dinner until she wakes and I have nothing better to do than chat about design problems. Think I'll go watch a round of golf in Texas and quit boring everyone.

Gary

gpjli2

I'm sure you are right. Mobil spends a lot of money for product placement. I have used it for 5 years. Recently there has been a lot of talk about grade 5 oils being "better" than grade 4. Oils like Motul and Redline (5) use a different base than Mobil 1(4). Read this months Excellence and LN's article on how to protect against IMS failure in .1 engines. I have gone with Motul x-clean in a 5-40. This and the x-cess are porsche approved as was noted. I can't imagine I will see a real world difference but will keep an eye on it.