engine oil

[bmcecosse]

So - 'synthetic' means it's mineral oil with some chemicals added, and semi-synthetic just means a few less chemicals?? On the Mini - to 'improve' the fuel consumption official figures, they advised 10W40 oil be used... Perhaps ok on a nice new engine - but death to many a Mini engine and gearbox!

[ben-me-123]

synthetic means it's been made up in a lab hence the cost- someone in a white coat has made it from its basic chemicals (you were right about that BMC) ... semi-synthetics are part mineral and part synthetic (keeping costs lower)...
synthetics are generally more costly because they have "clever" ingredients that mean less oil changing etc (because people who buy new cars have no interest in that sort of thing) but I personally don't see the benefit in that, it encourages laziness in people...

[bmcecosse]

Well done MP - great idea!!

[MikeNash]

Islip Minor,
I hope to get a graph of fuel consumptions versus speed using a magnetic pickup on the pump driving a counter to give a fuel pump pulse rate. (Brim to brim fillings of the tank and distance measuring is too crude for this work.) To date (over the last 30 years) I've had a crude switch system driving a plain electro-mechanical counter which required me to drive with one eye on my wristwatch - tricky at over 60 mph!
I'll try to measure power by timings of between say 30 to 50 mph at full throttle; has anyone experience of the latter? What might typical times be for a standard 1098 Trav be?

Regards, MikeN.

[lee_rob]

I have used the halfords classic 20/50 but I shall not be using it anymore. It seems to break down very quickly and leads to low oil pressure. I have started using Morris lubricants 20/50 and that seems to be much better quality and is cheaper than the Halfords too.