What Is The Best Oil For An Engine

Lubricating oil for the engine is the main lubricant for the engine in the vehicle. Its importance is enormous since an engine without oil loses many properties such as power, efficiency in consumption and can break the engine. The lubricant is also used in other vehicles with internal combustion engines such as motorcycles or quads.

The reason is that a good lubricant prevents the internal parts of the engine from rubbing against each other, which can cause the engine to break down forever. It is also capable of keeping the engine temperature cold, since by not touching the components, the temperature does not multiply as there is no friction (kinetic energy).

Finally, a good lubricant ensures that the car is always in efficient operation, since it prevents foreign particles from entering the engine, since it keeps them impregnated in it. When passing through the lubricant filter, all the particles remain stuck to it, so none ever enters.

The problem is that there are many brands of this lubricant and therefore it is difficult to see which is the best oil for our vehicle for our vehicle. That is why I am going to offer you some very simple guidelines that will allow you to know if the lubricant you are buying is the best for the engine.

What do you need:

• Observe the oil cans carefully to find out which is the best for our car.
• Instruction book of our vehicle.

Instructions:

1. Manufacturer’s instruction book: To know exactly which is the best oil for our car, we must read the instruction book that comes with our vehicle. There it will indicate exactly the lubricating oil that will work best in our vehicle. They will indicate ideal values ​​such as viscosity, composition (mineral, semi-synthetic or synthetic) and additives, for example low SAPS (low in sulfur, phosphorus and traces of ash). Normally this oil is the one that will work best for our engine, so if we have the book always try to buy it with these characteristics, although there are some exceptions, for example with the issue of viscosity, in which if it has low figures it could be achieved that the car works better in cold weather.
2. The brand: This is one of the most contentious issues, since there are millions of brands on the market and they all look very good in the advertisements. Each manufacturer will recommend one, but many times they do it for simple sponsorship contracts or associations, not even taking other brands into account in the tests. For my taste, the brand that works best is Castrol, although really if the manufacturer’s viscosity, composition and additive standards are met, the car should work perfectly with any brand.
3. The issue of viscosity: Really if I had to choose a single property of the oil, I would choose this one. Viscosity is the property that makes oil stay thick both when it is cold and when it is hot. An oil that is low in viscosity is cold and will not work properly in winter and an oil that does not withstand high temperatures well, could be too fluid, which is bad for the engine. Always look at the letters that appear in the center of the can, for example 5W40, the number that goes before the W is the cold viscosity and the number after is the hot viscosity. The cold viscosity number is usually recommended to be low, especially in cold climates and the number after depends on the manufacturer, which may recommend either 30 or 40 depending on the engine.

Tips

• How often do you change the oil: A very common question is how often should the oil be changed. Here you have to read carefully what you put in the oil can, which tells us the mileage that oil lasts approximately in good condition. Synthetic oils last much longer than semi or mineral oils, which must be changed every 12 months on a mandatory basis. If you have the car stationary, it is also advisable to change the oil from time to time even if you are not driving. The oil level should also be checked often, which is done using the dipstick. If the oil level is inadequate, a change should be made.
• What does hot and cold mean?: I’ve talked about proper low temperature and high temperature viscosity, but I haven’t mentioned exactly what those temperatures are.  These temperatures are marked by the Society of Automotive Engineers, which tells us that the cold figure is 18 degrees Celsius below zero and the hot figure is 100 degrees Celsius.