The lifeblood of your engine: Are all oils the same?

When you walk down the au­to­mo­tive aisle or pull in­to a ser­vice sta­tion, you are im­me­di­ate­ly con­front­ed with a dizzy­ing wall of en­gine oils. You will see dif­fer­ent brands, dif­fer­ent coloured bot­tles, and cryp­tic num­bers like 10W-40 or 0W-20. It is in­cred­i­bly tempt­ing to just grab the cheap­est bot­tle on sale and as­sume that “oil is oil.” How­ev­er, mak­ing this as­sump­tion is one of the most dan­ger­ous and ex­pen­sive mis­takes you can make for your ve­hi­cle’s longevi­ty.

All en­gine oils are ab­solute­ly not the same. Oil is the lit­er­al lifeblood of your en­gine, and choos­ing the right one comes down to un­der­stand­ing two main fac­tors: grade (vis­cos­i­ty) and type.

Un­der­stand­ing grade

Those num­bers on the bot­tle re­fer to the oil’s thick­ness, or vis­cos­i­ty, at dif­fer­ent tem­per­a­tures.

Mod­ern car en­gines are built with in­cred­i­bly tight, mi­cro­scop­ic tol­er­ances.

If you use an oil that is too thick, it won’t flow fast enough to lu­bri­cate the mov­ing parts when you first start the car. If you use oil that is too thin, it won’t pro­vide enough pro­tec­tive cush­ion­ing when the en­gine is run­ning hot in traf­fic. You must al­ways use the ex­act grade spec­i­fied in your own­er’s man­u­al.

Un­der­stand­ing type

Con­ven­tion­al Oil: Made from re­fined crude oil. It is cheap­er up­front, but breaks down much faster un­der heat and re­quires high­ly fre­quent changes.

Full Syn­thet­ic Oil: Man-made in a lab­o­ra­to­ry to be chem­i­cal­ly per­fect. It of­fers max­i­mum pro­tec­tion, han­dles ex­treme heat beau­ti­ful­ly, and lasts sig­nif­i­cant­ly longer be­tween changes.

Syn­thet­ic Blend: A mix­ture of the two, of­fer­ing a mid­dle ground in both price and en­gine pro­tec­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, your oil is on­ly as good as your oil fil­ter, which traps dam­ag­ing met­al shav­ings and dirt. Putting the wrong grade, a low-qual­i­ty brand of oil, or a cheap coun­ter­feit fil­ter in­to your car can lead to slug­gish per­for­mance, dra­mat­i­cal­ly de­creased fu­el ef­fi­cien­cy, and in­ter­nal en­gine dam­age.

Your next step for suc­cess

Nev­er guess when it comes to your en­gine’s lifeblood. Build a re­la­tion­ship with a me­chan­i­cal ser­vice cen­tre that pri­ori­tis­es ed­u­ca­tion and trans­paren­cy. Look for a fa­cil­i­ty renowned for high­ly re­li­able parts sourc­ing and the sale of pre­mi­um, au­then­tic au­to­mo­tive sup­plies, guar­an­tee­ing that on­ly the high­est qual­i­ty oils and gen­uine fil­ters go in­to your en­gine. For the ul­ti­mate peace of mind, choose a pro­fes­sion­al garage that leads the way in con­ve­nience by of­fer­ing to safe­ly pick up your ve­hi­cle, per­form a pre­mi­um oil change and flu­id top-up, and drop it safe­ly back to your home or of­fice.

Pro­fes­sion­al Garage Ltd is a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion, woman-owned au­to­mo­tive busi­ness based in Laven­tille.

Vis­it: 25 Pash­ley Street, Laven­tille

Call: 625-7725

What­sApp: 487-5047