Hi all
I have a mk2 Golf GTI 8v that has started leaking a bit of oil. It appears to be coming from the oil cooler, although it's hard to tell as there is a general smudge of oil everywhere, doubtless because of airflow forcing it about a bit. I have heard that older, high mileage cars (mine's just broken 130,000) can suffer from leaking seals, and I was wondering if this might be the problem. A friend recommended getting some oil specifically for high mileage engines, as this contains certain constituents that help prolong seal life. I've seen some Castrol GTX 'high mileage', does anyone know if this will be suitable? I'm not too sure what is in the engine at present, as it has recently been serviced and hence the oil is whatever they have used - I am intending to check, as I gather they should be using a semi-synthetic.
Perhaps this is an obvious question, but how bad is it to mix oil types (mineral and synthetic)? I am a bit concerned as I have been topping up with some decent semi-synthetic and never thought to question my garage as to what they've been sticking in. A few posts on this forum have lead me to think that perhaps I should be taking a closer interest......
All advice gratefully received
Matt
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Would suggest any probs with seals should be corrected/replaced.specially on mileage you have specified.no amount of oil changes are going to help.your point with mixing semi with mineral.I doubt you will have a prob.but wouldnt mix fully synthetic with mineral.Though it has been suggested it may be ok I wouldnt risk it.would get seals sorted though.
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Was mech1
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Wynns do a product I believe which claims to solves some oil leaks that is added to the engine oil. I was thinking of trying this in my 2.8 1982 Granada to see if it would solve a small leak I have that is somewhere between the engine and gearbox. Has anyone tried the Wynns product with any success??
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Not that I want to put you off of trying.Thats up to you.if you have any leak its best to get it sorted.dont rely on any additives to do it for you.usualy if a seal breaks its either down to not servicing at correct times or purely the seals have worn out.in which case nothing is going to help?
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Was mech1
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As far as I am aware Castrol GTX high mileage is a rebranding exercise of normal mineral GTX. Oh and they have put the price up by £2.There is a surprise!!
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Don't mess around with oil additives/high viscosity oils/GTX mineral oil - get the leak sorted!! A GTi Mk2 will last for well over 200,000 miles if treated to regular 10W40 semi-synthetic oil changes. Unless you are flogging the car next week get he leak sorted...
Ian
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Henry K is right. The only oil for higher milleage i would use is Valvolene Max life. If i were you i would replace the oil cooler gasket. Then go to a decent trade motorfactors, and buy a big tube of good spec 10W/40 semi-synthetic oil and change it every 5k or six months whichever comes first.
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MobilOne (1) is as good as anything on the market.
A VW engine will happily cover well into six figure mileages if properly looked after.
I had two VW Jettas. The first, a 1989 1.3 with 66,500 miles on the clock, and the second a 1990 52,500 mile 1.6 TX, were both supremely reliable, never needed topping up once between their 10k oil and filter changes and never exhibited the slightest hint of an oil leak or drip.
The TX remains in regular daily use around my area and it's still strange to see someone else driving it. The 1.3 was part-exchanged at a dealership some 20 miles away, so I don't know if it's still going. My guess is yes.
My current 1.6 Bora exhibits similar likeable characteristics, but does need the occasional small addition of oil every 1,000 miles or so - VW reckons it should be up to a litre per 1,000 miles...:-)
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Hi all
Thanks for advice. I think plan of action is to get leak sorted then put some decent semi-synthetic in - GSF sell Quantum oil pretty cheaply, and this is the same stuff they sell in the VW main dealer, so I might give that a try.
Does anyone have any good ideas how to trace the seal that has gone? I reckon it's round the oil cooler, but as I mentioned before it's such a mess round there it's difficult to tell. I might slap a bit of degreaser round the area to clear it ut and then check to see where the mess is coming from. The only problem comes with the airflow (the oil cooler is, unsurprisingly, exposed to a decent flow of air) which tends to spread it around. Whilst the oil is out of the engine I might just replace every seal that could possibly be the cause that I have access to.
Cheers everyone
Matt
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Matt:
As you suggest, there's no better way of tracing an oil leak than cleaning the area and observing.
Quantum will be fine and not too thin. Like others I would steer clear of additives for stopping leaks.
There is absolutely no problem with mixing fuly synth, part-synth and mineral oils all together.
Andy
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Mobil 1 is usually 0W-40. I would not reccommend using that oil in these old engines. Mobil 0W-40 is only just thick enough to be a -40 oil when new, and after some use thins to a thick -30. This is too thin for these engines, and will result in increased tappet rattle. They were not designed for this sort of oil. If you want to use synthetic, use a 5W-50 grade.
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I used Mobil 1 in my 1990 1.6 Jetta TX for about six years without any problems - in fact it's still in use around my area by its current owner.
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I have used Castrol RS Fully Synthetic 0W-40 oil in a Cavalier engine for many years and it is still going well at 170,000+ miles. This engine dates from the end of the 1970's from the Mk1 Astra.
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Castrol RS used to be 10W-60 until relatively recently.
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5W-40 I think you will find.
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Nope the original Formula RS was 10W-60 i have the data sheet for it.
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What grade was the mobil 1? I was particularly commenting on the 0w-40 that is now commonly sold. I dont doubt what you say, those milleages are a testament to the quality of the block metal vw specified at the foundary. However:
If change intervals are very regular, say 5k or earlier- semi oil will be just fine.
Mobil is NOT the best oil for these engines as has been proven by oil analysis.Check the VW spec numbers in the handbook against the oil. The problem is that as the oil is used it thins out, before thickening up again to a -40 oil. -30 is not recommended for these engines. If you test the tappets you will find that even when new the -30 oil will drain from the tappets and result in tappet rattle, once they are worn even -50 oil leaks a bit. All the guys i know that have raced these engines (slick 50) will tell you NOT to use mobil 1. Additionally, i have seen race proven engines that use no oil usually on the track use large amounts of mobil 1 when filled with it. Also, if you drive the car remotely quickly you will also encounter oil pressure problems with this oil, which will only be noticeable with a pukka gauge in the car. mk1 gti will flicker the oil pressure light under hard cornering will mobil 1 in the sump.
Viscosity of the oil will vary depending on running temperature. If you are bothering to use synthetic, then get a separate oil cooler and thermostat assembly like i did and control conditions that way.
A friend of mine ran a 89G syncro to well over 200k miles using 10W-40 oil he bought for 5.80 for 4 litres from a motorfactors (part co). He was the only one of us that did not suffer valve guide or valve stem oil seal problems.
All tests have shown that mobil is not significantly any better than other leading synthetic oils, and is certainly not worth putting in an old mk.2 gti. If you want to use the best oil try valvolene synpower which can be purchased "retail" for less than £20 for 4 litres.
The main problem you will encounter with this engine is valve guide wear. Good oil will not help in this respect. Save the money you might spend on oil for a decent head recondition, during which you can have it ported as well for some genuine gains in performance.
I have nothig aginst mobil 1. Its great, but not in this engine. These engines last very well. Because one had mobil in it does not prove much. I fell for the marketing too. But after testing and using a variety of lubricants in these engines i find little advantage, particularly if you are not using extended drain intervals.
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I used to drive my 1990 Jetta 1.6TX (see earlier posting) at around 80mph whenever possible to destinations all over the country - the mileage was well into six figures when I swapped it last year and it is still doing the rounds in my area.
As I also said, like my previous Jetta 1.3, it never used a drop of oil and topping up was never required.
The reason I used Mobil 1 instead of the more usual Castrol, Duckams etc was because Mobil regularly presented the oil as a gift.....
It would be unlikely to have been doing any harm to use a superior product to the minimum oil standards laid down by VW.
Clearly using it is overkill - certainly for most people from the point of view of cost - but a motor factor such as Partco will supply semi-synthetic and synthetic oils produced by smaller companies at far more realistic prices.
Even Halfords has reduced the retail prices of such oils by nearly 50 per cent over the last 12 months or so because of such competition.
Further, I never experienced any untoward engine noises even after using Mobil 1 for approximately three years - what's more the then five-year-old Jetta TX had 52,500 miles on the clock when I acquired it.
However, if I'd used Mobil 1 in the 1.3-litre four-speed box Jetta C that preceded it I could have understood some derisory reaction....
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I wish i got oil as a gift! I see why you used it. Didnt mean to sound derisory.
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Plenty of good advice here. For what it's worth, I'd use the high-mileage GTX, as I do in my 1984 Capri. As I've said elsewhere, I can't think of a good reason for not trusting Castrol. The GTX "for engines with over 75,000 miles" appears to a simple rebadge of "older engine" GTX; no surprise why they rebadged it, as there are plenty of 75k+ cars that their owners wouldn't considered old.
As for Mobil 1 (which I use in my other, newer, cars), I wouldn't let it get anywhere near an old car. However, the most cost-effective way of obtaining it if you need four litres or more is to get your oil changed at Kwik-Fit, which has a fixed charge of £39, including filter. Thus, I get 7.5 litres for my MB at more than 40% discount off the price of retail Mobil 1.
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Hi all, thanks for all of the advice.
I must admit to being a bit naive regarding my choice of oil, I don't really consider the golf as being a performance engine so I have tended to go for decent standard oil from 'decent' manufacturers. Up until now that has typically been Castrol GTX (both standard and high-mileage versions). I had little idea that choice of oil was so important, as in most things I avoid the cheap stuff (I believe, to a certain extent, in the maxim 'you get what you pay for') but I hadn't considered that the golf required something a bit more refined (no pun intended).
As for my driving, I do enjoy a blat down country lanes but I much prefer smooth driving and keeping the speed up (the golf has decent tyres and is very well balanced) so I don't really stress the engine that much - my girlfriend commutes in it and I worry about how she drives when she's late for work! In this respect, the engine never really gets fantastically hot as it isn't really revved, how does this influence my choice of oil?
I'm looking at getting some quantum 10-40 semi-synthetic, it's recommended for the engine but due to mileage I'm not sure it isn't worth reconsidering. It has high-mileage GTX in it at present, no obvious problems but oil is disppearing from a seal leak so I couldn't be sure some isn't being burnt or leaking somewhere else.
Cheers
Matt
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The manual for your Golf details the minimum specification oil to be used in your engine - it's there for a reason...:-)
But the oil seal leak should be attended to asap - too late if it all gushes out at speed and you'll end the constant need to check the level.
I'm a VW fan and the three I have in the past 12 years have never, ever let me down or proved unreliable; I knew I could jump in at a moment's notice and go anywhere in the country without a qualm.
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..should read: "the three I have bought over the past 12 years..." and "I know I can jump in at a moment's notice and go anywhere in the country without a qualm." rather than in the past tense. The current one is a Bora.
Such a pronouncement though will no doubt upset some of the "all VWs are unreliable" brigade in the forums...:-)
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I'm ashamed to admit it, but I never actually checked the oil recommendations (whilst I haven't actually got a manual, it's not exactly hard to find out!)
My local garage just suggested putting 'something decent' in there whenever I asked, my suggestion of GTX was agreed to be OK hence I just went with that. A few incidents had me questioning their judgement, and it is thanks to this lack of faith (and both a desire to actually do a few of the more routine things myself and to save some cash) that I decided to try it myself, hence my questions in this thread - normally I'd just chuck the car in the garage and let the 'experts' figure it out. A bit of a blessing really, as otherwise I'd never have considered the oil I'm putting into the golf!
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Mobil was 5w 50 which was great for older tuned engines (ie designed for 50 hot).
I did try Castrol RS and yes, it did have 60 as an upper limit. Didn't really like it, and have a lubrication problem sinec I'd use I still can't find the true cause of.
Now use Mobil 1 Sport (or whatever they call it). I believe the stuff for bikes may be the same stuff, 15w 50. I've heard, but not checked the original formulation was available in French Hypermarkets at much below the Engilsh price. Worth a look if yuo are on a booze cruise.
My most expensive engine uses mineral, non detergent straight 50 which the last can (last month) cost me all of £10, and no it is not recycled, has not fallen of the back of a lorry and is made by a perfectly reputable English firm. But it is lubricating a prewar V twin with total loss oiling.
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Hi all
Job done, seal replaced and 10W-40 put in - I used Quantum semi-synthetic, as used by VW, so it should be fine. I had a quick look at the old seal, didn't look too bad but I suppose you can't really infer much just by looking at it. I was a bit surprised how loose the nut holding the oil cooler was when I took it off - I also couldn't get it very tight on reassembly as I had to use a spanner (didn't have large enough socket) and it's not very accessible or visible, meaning there wasn't much leverage and quite a few scraped knuckles! It seems OK, and it is probably only a little tighter than when I removed it - I was wondering if the looseness of the nut was the cause of the leak, but I would suggest a knackered seal is more likely. In any event, I'll be keeping an eye on it to see what happens.
Thanks to everyone for their advice, hopefully that will be the end of the leak, and I'm glad to say I now have the correct oil in the engine!
Matt
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I use Halfords Fully synthetic as it's a 5W-40. My Rover Turbo (132k this week) loves it.
Like Mobil 1, Castrol RS is a 0W-40, but is also available as a 10W60.
A Plus motor factors and Big W sell Triple R full synth which is 5W-40 too.
Fix the leak, forget the additives.
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Just in case anyone is interested 0W-40 and 5W-40 oil are the same viscosity. The 0W-40 oil just has a lower pour point.
See article below:
What on earth does the 0W rating denote? Well it's a special case denoting a difference in the 'pour point' of the oil. Most 5W oils have a pour point at -40°F (-40°C) The base oil is the same in 0W40, but it's pour point has been lowered even further - sometimes to as much as -50°F (-46°C)
So 0W oils don't flow through a viscometer in zero seconds - they rate at 5 seconds like a 5W oil, but they will be pourable at a much lower temperature. The bottom line then is that if you think your car is ever likely to see a cold morning in the -45°F (-43°C) range, you should be considering 0W40 oil. If not, 5W40 will do. Note that at -45°F, you'll probably have more to worry about than your engine oil - like your radiator fluid, brittle tyres, frozen locks, permafrost on the windscreen etc.etc.etc.......
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The Ford Zetec engines require the 5-40W oils otherwise you can have valve problems.
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Peugeot's website states:
"Synthetic bases have better resistance to temperature and are less prone to reductions in viscosity due to extreme temperatures"
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Exactly, so a 15W-40 oil has a greater change of viscosity for an increase in temperature than a 5w-40 oil.
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