12V VR6 oil preferece

[VR28LT]

With the good old mk3 VR6 being 20 years old and a lot of them that have reset the odo at 300k, with the motors starting to suffer from wear and worn valve stems and what not im curious to know what brand and type of oil you guys are running?

All the VR6s ive owned its been either Penrite HPR10 10w50 or Nulon Full Syn 10w40 (Hi Tech Fast Flowing) that they seem to run best on.

[ByronRichesMk1]

Ive been running Royal Purple 10w40 and have been extremely impressed so far

[Umai Naa!!]

10W40.

Doesn't have to be anything flash.

[stefcio007]

Penrite 15W60...apparently I am doing it wrong.
Another question, how often do you change?

[Umai Naa!!]

Every 10K max.

[VR28LT]

definetly no more then 10K

15w60 is quite a high viscosity what is the reason you use this oil? consumption problems?

[stefcio007]

definetly no more then 10K

15w60 is quite a high viscosity what is the reason you use this oil? consumption problems?

It's what my uncle put in it when he showed me how to change the oil and oil filter. And I've forever been stuck in the loop of; have some oil left over, but not enough, buy same oil, now have some oil left over...
Apart from following recommendations on here, what are the benefits to switching what oil I use? I assume low viscosity means the engine works less so it burns less?

[HaydEn]

5w30 in mine. Change every 3,000km filter every second oil change. It's cheap enough not to.

Reason being, i want oil in my lifters when bouncing off 7.5k rpm

[brad]

It's what my uncle put in it when he showed me how to change the oil and oil filter. And I've forever been stuck in the loop of; have some oil left over, but not enough, buy same oil, now have some oil left over...
Apart from following recommendations on here, what are the benefits to switching what oil I use? I assume low viscosity means the engine works less so it burns less?

You can mix oils - it's no big deal

[stefcio007]

You can mix oils - it's no big deal

It isn't? Well that makes things a whole lot easier. Guess I wanted to be safe than sorry.

[timiteo]

I used Penrite HPR10 10w-50 full synthetic in my VR6 (as you mentioned) as I used to peak 110 degrees C with a 10w-30 or similar. If you're running high RPM for extended time then a higher hot temperature oil weight is beneficial.

In multi-grade oils, the W term means "winter" and relates to the maximum viscosity of the oil at low temperature (cold start). The other number after the dash is the viscosity limit the oil must achieve at 100 degrees C. So a higher number means it won't thin out as much at higher temperatures and provide more protection.

Viscosity means an oils (or liquids) resistance to flow and shear fyi.

Have a read of this if you want, it's quite interesting:

Oil Viscosity Explained

[The_Hawk]

With my VR6 I started with fully synthetic Fuchs Titan Super GTO 10-40w but I did find the oil consumption was pretty high at almost 1L / 1000km. I pretty much just kept a 1L bottle in the car and poured it in every second tank of fuel.

I then switched to Castrol GTX 2 20W50 (This is now labelled as GTX in a grey bottle, there is also a white bottle of "GTX" but it's slightly different). With the GTX2 I didn't burn as much oil and otherwise had no adverse effects. The VR6 does run pretty hot after all.

As for changes, I did mine every 6 months, of nothing else it gives you a good excuse to crawl under the car and make sure it's all still together

[stefcio007]

Interesting read.
If it's anything, when I tried to start today engine was having none of it. Only on the second try did it come to life enough to start.
Too cold of a night?

[stefcio007]

Did a service today (drove up some small wooden blocks and had enough clearance) and switched to Penrite HPR 10W50. I've noticed a difference on cold starts, it's much better than before. It also feels more responsive but that could just be a placebo effect or because of fresh oil.

Thanks for all the advice.

[VR28LT]

Did a service today (drove up some small wooden blocks and had enough clearance) and switched to Penrite HPR 10W50. I've noticed a difference on cold starts, it's much better than before. It also feels more responsive but that could just be a placebo effect or because of fresh oil.

Thanks for all the advice.

Thats good to hear.... more then likely the lower viscosity made the motor crank over easier on a cold start. HPR10 is definetly my favourite oil for these cars. My previous VR6 ran like a dream but had a huge thirst for oil something chronic like 500ml every 1000k so topups were killing my wallet, im very lucky now my latest VR6 which i picked up a few a weeks hasnt consumed one drop!