hey what type of motor oil do I need my friend is telling me 20w-50. My car is a 92 Firebird tbi v8 5.0 withe 157,000 miles on it. Please help Thanks!

 

Use either a high quality 10w-30 like valvoline maxlife, or Mobil1, or you can also use a Diesel grade oil, 15w-40, like Shell Rotella or Delo 400, or Delvac.

 

theres a cap on the valve cover where you pour the oil in. on the cap it should tell you what kind of oil to use. as far as brands, i only use Royal Purple in my cars.

 

Ok thank you guys I really appreciated.

 

our cars take 5w-30 thats all you need. any brand will be sufficient. BTW 5W-30 is factory recommendation so keep that in mind.

 

well his engine has 157k miles on it so therefore 10-30 or even 10-40 is more efficient.

 

only if it leaks or burns oil.

 

I just switched from castrol GTX 10w30, to Rotella 15w40. Actually, I went to walmart, and got a 4 quart jug of conventional 15-40, and one quart of synthetic 5-40 rotella. I want to start conditioning these old seals to synthetic real slow.

So far so good, the oil pressure stays a little higher, and more consistent. The blue cloud of oil smoke on start-up is much less now, and the oil seems to be doing a good job. I will have to see how it is holding up in a few hundred miles.

When I used to run Mobil 1 in my last car, it was a good oil. It went in almost clear yellow, even lighter than apple juice. It came out amber, like jim beam, after 3k miles. Never turned black except the once that I went way over. Also, it never was watery, or frothy with bubbles like the GTX is. So only time will tell how this holds up.

I plan to try and be at least 4/5 synthetic by winter, for the cold starts.

 

slow,

I like your car...must be nice to have such low mileage. I had an '89 identical to yours, save for a TPI/AT combo I sold back in 2002...I only had it for 4 months, as I took it in on trade at the dealer I used to work for, bought it, fixed it, it kept breaking (had 105k on it back then), and had to get rid of it...it had been neglected for most of its life, and it was rusty

Speaking of which, I know Manchester is somewhat south of me, but hopefully you can get a winter car for next winter...I'd hate to see your car start rusting on you. I've been fortunate that mine hasn't seen snow since before 1999...I only have a tiny bit of surface rust on the floorboards that will be getting fixed this spring.

 

My 'bird has roughly 140k miles on it. I use 10w40 Valvoline MaxLife. 20W50 is a bit much and I feel at that age 5W30 is not enough. I woudln't worry about factory recommendations at this point, yor are certainly not going to ruin your warranty.

 

NO EXPERT HERE

BUT MY 3.1 V6 HAS 225,000 MILES ON IT
AND IT RUNS STRONG

I USE 5-30 PENZOIL FACTORY SPECIFIED AND WONT CHANGE EVER!
I USE A PURE ONE OIL FILTER FOR BETTER FILTRATION

I CHANGE IT EVERY 2000-2500 MILES OR WHEN IT IDLES ROUGH

 

76k, mobil1 0-40, I check regularly and have to add wery little from time to time.