First is the oil the engine uses. It is the critical component of the engine and usually goes about its job with minimal fuss. The car that you currently drive, its engine has a ridiculous amount of parts that are constantly moving with little room among them.
Suppose your engine does not have a nice oil coating to grease it properly. In that case, you can encounter numerous problems, including your engine overheating, parts of your engine can grind together, which is not good. In some scenarios, your engine will ultimately fail.
Some of the best, most efficient engines would come to a complete stop without a decent amount of oil running through the machine.
All engine oils do the same job. However, not all fats are the same. We will now closely look at how oils can be different from each other.
0w40 vs 5w40
After reading the first part of the article, we can now understand how to compare different oils, which brings us to the question directly, out of 0w40 and 5w40, which is better? First, they both have the same thickness when heated by your engines, so we can easily say that this will not be a difference between them.
However, one difference could be their thickness when we have cooler temperatures. The 0w40 is a lot quicker at getting around your engine when it is cold, so if you happen to live in a place where you experience colder temperatures often, then 0w40 should be the choice for you instead of 5w40.
In addition, if you happen to live in a place where you have the occasional winter weather, then 0w40 could be, in fact, a little bit too thin to start with and therefore not be good enough to give your engine the protection it needs until your machine gets to its optimum temperature for operating.
5w40 vs. 10w40
Next up, we have the differences between 5w40 and 10w40. Starting the biggest difference between the two is that one is a lot thinner than its counterpart. For example, at temperatures that are on the low side, 5w40 is thinner than the 10w40. However, once the temperature is on the high side, then both oils perform the same with their ability to circulate around the engine identical.
If you have a motorcycle that you ride regularly and one that needs 10w40 oil for its engine, then for obvious reasons, you will not need the 5w40 oil as the 10w40 is going to do the job just as well with your bike.
Because 5w40 is an oil that is generally thinner, when it comes to getting your bike’s engine parts moving perfectly and easily, then this is a great choice. While doing that, it can also grease up other parts of your bike when you first start it up.
After reading this, you will now know why it is so important to look at the number of the oil when you are choosing the right one for your bike. As I said earlier, when it comes to how thick the oil is, the number shows you as the number 40 tells you how thick it is and if you can use it to make your engine run easily.
When talking about how thick the oils are, the 10w40 oils are thicker when compared to the 5w40 oils, and there is a good reason for that. This type of oil does, in fact, work well in greasing your engine parts when you first start it up. The biggest difference is, however, that the 5w40 can work significantly better in colder places than the 10w40.
10w40 vs 15w40
When we look at the insides of engines, there are seals that react to interaction with the type of oil that you use for your engine.
There are a number of different additives in the oil itself, and that makes the rubber seal inside grow inside just a little bit, but by doing this, it improves the ability for them to seal without making them bend or buckle. It is the reason why people’s car engines only seem to leak oil when their engine is cold.
The grade of a specific motor oil signifies the actual weight of that type of oil when it is cold, along with when it is being used at its optimum temperature. The thickness of the oil will largely increase when the temperature increases. For example, the 10w40 oil is going to be thicker than the 15w40 in colder temperatures, but they will both have the same thickness at warmer temperatures.
The number that you see for winter thickness determines how it performs in colder weather. A low number tells us that the cold oil is going to be thinner, and therefore there will be less constant friction to the engine as well as minimal drag. In addition, the oil will stay at the bottom of your engine when the weather is cold.
Then there is the lower-weight oil. This oil will get around your engine a lot quicker, which in turn gets rid of friction which means that a car will generally start with a lot fewer cranks when it has oil that has a low winter weight. The 10w40 oil performs significantly better starts in the cold than what the 15w40 does.
15w40 vs. 20w40
The 15w40 has the cranking weight in the cold of 15 as the w in its name stands for winter and has an operating temperature weight of 40, so it will flow better than the 20w40. Artificial oil generally comes in a huge range of thicknesses, such as 0w40, 5w40, and so on.
Sometimes there are far too many volume index improvers, and for oils that are traditional, they will usually be out of grade in next to no time. Many types of companies that produce oils have only a small difference when it comes to weight; for example, one might be for a 40 weight, but that is considered high, while another might be a 40 weight, and that is considered low operating temp. To make sure that you have quality oil, you should stick with name-brand products.
20w40 is thicker compared to the 15w40 and only because of its weight, that is why the 20w 40 oil is better suited for older cars; however, 15w40 is easier to start in the cold.
What exactly does the oil in your engine do?
Well, as I said earlier in the article, if your engine does not have the correct greasing from the engine oil you use, then it can lead to your engine overheating, and that is something no one wants. As a rule, high-performance engines will generally create more heat than the smaller engines, and they will require oil that is suited to be able to withstand those increased temperatures. When you have engine oils that become thin when they are exposed to high temperatures, they will not give your engine the proper protection it needs, and this can lead to serious problems for your engine.
Wear Protection
Oil helps protect your engine against wear and tear. In a perfect world, you will want your oil to make a nice thin layer between all the different little engine parts inside your engine. If they do not have this barrier and come into contact with each other, then that is when they can grind against each other, and the clearances between them will be too large, and that can affect the performance of your engine.
It can also lead to other issues too, such as your engine becoming less and less efficient. So, you should make sure that you choose the proper type of oil for your engine and that it will be strong enough to keep that barrier between all the different moving gadgets of your engine.
Mineral Deposit Protection
It also protects your engine against mineral deposits too. All engines need a mix of air and fuel to be burned. These are well controlled and are timed explosions, and they push a piston down into the cylinder and this, in turn, gives the engine the ability to “turn over.” However, with most igniting reactions, there will be side effects that come from the fuel and air mixture as it is burning.
Really high-quality engine oil has chemical mixtures that are better known as detergents. They get a hold of all the contaminations and direct them to the oil filter, where they will eventually be taken out from the oil and the rest of the engine. If you happen to get a lot of contaminations that, over time, build up in your engine, then this can cause your engine to be inefficient and can lead to further problems down the road. That is why it is important to choose the correct oil for your engine.
Protects Against Oxidation
Lastly, the right oil protects your engine from rust. The reactions are a necessary evil for all engines to work as they should. However, they do “burn.” The oxygen in the air that is needed for the reactions has water vapor in it and, as we know, is impossible to split up from the gas, and that is not something you want to see in your engine.
When we have water that has contact with the metal in our engine, that will create a process that we know as rust. A high-quality oil will coat your engine with a good layer to protect it and stop the water from encountering the metal and keep your engine rust-free.