Depends on where you live homeboy. The first number is the "winter" viscosity weight. The lower the number, the more the ability for the oil to pump at colder temperatures. The second number is the full heat weight. Usually the oil you that you just purchased would be for a turbo car that drives in conditions like Florida or Arizona on a regular basis. So basically, it is more protection if you're running your car in hotter conditions (i.e. hotter arid weather or turbocharged system), but it provides you less protection in the colder weather.

If the guy at the autoparts store really knew that much he would be an engineer or a mechanic. Got to look at the source. Best to just stick to the recommended viscosity.

If you have that oil in there and you start your car up on too cold of a day, engine won't run worth a damn.

Here's a little something for you if you're interested in learning about oils.
The Engine Oil Bible
Car Bibles : The Engine Oil Bible

good luck

 

that basically is a racing oil. I use 20w50 for my 300zx twinturbo. It offers max protection against friction, wear. It quiets valve lifters. But it lacks the additives from the regular 10w30 oil.

It should be ok to use. But definitely needs to be changed more frequently.

 

1540/1560 in the winter??


yikes..good luck

 

Should be more like 5-30 iirc...

 

Either 5W30, 10W30, or 10W40 is recommended for temperatures above 0*C, depending on how hot the climate gets. 5W30 is preferred when the temperatures dip below freezing. (Heck, I put in 0W30 for our -40*C Canadian winters.)

Speaking from a viscosity standpoint and knowing Australian winters, the "10W" in 10W60 will give enough protection for a cold engine. The "60" might be a bit overkill (it'll be thicker than 5W30 when your engine is warm), but unless you're stressing your engine, I'd think it should be fine. However, there were points made earlier in this thread about 10W60 oil lacking protective additives (which I'm not that familiar with).

Is there any certification logo on the oil container? In North American, most oils are API certified. I'm not familiar enough with Aussie products to know what the certifications are there.

 

So I ended up getting Castrol Magnatec, and after 1 month of running my cold start engine ticking has gotten fairly noisey, and is getting worse with Winter and each colder morning. I've been advised that it's a pretty common problem caused by lifters getting clogged with gluggy oil, and is best fixed with an oil change... But I just changed the oil!

So I'm assuming Magnatec 10w - 40 may have been the wrong choice of oil for my 1999 Pathfinder. I figure maybe I should drop down to 5w-30 and a different brand and perhaps that'll fix my tic-tic-tic noise?

For the time being, I've added Nulon anti-tick-tap solution to my engine oil, and it has made the engine run quieter, and the ticking seems to be becoming less and less with each passing day. Although my friends advice was "dude, never add that shit to your engine oil!"... Yet the mechanic said it was worth a shot and wouldn't do any damage.

So anywho, I'm back to square one regarding oil for my car. >_<

Has anyone here had the cold start tick or tap tap tapping noise? If so, how did you correct it? Cold starts here in Sydney are around 10 degrees celcius, and the noise is only audible for give or take 3 minutes on a cold start.