Auris ZZE150L - Which Oil?

[phanispal]

Hello, last year i bought a used 2008 Auris 1.4 gasoline, which then had 152.000 kilometres.

Now it has 159.000 km (~100.000 miles) and i'm planning to perform a service at 160.000 and every ~7.500 km in general (and not every 15.000 km that Toyota recommends).

The thing is, i don't know what oil has been used through all these years.

When i bought it my mechanic changed the oil with 10W40 Eneos i believe.

I live in Greece, Athens, so the climate is rather warm.

The car seems to have normal oil consumption, in fact i didn't see any oil amount missing the last time i checked.

[furtula]

Here's the info from the manual.

I personally use 5W30.

[FROSTYBALLS]

5W-30.

[TonyHSD]

If you are charging from 10w40 to 5w30 it is a good idea to use some engine flush to clean the internals prior to change. 10w40 usually are semi synthetic oils and they tend to leave a lot more carbon deposits than fully synthetic oils, thicker oil not necessarily mean better protection even in hot climates countries like Greece. 

[mrpj]

6 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

If you are charging from 10w40 to 5w30 it is a good idea to use some engine flush to clean the internals prior to change. 10w40 usually are semi synthetic oils and they tend to leave a lot more carbon deposits than fully synthetic oils, thicker oil not necessarily mean better protection even in hot climates countries like Greece. 

If a decent oil is used and changed when recommended, it contains detergent properties to clean and retain contaminants in suspension. All that one of these snake oil engine flushes could do, if there are carbon deposits, is remove them to circulate around the engine with the risk of blocking oilways. Particularly oils sprayers for the lubrication of a timing chain etc.. Not forgetting the filter either to trap other stuff.

Why is the oil in a Diesel engine black when it's changed? Maybe because carbon and soot are retained in it rather than deposited around the engine.

[phanispal]

Thanks for the replies.

But i'm a bit confused.

You lean towards 5W30, but should i talk to my mechanic about engine flush or not? To be honest, i can't say if he'll be able to do something like that.

Also, the difference between 5W30 and 10/15W40, except the viscosity, is that 5W30 is fully synthetic?

[TonyHSD]

Engine flush is an easy process , just add cleaning solution to the engine and let it running for 15 min at idle speed, then drain the old oil, change filter and put a new oil in, job done and even there are many people against, I like to do it on my cars and they have clean engines as new, even main dealership recommended and offer it as a service. 5w30 may not be fully synthetic too, you need to look for good quality oil that says fully synthetic on the label. 10w40 or 15w40 are not suitable for your car. , you can use them if you want but there might be consequences in a long term. Just use the oil type that the car has came out with from the factory. If your car runs great with 10w40 you can keep using it, but don’t put 15w40 in, thicker oil does not mean better lubrication, it’s even opposite.