Chosen Oil Viscosity...?

Wow, that is a huge stash!

Only the ExxonMobil-made TGMO has POE. I don’t know who makes TGMO 0W-8. Yes, it will be mostly Group III, but ExxonMobil adds some POE to clean the rings etc. at the request of Toyota. Of course, it is much less than what Red Line has in it. Idemitsu TGMO does not have POE.

Yes, do a UOA on Red LIne, and if you see high lead, discontinue it.

Valvoline claims that its detergent in Restore cleans better without any Group V base stocks like POE and AN. I don’t know how much of it is hype vs. reality.

 

Lucky you! Restore and Protect is not an option in Canada yet but it seems excellent! As a matter of facts, (little anecdote here) when i was a kid, both my old 93 Civic DX with a very high milleage (and tired) D15B7 and my, then GF's own Civic (hers was a 92 Si) used to LOVE Valvoline Maxlife SynPower. I was able to do a complete OCI with it, unlike any other oils. I tried both 5w30 and 5w40. Any other oil it would chug thru it like there was no tomorrow. Castrol was the worst offender BY FAR. 500km? Sump was empty.... Pennzoil, AMSoil, Redline, QS, you name it... 1500, 2000km perhaps? It was like 20 years ago... The moment i put some Valvoline Maxlife SynPower in it, it was better and by the other OCI it was good. Still consumed a quart by the end of a 5000km OCI but i didn't have to keep some oil in my trunk and certainly didn't needed to refill before the end of the OCI. Glad those days are over.. Oil and Engine tech really got better in not that much time. And it's rare to see an engine that chugs thru it like my old Honda did.. still loved that car. Was nimble, easy on gas and rarely got me stranded!

Edit: If i were you, i would just get Restore and Protect and stick with it. That is unless you try it for 2 OCI and you figure out that fuel economy is worse then before. (I doubt so..) As Lake Speed Jr. says, different oils base and additives might fight with one another and do worse so if R&P does a good job, stick with it. If it doesn't, TGMO at 5 to 10k miles will do fine depending on driving, trips distance, climate, pickyness of owner....

 

I don't really know if there is a code somewhere related to the plant where that oil is made (Mobil/Idemitsu) but here is a GLV-1 0w8 quart of oil for reference. I do have some in stock here so it's easy to find.



I doubt i'll find that much lead in a OCI as i remember seeing a report a long time ago that said that lead was being phased out of bearings production due to environmental concerns. Perhaps it changed? Or they reduced it's use and not totally eliminated it..? I don't know.

As for the Restore and Protect, check that out. Seems to be great!

 

That TGMO 0W-8 is made by ExxonMobil!

Plant code: 102
Date of manufacture: 2024/June (F = 06)/07.
Formulation/revision number: 6633

A great thing about SAE 0W-8 oils is that they typically contain no viscosity-index improver (VII, viscosity modifier), as they don’t need to be thickened at high temperatures. Since viscosity-index improvers are plastics, they cause engine and piston deposits as well as sludge. So, you avoid most engine and piston deposits by using a SAE 0W-8 oil.

For the Valvoline Restore, realize that a lot of it is marketing hype. Note that there is also a Valvoline Premium Blue Restore for heavy-duty diesel engines, which came much before the off-the-shelf product, but that is an entirely PAO/POE/AN-based oil with insane cleaning abilities—cleaning the whole engine in a single oil-change interval. The off-the-shelf Valvoline Restore contains no special base oil like the Valvoline Premium Blue Restore.

Valvoline Premium Blue Restore

 

Your opinion. I'm as cynical about possible snake oil as the next guy, but the number of non-sponsored positive reviews(with visual evidence) that have hit youtube over the last year are making it hard to call it just hype.

 

Hype or not, the original Valvoline Premium Blue Restore is an entirely different beast with its base oil containing a huge amount of polyol ester and alkylated naphthalene. It will clean the dirtiest pistons in 10,000 miles. The new, off-the-shelf Restore won't—I can assure you that.

Perhaps the new, off-the-shelf Restore keeps the pistons clean. But then, is there any modern engine oil that doesn't with regular oil changes and regular driving (no repeated short trips etc.)?

 

Great! Thanks!

Well i might try some of that 0w8 in the Prius next OCI. I'm not overly concerned about side effects as..
(1) The engine is largely similar with M20A-FKS in 2023+ Corollas that specs a 0w8 and shares many components with the Prius. Oil pump, main and rods bearings, etc...
(2) The base oil in the GLV-1 0w8 is a higher quality GTL base oil, compared to the plain Gr3 base oil in the 0w20/0w16. If there are no/almost no polymer additives in it, thats a bonus!
(3) The oil pump pressure is computer controlled on the M20A engines. If anything, the slight pressure reduction caused by the 0w8 might be offset by the ECU and it might (or not) results in a sightly higher volume of oil being circulated. Because of that, i would actually be wary of putting an oil that is too thick for that engine. 0w20 doesn't concerns me, 5w30 would be the limit where i would go during summer and a 40 grade i would'nt push my luck with...

....in any cases, wait and see!

 

I will copy and my paste my post about the original Valvoline Premium Blue Restore (not off-the-shelf Restore & Protect) from another forum here.

Here is the Valvoline Premium Blue Restore formulation.

Formula #4 is what is sold commercially.



It's unlike any other oil. Valvoline Premium Blue Restore has:

• Base oil composition: 62.5% POE (ester), 25.0% PAO, and 12.5% AN (alkylated naphthalene)
• No viscosity-index improver (VII) at all—a monograde oil
• Standard Valvoline Premium Blue HDEO additive package (20% of the finished oil)

The commercially available oil with the highest ester content is probably Red Line High-Performance, which has about 15% ester in its base oil. Valvoline Premium Blue Restore has four times the ester content of that.

Esters are very expensive base stocks, and this is the reason for the high cost. However, they have extremely powerful cleaning properties do their very high solvency. Alkylated naphthalenes are expensive, too, and they have good solvency as well. They are both Group V base stocks. PAO is the Group IV base stock.

Note that this is a deep-cleaning oil, and it's meant to be use for only one OCI in 120,000–150,000 miles.

The off-the-shelf Restore & Protect does not have any Group IV or Group V base stocks—the latter for deep cleaning. It has some improved detergent for better-than-industry-average cleaning—that’s all. I don’t know why it couldn’t get the Dexos1 Gen 3 approval. It could be that it is lacking a performance benchmark or simply they didn’t bother with an expensive test.

 

I don't know why you keep bringing up Premium Blue Restore. I know it's not Premium Blue Restore. I don't want it to be Premium Blue Restore. Valvoline isn't marketing it as Premium Blue Restore. So why do you keep bringing up Premium Blue Restore?

For as much time as you spend trying to become an oil expert, you should understand that oil additives are a balance. Often, one additive impedes other additives. The trick is to find the right balance for the application. Often that is done through some level of trial and error to determine if actual results match theoretical results. Valvoline claims they accidentally stumbled on a formulation that performs much better than predicted. Whether this is true or not, I don't particularly care. What I care about are results.

Valvoline lab testing shows significant piston cleaning in test engines. I like that, but I take it with a grain of salt. User testing shows easily accessible parts with significant varnishing getting cleaned to new condition within a couple oil changes. I like that, but it doesn't show what's going on deep in the engine with coked-up rings. Users with heavily sludged engines are discovering their oil filters being clogged with sludge within a thousand miles after using VRP the first time. I like that as it shows cleaning is going on.

Some users with serious oil consumption are seeing significant reductions in consumption after a few oil changes. I really like that because it indicates stuck rings are being freed up. I also like that some of these users had previously tried other top-quality oils with no success. This suggests that VRP is somehow different. I'm not put off by the fact that VRP doesn't always reduce or eliminate oil consumption because I understand that some of those engines are ruined from cylinder scoring and nothing will fix them other than a complete engine rebuild.

VRP came out almost a year ago(press release Jan 10, 2024). I disregarded the first 6 months of ads in case it was snake oil. But we're still seeing new, non-sponsored, positive reviews coming out a year later. I'm willing to give it a chance with results like that.

There are two things that still kill our modern hybrid engines with regularity: Blown head gaskets and cylinder scoring from coked up rings. The head gasket issue can be prevented by changing coolant at least every 5y/50k miles. The cylinder scoring can be prevented by never letting the rings get coked up in the first place. 6m/5k mile changes with TGMO will certainly help that, but I'd like something that can actually remove deposits rather than just slow down their development.

 

Giving me a lesson on motor oil 101? I am not trying to become an oil expert. I am an oil expert. You are not. LOL

 

OK, regarding oil additives that you mentioned, you probably don’t know this. (Yes, I do have an extensive knowledge on oil, and I have not been Googling what I have been writing here. They are based on my existing knowledge.)

So, the additives in the oils: Do you think Valvoline develops and formulates oils by carefully selecting and balancing additives? They don’t—not at all. They are not an oil-formulation company. They are an oil-blending company. The way it works is that there are major additive companies out there: Infineum (co-owned by ExxonMobil and Shell), Oronite (owned by Chevron), Lubrizol (owned by Warren Buffett), Afton, and Vanderbilt. These additive companies develop and make additive packages and test them to meet the industry and OEM certifications such as ILSAC, dexos, ACEA, and various OEM specs such as Ford, BMW, VW, etc. These tests are extremely expensive, typically costing several million dollars. Oil blenders cannot afford to formulate and test their oils. When an oil blender buys a preapproved/precertified additive package from one of these companies, it automatically receives the certifications as long as an approved base oil and an approved VII is used after a few basic tests for the viscosity etc. are done—no engine tests are needed.

Valvoline typically buys its additive packages from Afton as far as I know.

Mobil 1 (ExxonMobil) for example can afford formulating their own oils as they co-own Infineum. Therefore, they are different than Valvoline in that sense. Unlike Valvoline, they are not only an oil blender but also an oil formulator. Since TGMO is made by ExxonMobil, it is probably specially formulated as well—not using a preapproved additive package from an additive company.

So, what this means is that if Valvoline is selling an oil, including the Restore & Protect, many others are selling the same oil as well. It could be that Walmart Supertech made by Warren Oil or even some unheard brand sold at a convenience store might practically be the same oil, as some other blenders will be using the same commercially available additive package as well.

One interesting thing is that the Restore & Protect is not dexos1-Gen 3-certified, meaning that Valvoline bought a preapproved additive package that was only certified for ILSAC but not for dexos1. They might have seen that it has a detergent with a higher cleaning power than in the preapproved dexos1 additive package and decided to market it as a new, breakthrough oil. The fact that it is not certified for dexos1 likely means that some other performance aspects (perhaps such as LSPI protection and turbocharger protection?) are sacrificed.

Last but not least, how do we know that the Restore & Protect cleans better than the TGMO 0W-16, Mobil 1 0W-16, or some other oil? We don’t. We can only rely on anecdotal, unscientific experiments and Valvoline’s marketing.

For severely coked, stuck rings, I would simply find and buy the Premium Blue Restore, which would completely clean them in one OCI through its solvent Group V base stocks (polyol ester and alkylated naphthalene). Of course, it is meant for only one-time use, but it would work in such severe cases.

 

I agree, the VRP is only suitable for engine oil burner like gen 3 Prius that has known TSB about low tension piston rings and bad piston design. I would stick with 0W-16 or 0W-20 TGMO or Mobil 1 Truck and SUV (the best formulations with Alkylated napthalene+PAO). The TGMO with API SP certification has much higher Mo additives. The 0W-8 has very high Borons additives.
Just do not add any additive and stay with the same brand for the whole engine oil change. It kept the formulation optimium.

 

If it were up to me, (which it's not) I'd stretch the oil change interval. I believe they are much too short, particularly since my gas engine is not even running much of the time.

It's not up to me because the car gives me annoying reminders whenever it gets close to time for another dealer service, and I let them do it.

I've had a lot of vehicles over the last 30 years since I switched to synthetic oils. I have stretched my oil changes by quite a margin, and I've never had significant engine wear.

 

@Paul Gregory , I doubt it will last 20 years without burning a lot of oil if you lucky enough wiht 2010-2013 Prius, 2007-2011 2.4L Toyota, or 1998-2002 Corolla. They have low tension piston rings and piston design flaws. The 2.5 and 2.0L engines are also known to burn oil if one do 10k miles intervals after around 200k miles

 

Most of my vehicles have made it past 200,000, and one made it past 400,000. Not one of them ever burned a drop of oil. 20 years? Seems like quite a stretch for any oil, but I'd be willing to risk it with my Gen 5, using full synthetic. -If I should live so long.

 

I wish you a long life and good luck with the 10k oil change interval. I think if you use a high quality full synthetic, 200k miles is not hard to reach especially if you drive cars not like a maniac. I am talking about statistics that many Prius 3 owners experience oil consumptions after a while. The gen 2 does not have oil consumption so much because of 5k miles interval on them.

 

As I said, I'm not stretching any oil changes with my Gen 5. I get a message telling me when it's time for service, and the dealer does it.

 

One of the best scientifically sound about engine oil. There are only 3 companies who made PAO oil in the world and 4 companies made Additives package. It was very striking.

 

I tend to think that the engineers behind the good brands of oil would know which additives are worth putting in the oil, and would be recommending them.
I gave up on those "seminars" talking about why you should use oil additives about 40 years ago. It's just a sales pitch to sell you something you don't need, the way I see it.

 

The key point is the specifications standard , or certification: API SP, C20 Porsche, VW 508/509, Dexos 1 gen 3, etc. As long as it has valid certification, car manufacturers must value the warranty.
Once the combination of Base Oil (say Exxon) and additives package (say Lubrizol) of a brand A for 0w-20 got certified, the brand A can sell any viscosity using Exxon base oil from 0w-30 to maybe 10w-60. But brand A must stick with combo Exxon+Lubrizol.
Shell+Exxon also have their own additives (infenium) that one can use with combination of any base oil suppliers. Suppliers base Oil: 3 PAO, and 13 HC syn or group III base oil that are available in the world.