Technical Oil for a TA

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Technical Oil for a TA

have you done so? if i had a TA my next change would definatley 0w-30 but i don tthink thats a good idea for the 1.4 so i will stick with 5w-40.

I'd certainly consider 0W30 in winter but right now I'm not doing the mileage to justify two oil changes per year. If I did use the lighter oil, I'd stick a redline on the tacho at 3000rpm and keep below that. I'm still curious to know how much fuel I could save ;) (but I'll bet you could save more fuel by preheating the gearbox oil).

I put 5W-40 in as per the instructions that came with the car brand new.

Sensible man. (y)

Do what it says in the instructions unless you have a good reason not to, know what you're doing and why you're doing it, and are prepared to take responsibility for the consequences.

Never assume that any mechanic you entrust your car to will follow this advice.
 
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I'd certainly consider 0W30 in winter but right now I'm not doing the mileage to justify two oil changes per year. If I did use the lighter oil, I'd stick a redline on the tacho at 3000rpm and keep below that. I'm still curious to know how much fuel I could save ;) (but I'll bet you could save more fuel by preheating the gearbox oil).



Sensible man. (y)

Do what it says in the instructions unless you have a good reason not to, know what you're doing and are prepared to take responsibility for the consequences.

Never assume that any mechanic you entrust your car to will follow this advice.
yes but people must be aware that all new TA's are being provided with 0w-30 and are told to change to that oil.
 
yes but people must be aware that all new TA's are being provided with 0w-30 and are told to change to that oil.

I've posted on this topic before, here.

I'd agree it's confusing. :confused:

If you bought the car new and use what it says in the handbook (whether that be real or electronic) that came with the car, at least you'll be covered as far as warranty is concerned.

I suspect (thoughts anyone?) that the move to 0W30 was done to improve fuel economy and emissions performance for whatever testing procedure they needed to put the car through to get Euro6 homologation.

We could probably debate what's actually best for the car for a long time & I suspect there's no 'one size fits all' right answer. For a car driven hard in southern europe, I'd likely stick with 5W40; in the UK I'd be more comfortable with 0W30.

AFAIK BMW do something much more sensible with the Mini - they publish a list of warranty-approved grades & let the user decide based on their own particular mission profile.

That's always how it was done in the old days, when all cars had winter & summer oil. But - think on this when you complain about servicing costs - the recommended oil change interval for a 1950's Lanchester is 1000 miles.
 
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I've posted on this topic before, here.

I'd agree it's confusing. :confused:

If you bought the car new and use what it says in the handbook (whether that be real or electronic) that came with the car, at least you'll be covered as far as warranty is concerned.
if i had a TA i would just change it to 0w-30 and stick with that.
 
I wouldn't switch to 0W/30. Who the hell needs 0 grade oil for a British winter?

I personally don't understand why no-one has proposed a 5W/30 with an acceptable classification. Seems like the best compromise to me...
i agree with that. i find it stupid how inflexible fiat is on oil changes, while BMW say you can use, 0w-30, 0w-40, 5w-30, 5w-40 depending on the climate you live in!
 
i agree with that. i find it stupid how inflexible fiat is on oil changes, while BMW say you can use, 0w-30, 0w-40, 5w-30, 5w-40 depending on the climate you live in!

Ahmett, the TA oil spec is 5w 40 (not 30)
Other than the Selenia oil Castrol Edge Diesel is the right spec
 
Newer TA's run 0W 30. Since I can't imagine the two different oils giving the same Mulitair performance, I'd suggest the ECU is reprogrammed to compensate, so you likely can't just switch between the two.
 
i agree with that. i find it stupid how inflexible fiat is on oil changes, while BMW say you can use, 0w-30, 0w-40, 5w-30, 5w-40 depending on the climate you live in!

I'll go you one better. My Renault oil cap says 'check handbook'. The handbook says 'See service book'. The service book says 'See website'. The website says NOTHING!!

Took quite a lot of effort on Google to work it out:rolleyes:
 
My handbook says 0W, when I enter my vin on the fiat website is says 5W, my fiat indie who will be doing an oil change in jan checked with fiat and they came back with 5W also so that's what will go in. My car was born late last December on the cusp of the changeover so hence the confusion I guess
 
My handbook says 0W, when I enter my vin on the fiat website is says 5W, my fiat indie who will be doing an oil change in jan checked with fiat and they came back with 5W also so that's what will go in. My car was born late last December on the cusp of the changeover so hence the confusion I guess

This has been done to death here more than once before; I'd agree it's confusing, even if you make a real effort to try to understand it.

Interestingly I checked all the oil company websites I could think of this morning and without exception, all of them are saying 5W40 C3 for all 85HP TA's, regardless of date of manufacture, so Fiat's change in spec hasn't filtered down through the usual industry channels as of yet.

If Fiat's recommendations were strictly followed (even if you managed to find the one that applied to your specific car), I suspect many cars are going to be serviced using the 'wrong' grade of oil. I can't see many dealers, not even franchised ones, using different grades of oil for different year TA's in routine servicing.

Does it matter? Who knows. Personally speaking I'd say Fiat only changed the spec to get a better result in the latest round of official emissions testing; whether there are also any changes to the hardware or ECU programming can only be conjecture unless someone has clear evidence to the contrary.

The viscosity difference between the two oils isn't that great and if the multiair performance were so critical as to be significantly affected by the change, the car would likely run like a bag of bolts when it was warming up. The viscosity difference between hot & cold oil is much greater then the difference between the two oils at running temperature.

I'd be more concerned if, a few years down the line, some shady aftermarket garage serviced one using a 10W40 semisynth to save a few pounds.
 
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My handbook says 0W, when I enter my vin on the fiat website is says 5W.......
As I said, the handbook that came with our TA says 5W, but following your lead, I went to the Fiat site.

The website for our specific TA says 5W, so I'm happy to carry on with it.

It also cleared up a little mystery.

Ours has a Hants/Dorset registration number - HD, but it's a Torbay car (should have been a W something) , so we didn't really understand, even the number plates were provided by Fiat Torbay.

On the Fiat website, you can put in your registration number OR your VIN. I inputted the reg number because it was easier .........and found it wasn't recognised! :mad:

So I tried the VIN instead, and that worked, but the reg number was wrong, and came up as an obviously cherished number. xxxx MY - The first name of the lady owner was Mary.

Therefore, when the car was traded, DVLA issued an age-related number that just so happened to be the HD number and Mary took her number with her. After doing some research, the MY number is now on a Mini One.

Any road up, even after solving a mystery, I'm going to continue using 5W fully synthetic as instructed.

Regards to all,
Mick.
 
I'd be more concerned if, a few years down the line, some shady aftermarket garage serviced one using a 10W40 semisynth to save a few pounds.

I've had this done at least twice before with my multijet on one occasion it even said it on the invoice, I was not impressed and the car was very tapetty can't imagine a TA would run at all well.

Fortunately these days most cars require 5w - 30 or 5w - 40 so it's less likely that garages would do this.


On the Fiat website, you can put in your registration number OR your VIN. I inputted the reg number because it was easier .........and found it wasn't recognised! :mad:

So I tried the VIN instead, and that worked, but the reg number was wrong, and came up as an obviously cherished number. xxxx MY - The first name of the lady owner was Mary.

Therefore, when the car was traded, DVLA issued an age-related number that just so happened to be the HD number and Mary took her number with her. After doing some research, the MY number is now on a Mini One.

Any road up, even after solving a mystery, I'm going to continue using 5W fully synthetic as instructed.

Regards to all,
Mick.

Strange usually when you put a cherished plate on they hold the original registration to put back on, the only time this doesn't happen is if the plate is on the car for many many years, but all my previous cars I've had my private plate on, have had there original number back on once I switched them back.

even my dads Saab 900 he got way back in the 90s went back to its original number after 10years

If the dealer put the number on the car for the first owner they may not have recorded the cherished plate?

Fiat have my private plate on file if I go in to buy parts despite it having a different plate when new, then randomly a couple of weeks back I went in and they couldn't find the details on the current plate anymore but could off the original number?
 
This is VERY off topic! ;)

Yes, I know that original numbers go back on. There's a neighbour down the road with a cherished plate on her Celica. She was asked by DVLA to keep the originals so she could re-fit them when/if she sells it.

However, I reckon our TA never had an "original" number but was registered from brand new with the cherished number, so there was never an "original". Mary must've specified her cherished number even before the car was delivered and therefore circumvented the normal system.

Regards,
Mick.
 
Does it matter? Who knows. Personally speaking I'd say Fiat only changed the spec to get a better result in the latest round of official emissions testing; whether there are also any changes to the hardware or ECU programming can only be conjecture unless someone has clear evidence to the contrary.

The economy difference between EU5 and EU6 TA85's is 5%, which seems like a lot for just an oil change. Fiat didn't need to lower the TA's emissions to meet EU6 so it's not clear why they changed the oil spec.

It's possible that being a new engine it was initially released with a 'safe' oil spec, and now with more real world miles on them this has been revised.
 
The economy difference between EU5 and EU6 TA85's is 5%, which seems like a lot for just an oil change.

It's believable. In the rarefied world of emissions testing, engine friction is quite a large number. IIRC with the Mk3 Panda, Fiat got around 20% just out of oil & ecotyres.

It's possible that being a new engine it was initially released with a 'safe' oil spec, and now with more real world miles on them this has been revised.

I'd say it's marketing led. Headline numbers are everything and car manufacturers won't think twice about compromising longevity in the search for more competitive figures, just so long as most cars make it through warranty.

If you want a good example of this, google the story of how Nissan recently upped the official range figures for the US Leaf.
 
My handbook says 0W, when I enter my vin on the fiat website is says 5W, my fiat indie who will be doing an oil change in jan checked with fiat and they came back with 5W also so that's what will go in. My car was born late last December on the cusp of the changeover so hence the confusion I guess

So my TA had it's first service yesterday at 10K, it was really only an oil and filter service and the car was refilled with 5W40 which apparently is the correct oil despite some doubts on my part. Anyway, started up this morning and the engine was running very rough with revs dropping up and down all over the place, after a few blips on the throttle it eventually settled down. In a year of ownership it's never done this so why just after an oil service? Does it suggest that the oil should in fact have been 0W and this is what the ECU is set up for hence unhappy cold starting on 5W? It's 2 degrees here at present. I'll see how it behaves this evening after work and again in the morning - if it persists I'm thinking the oil is suspect. I'm not sure if its relevant but when checking the battery recently I noticed the cables going in to the ECU have a ribbon label attached which clearly states 'Euro 6'. Is it an automatic conclusion that if it's Euro 6 that it should be 0W oil?:confused:
 
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Well our own TA (build date 20 September 2012, registered July 2013), the oil for that is definitely 5w40 acea c3. We had no issues whatsoever with rough running after its first service in August last year, indeed from what I remember, it seemed to be a little smoother and sweeter sounding after the oil change, so not sure why yours should be any different after a oil and filter change. Do you know the build date of your own car? Just ask your Fiat dealer to let you know its assignment date if you don't.

I'm assuming here you have used a Fiat franchise dealership for the service?
 
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