0 - 46k miles, 10w40 oil has been used (unknown brand, I bought the car on this mileage).
46k - 59k miles, 5w40 Selenia oil has been used
59k - 71k miles, back to Selenia 10w40.

Now I want to change the oil again. What is clever thing to do? Continue with 10w40 or go back again on 5w40?

What kind of oil you use on higher mileage Pandas?

Engine is 1.1 - 2006

Wasgehabendas said:

0 - 46k miles, 10w40 oil has been used (unknown brand, I bought the car on this mileage).
46k - 59k miles, 5w40 Selenia oil has been used
59k - 71k miles, back to Selenia 10w40.

Now I want to change the oil again. What is clever thing to do? Continue with 10w40 or go back again on 5w40?

What kind of oil you use on higher mileage Pandas?

Engine is 1.1 - 2006

Click to expand...

between 5w40 and 10w40 you will not see much difference

here in the UK 10w40 is normally the easiest and cheapest to find. Some of the very thin fully synthetic will leak like a sieve on a 15 year Old seals.


90% of its life has been on 10w40 I'd just stick with it.

I used 10w40 diesel spec semi synthetic oil in my 1997 Yamaha 900 bike. It made 90bhp and got used pretty hard. The oil got worked hard because like all (most) bikes, engine oil also serves the gearbox and it was air cooled.

I did the valve clearances at 70,000 miles and found zero measurable wear on the cams. On engine start, these are the last to get any oil.

Today's 10w40 semi synthetic is more than good enough for the Panda. What really matters is oil's ability to hang around so there is some lubrication at engine start before the oil starts pumping. 10w40 should do this better than 5w40.

DaveMcT said:

I used 10w40 diesel spec semi synthetic oil in my 1997 Yamaha 900 bike. It made 90bhp and got used pretty hard. The oil got worked hard because like all (most) bikes, engine oil also serves the gearbox and it was air cooled.

I did the valve clearances at 70,000 miles and found zero measurable wear on the cams. On engine start, these are the last to get any oil.

Today's 10w40 semi synthetic is more than good enough for the Panda. What really matters is oil's ability to hang around so there is some lubrication at engine start before the oil starts pumping. 10w40 should do this better than 5w40.

Click to expand...

The only difference here is how the oil will best benefit the engine when cold. I take Dave's point about the slightly more viscous 10 weight oil perhaps "clinging" to the cam followers for slightly longer than the 5 weight but I take the view that the 5 weight will circulate slightly more quickly at start up so I use 5W-40 and my particular liking is for the Fuchs brand.

At the end of the day the difference is very small and our engines are not too demanding on their oil - if I had a "T" jet with a turbo, or any turbo'd engine, I'd be much more "picky" - So, from my view point and with standard engines in mind, if I lived in a really hot country I'd probably tend towards the 10 weight and somewhere chilly I'd be looking especially for the 5 weight. For the rest of us, living in "temperate" climates, I really don't think it makes a difference at all. But buying a good quality oil from a trusted supplier/manufacturer is much more important.

PS always wondered about Castrol's claims about their "clingy" Magnatec, anyone know what makes it clingy? I notice they aren't claiming their new Edge has this property - Marketing department hype?

Further to the above. It just occurred to me that if you are using the 5w-40 grade you could seek out a VW PD engine compliant oil which is also 5w-40. The PD engine was well known for top end problems where the cam lobes and followers which actuate the valves would wear. To avoid this a special PD compliant formulation was developed - which, when this engine first went into service could only be bought, at great expense, from VAG dealers - I guess this oil spec would be especially good at protecting and clinging to "hard" surfaces like our OHC followers?

Here's a video of the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCA0v7udI5A

The PD engine has unit fuel injectors which are driven directly by lobes on the camshaft and because they share the same cam as the valves the cam lobes which drive the valves are actually quite "thin", by which I mean not very broad, so they exert high pressure per unit area on the oil film. The injector lobes, which you can see between the valve lobes are, by comparison, roughly twice as wide and don't often give trouble. If you don't use PD specific oil in these engines you'll for sure end up with the problems you can see in the video