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I've searched here and BITOG, but haven't quite found the "holy grail" of motor oil for my 9-5 '01 SE V6. Here's the situation: I drive about 15k miles/year, 75% highway/25% city. Last year I drove a Japanese NA V6 using Amsoil 10-30, OCI of 12 months/15k miles, with good oil analysis results (no filter change, either). Bought the Saab 5 months ago and changed the oil to Amsoil 5W-30. I'd like to accomplish the following:
1) Extended drain intervals, maximum reasonable limit.
2) Stay in spec with Saab recommendations.
3) Minimize engine wear and sludge.
Amsoil claims some fairly high drain intervals for normal duty (i.e., non-turbo) engines: 25k in many cases. For turbos they say triple the manufacturer's OCI recommendations or 6 months, whichever comes first.
The V6 turbo provides fairly low pressure and is not likely to beat up oil as badly as an I4 HOT engine. I'm not certain whether to consider it a "true" turbo for purposes of the OCI. What is the absolute maximum drain interval you'd recommend for this engine using a high-quality synthetic oil?
The other question is which oil should I use? I'd like to stick with group IV or higher. Due to the "pseudo-turbo" issue I'm not sure if I need to worry about oil shearing. Temperatures here are fairly moderate (Seattle) -- we see a few weeks of freezing temps in the winter, and summer doesn't get much higher than mid-90's.
The availability of oil brands also seems limited locally. M1 and Amsoil are the only group IV's I've seen in stores. No Redline, Royal Purple, Lubro Moly, Motul, Pentosin, German or Belgian Castrol, etc. Quite a few group III's can be found: Shell Rotella T synthetic, Valvoline Synpower, Pennsoil synthetic, etc., I'm just not sure they're up to Saab specs and extended OCI's. Too bad they're about as expensive as the group IV products, otherwise I'd consider using them with shorter OCI's...
Any thoughts/recommendations?
posted by 4.40.5...
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