Another tip of the day

I can’t get anyone, and I’ve called and written QS, to tell me if 30w is the same as sae 30. They were on the shelf at the same time so I think they are different. QS just says follow the manufacturers recommendation and use the appropriate QS product yada yada

I hate when companies can’t tell you what is in their own product.

1 Like

Yeah wouldnt mess with that if its a truck engine. It could possibly lubricate a dredge engine though properly.

Oil change, every 10k miles. Oil stays clean through 7k miles. Fuel filter @ 15k miles.
Gotta love a Cummins!

amazon baby! Amazon.com

That’s 10w30. Find me some 30w and I’ll send you some :slight_smile:

That’s sae 30.

I’m looking QS 30w

There is no such thing as 30W. The "W"inter designation doesn’t include 30 or higher.

My mechanic said W is weight and the 30 is vescosity. So the old 30w is the same as SAE 30
They both are 30 viscosity oil… Its only when the thin them,out a little you get the W…
The SAE (society automotive engineers)is just an stamp of approval, saying you meet their standards -
basically for marketing purposes…
Do I win a gutter tool now? Hahahhahahahhahha
Inside joke…,

“W” stands for Winter, not weight. Otherwise a 10w 30 would be a 10w 30w. The first number is what the weight is in cold tempratures before the expanding polymers kick in and thicken up.

Not discrediting anyone. Exvept maybe the anonymous awesome guy who just signed in. I know what the w stands for. I just want QS to tell me yes or no that the old 30w and the new sae 30 is the same formula. I’m using motorcraft now so it’s not the end of the world. I used it for a long time. It was good stuff. Just want to know if it is the same stuff.

Um no is less weight so people use it in winter so a lot if people say the w is for winter.

For starters, in oil nomenclature, “W” does not stand for “Weight”. It stands for “Winter” and that is the key to understanding viscosity grades. A 10W-30 is a multi-grade (two viscosities) motor oil, and as the name implies, it meets more than one grade. Forty years ago there were winter grades for cold weather and summer grades for warmer weather. A typical winter grade was 10W. A typical summer grade was 30. These oils were straight grade oils. A 10W flows well in cold weather, to protect the engine at start up, but it’s is too thin for use in the summer. A 30 grade grade oil, thick enough to protect in the heat, was recommended for summer use.

Then, multi-grade oils were formulated. A 10W-30 had the winter cold start flow properties of a 10W and the summer, high temperature thickness of a 30 grade. Multi-grade oils could stay as close to the optimum viscosity over a range of temperatures - not too thick when it is cold and not too thin when it is hot.

1 Like

Well that’s as far as I got IBS :slight_smile: the aliens are landing soon maybe they will resupply us with 30w… Its hard to come by hear on earth.

I thought the W was for weight as well, until i started reading about it. “Weight” is apparantly still applicable, but the W designation always technically means winter. This article explains why it is confusing.

Continuing the discussion from short answer above, Society of Automotive Engineers, or SAE, has successfully deployed motor oil grading system, which we all use universally. The confusion of using “weight” all started from SAE J300 designation rules for single-grade oil. Often, single-grade oil is used in industrial applications where temperature does not vary significantly or for specialty uses, including certain classic cars, air compressors, and lawnmowers. According to the definition SAE J300, there are 11 single-grade oil types available: 0W, 5W, 10W, 15W, 20W, 25W, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. All the numerical values are correctly referred to as “weight” or “straight-weight” oils. It is correct to say 20 weight oil for 20; 5W shall be called 5 weight winter-grade oil. Yes, that W remains “winter” no matter what.

Makes sense, i guess… if there is a difference between 20 and 20W oils, then you need something besides ‘weight’ to distinguish between the two.

I appreciate all. It’s raining. Can’t clean gutters. Payroll still had to be made. I’m playing on the phone reminiscing old Quaker state.

Well I stand corrected on the weight verses winter. But my original post was talking about 30w verses SAE 30 which was not referring to multiblend oil

No that I am straight on the “W” … I was also always told that THICKness and Vescosity where different.
Vescosity was how slippery the stuff IS and thickness was how thick it was to have it cling to surfaces longer or in the case of winter flow easier.
But THIS is why I am a plumber and pressure washer and not a mechanic…

1 Like

Taking a break from this… To chat!!
Man its cold up here…

1 Like

Yes, like the second article i linked said, it’s confusing. I had always thought weight, but it’s interesting to know the history.

And yes, on your earlier comment, you were correct in stating that 30w(eight) = 30 SAE, it’s just a technicality thing about the use of the letter W.

It’s a weird system… I would think that weight would have been a better technical choice than winter… but maybe when they came up with it (before multigrade oils… in the 50’s, or maybe earlier) they figured that consumers would better understand that they needed to change their oil in the winter, if they called it winter.

1 Like