I was changing my oil in my 2006 ford freestar 4.2 litre v6 and I had it drained and the drain bolt back in with the new filter and I relied I bought the wrong oil my van calls for 5w20 and I bought 5w30 but I had no water to get to the store to buy the correct oil so I was forced to use the 5w30 will this hurt the engine or can I just use it till my next oil change any feedback would be appreciated since I only have the one vehicle and I’m on a low budget thanks.
No problem, the vehicle will never know the difference.
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Not at all this will not hurt the engine at all. My car offers the same oil the 5W20 but I use 5W30. No harm at all 
The only issue is if your motor uses a variable valve set up. Honda calls it VTEC and I know some Ford motors have variable valves. The oil you are using is thicker than the oil specified and this might change the action of the variable valves.
The difference in the oil won’t cause any motor wear, and you might get a bit less mpg.
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The difference between 30 and 20 is pretty small.
In fact Ford may specify 5w30 or even thicker oil in other parts of the world.
Absolutely no problem whatsoever.
The second number means that the oil will remain as viscous (resistance to flowing away) at temp as the higher number (the thicker base weight) would. This is accomplished by adding a small amount of “viscosity modifiers” (microscopic coiled polymers) that uncoil when heated and keep the oil from becoming too thin. The 5W30 simply has a tiny bit more viscosity modifiers added to the base oil. Totally, absolutely harmless to your engine.
I commend your attention to your car and to the details. This will enable you to get the maximum reliable service out of the vehicle. Keep up the good work
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If you check your owner’s manual or service manual, you’ll probably find a chart similar to this one. If one of the oils listed is a 30 weight oil, you’re fine to leave it in there. If not, I’d change it.
Better than no oil.
…and, after six years of wear and tear on the engine, the slightly “thicker” oil is not at all problematic.
[quote=“UncleTurbo, post:4, topic:95949, full:true”]
The only issue is if your motor uses a variable valve set up. Honda calls it VTEC and I know some Ford motors have variable valves. The oil you are using is thicker than the oil specified and this might change the action of the variable valves. [/quote]It could even clog the fine screens used in some cam phasers.
My 2003 4Runner specifies 5W-30 but the dealer changed the oil and put on 10W-30. I checked the manual and 10W-30 could be substituted, but at the next oil change, 5W-30 was to be used. The 10W-30 didn’t seem to make any difference. However, I didn’t go back to that dealer for any more service work. Our independent shop did am oil change and put in 5W-20 in that vehicle instead of 5W-30. It was in November, so I didn’t worry about it figuring the lower viscosity didn’t really make a difference in the winter months. I made sure at the spring oil change that 5W-30 was installed. On my 2011 Sienna, I noticed that the invoice states that 5W-20 has been installed when I clearly requested 0W-20 ans the oil cap clearly states 0W-20. I was charged for synthetic oil but with some other things that occurred at that shop, I was a little suspicious. At any rate, nothing bad happened but I has the oil changed a little earlier than I normally would ans took the Sienna to the Toyota dealer for the oil change. I wonder if shops sometimes put in what oil they have available in bulk and figure if it’s close to the specified viscosity (e.g. 10W-30 as opposed to 5W-30) it won’t make any difference and nobody will notice. The independent shop where I had been a customer for over 20 years did lose me as a customer.
Thank you.
Just curious what you mean by that? I don’t see how having no water would prevent a drive to the store.
As far as the question you pose, if it were my 06 Freestar I’d just switch back to the correct oil spec at the next oil change, and maybe advance that date a little. However if it were my 06 Freestar that had variable valve timing I’d not risk it; I’d replace the oil with the correct spec immediately, leaving the same filter installed. The VVT feature is very sensitive to the oil spec.
I think he meant he had no “way” to get to the store unless he lives on a dry river bed and the boat won’t float. Sometimes you just type something different than you head is thinking about.
[quote=“GeorgeSanJose, post:13, topic:95949, full:true”]
Just curious what you mean by that? I don’t see how having no water would prevent a drive to the store.
[/quote]I’m guessing it was an auto-correct typo. I had no way to get to the store to buy the correct oil.
Ok, that makes sense. The auto-correct phantom-writer.
No way to get to store auto correct
Thank you I really appreciate it.
Thank you I got a ton of great info I’ll be buying correct oil for now on it was just one of those things I just wasn’t sure of I really appreciate all of your responses to my question thanks for everyone’s help in this matter.
It’s good that you care enough about your vehicle to ask. Feel free to ask more questions if you do something or about to do something that you are not sure of. Questions are cheaper than mistakes.