How do you know what kind of Oil thightness to us. I live in the Oven state AZ. I have 1983 454 i’m thinking it’s over 180.000 or 200.000 miles on original motor.
With high mileage on motor, what should i us.
10w30 or 10w40 high mileage oil. what does your manual say? that’s what everyone here will ask/advocate
Thanks for the Reply. But do you really think people read manuals anymore?
Where you live I’d go with the 10W40. You need the added viscosity modifiers.
The viscosity modifiers are the coiled polymers added to the oil that expand when they heat up and help your engine maintain its resistance to flow (thinning) when it gets hot. And if I understand your post correctly, IT GETS HOT!.
Yup, Some People Still Read Them, Just Like In The Old Days.
Know what else? Some people even write manuals, the old folks we have left that are still literate.
CSA
Do you think it will be good to go with Full synthetic 10w40
GM suggested 10W30 that year, as I recall, but 10W40 would also work. What have you been using for the past 180K miles, and what is this motor’s oil consumption rate?
Where you live there is really no benefit to go to expensive synthetics, unless you pull a heavy trailer with your vehicle. Your engine has relatively loose tolerances, and at that age will probably leak some oil as well. It might get quite expensive using synthetic.
The 10W40 suggestion is excellent; in the SUMMER I would even go 15W40 which is a heavy duty truck grade. Just change the oil in the fall back to the lighter grade.
I take it the car is a Chevrolet Caprice or a pickup truck?
Normally I think full synthetic is a waste except when the manufacturer recommends it, but in this case it might actually be a good idea. Yours is a case of severe use, and it’s an old engine, so anything you can do to help is may be worth the extra bucks. Besides, when they wrote your owner’s manual full synthetic wasn’t even prophesized yet. Had it been, they might have even recommended it for that engine for hot climates.
In your case, straight 40 should be fine…In the winter, 10/40. Very few 454’s make it to 200K, give that puppy all the help you can…
Thanks for all the help. Yes it is a full size Crew cab longbed 1 ton dully.
it’s not a daily driver, it’s sit’s more then it’s driving, i use it mainly to make run’s to homedepot/lowe’s for pallets of bricks,lubber etc and haul my 4 wheeler for rides sometime’s. if only hade it for about 10 years i bought it of a used truck lot, it’s hard for me to even thinking about geting rid of it, it go to have a truck to haul stuff when needed.
But do you really think people read manuals anymore?
The smart ones do, especially if they want to make their vehicles last a long time.
If you don’t read the Owner’s Manual for your car or truck, it is certainly not something to brag about.
As Whitey sagely noted, “the smart ones do”.