So Long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Adieu…

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by Quickurt

Randy and Eric were on their second day of trying to replace a rear window and regulator on a VW "new" beetle when you walked in.
He called right after you left and said he was sorry he was a bit short when you walked in. He's been known to lose his temper when working on cars that are ridiculously hard to work on.
High performance cars are one thing, they are small, light and tight and you expect them to be tough work, but the rear window in a VW Beetle??

Sorry I missed your PM, it would have smoothed the meeting, had I been able to call ahead for you. I've been up to my ears in a new project and procedure for my shop.

Glad the rest of your trip went well and you're tickled with your new toy.
Drift it thru a fast turn for me!

Yea, Randy showed me all that swapping that window regulator entailed. You practically had to remove everything aft of the front seats to access it. Add to this that the part alone was $700 and Randy had the cheerful task of informing the customer.

I didn't think he was short at all. Seems there had been some miscommunication between Randy and my wife who called ahead for me to try and set an appointment (i'm amongst the 1% of the population who doesn't own a cell phone), so Randy was not expecting me.

But, I really enjoyed my time with him and he went way beyond a mere oil change. He did a fairly thorough inspection of the car, more out of curiosity at it's pristine condition than anything else. But, he took pains to explain everything to me and gave me a better understanding of the 964 than I had walking in.

The trip was great fun, though there were only a few highlights as there isn't a lot to say about hour upon hour of cruising the interstates with the cruise on and in 5th gear.

Anyway... super nice guys. Thanks for the recommendation!

Cheers!

[Flavor 987S]

What oil did you elect to run in your air cooled engine?

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by Flavor 987S

What oil did you elect to run in your air cooled engine?

I went with the recommendation given by Autoworks.

Randy, the owner of Autoworks said that he currently recommends Penzoil full synthetic. Says it's one of the best out there. This is a guy who makes his living servicing niche and import cars and depends on maintaining a loyal client base, it would not serve him to recommend an inferior oil.

Personally, I'm not sucked into the arguements that one oil is vastly different than another. There are differences to be sure, but in my case, I don't put enough miles on the car annually to use up the additive package before swapping the oil again for it's annual hibernation. I believe it's much more important to swap the oil often (7500 mi. or annually at least) and this probably has more to do with prolonging the life of the engine and it's components than any particular nationally recognized brand of synthetic. Just MHO of course.

Cheers!

[Quickurt]

Robert Overby (Overby's Inc.) is also a high end shop here in Jacksonville, as well as high end sales, and he also recommends Pennzoil full synthetic (Platinum). Robert is a multiple SCCA National Champion in E-Production - Porsche Speedster.
On my last DD change I went with Pennzoil's Hyper-Clean full synthetic, Ultra, and the Mazda Turbo used a bit less of it than the regular Pennzoil Platinum.
The 135k miles CX7 was using about 1.5 quarts of Mobile One (5/30-high mile formula), used about half that of Pennzoil Platinum (10/30) and now has used about 1/2 quart of the Ultra (5/30). These are all on 5k mile intervals. It's due for another change this week, so I will be using the same clean formula Pennzoil.
I was expecting the 5/30 Ultra to have the same consumption as 5/30 Mobile One, thinking the differnce was molecular weight, but I was wrong, or at least mistaken!
If I did the turbo cool down idle time routine, it would probably burn less, but too bad, time is money and I am terribly impatient!
Brumos still uses the Porsche Spec Moblie One, but Overby and others have told me the Mobile One you and I can buy, over the counter, is nowhere near the same spec as the Porsche dealer gets - through Porsche parts division, not the oil dealer.

[Flavor 987S]

Most of the 964 guys I know are running the Brad Penn. This is also a highly recommended oil by Charles Navarro.

Here is an excerpt from his web site:

"Which motor oil do I (Charles Navarro) use in my aircooled Porsche?
Although there are many excellent motor oils out there, considering the wide array of oils I have access to, I currently am using Brad Penn 20w50 API SJ for the summer and winter months in my aircooled Porsche since it never sees sub-freezing starts. The Brad Penn Penn Grade 1 Racing oil is the same "green" oil everyone was familiar with back when Kendall GT was the best motor oil money can buy, as both the original and this newer product both come from the same facility using genuine Pennsylvania crude. These oils are proven to protect cams, rockers, lifters, and all valve train components as well as provide superior rod bearing life because of their very high HTHS viscosities AND low levels of individual detergents to net a high level of detergency with the use of Ca, Mg, and Na synergistically. Just ask anyone about the "green" Kendall oil from decades past and you'll know why we like it so much. Likewise for winter service, we run Brad Penn 10w40 API SJ.

Another great oil, if not a bit expensive for a non-synthetic oil is Swepco 306 15w40, which comes highly recommended by Jerry Woods, a very well-respected and experienced Porsche engine builder, and is another oil we regularly use.

Both the Brad Penn and Swepco oils are highly refined paraffin base stocks, and I feel they are excellent choices for aircooled engines, providing better protection and used oil analysis wear results than most fully synthetic oils.

In my two newer vehicles, both of which are Volkswagens, they require a VW 505.01 specification motor oil, and I use Motul 5w40 505.01 specific, which is an API SJ rated semi-synthetic. It has since been superceded by a new We have also used Motul's 300V, which is a group 5 full-synthetic ester oil formulated like Brad Penn (in regards to additives), Motul 8100 X-Cess, and Motul Specific 502 (which now meets 505.01 requirements) with equal results.

Very important in my consideration of any of these oils are that they have the proper balance of Zn and P as well as level of detergency. Oils with high detergency need equally high levels of anti-wear additives as well as those oils using Ca-based detergents also need more Zn and P that those oils that use Mg and/or Na detergents. Brad Penn, Motul 300V, and even Mobil 1's motorcycle oils all use lower levels of Ca detergents and the less aggressive (lower wear) Mg and Na-based detergents.

I do not recommend using ZDDP boosters.

What viscosity motor oil should I use in my Porsche?
Porsche nicely answered this one for us (from '84 911 owners manual). You can use a 20w50 year round, even with cold starts to 20F, which covers the majority of Porsche owners. I might add, if your Porsche is also your daily driver and you see repeated sub freezing (32F) starts, it wouldn't hurt to use a 15w40 instead. The other recommendation frequently given by engine builders is that a 15w40 can be run up to 90F ambient air temperature and at higher temperatures, a 20w50 should be used.

We have also tested the Brad Penn 20w50 versus a 50/50 blend of the Brad Penn 0w30 and 20w50, which yields a 10w40 viscosity, with near identical low wear levels, regardless of viscosity. The used oil analysis for the 10w40 can be viewed in PDF here as well as for the 20w50 by clicking here. Both sets of tests were conducted on a 1991 c4 cab with a 3.6 liter normally aspirated 964 engine with approximately 60,000 original miles."

Here is the full Q&A (this is not new news, we have discussed this in the past here):

http://www.lnengineering.com/oil.html