Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hello All,
I like to change the engine oil and filter every 6 months and it that time of year. I have a genuine porsche filter but unsure what's the best engine oil to buy. My S2 has cover just over 100000 miles and I drive it every day for work, I also do some motorway driving. In the first 6 months I have owned the car I have use no oil with good oil pressure. Any advice would be most appreciated.
Many Thanks,
Ken.

Hi Ken, I would use a fully or semi synthetic 10W/40 oil in the car. Any good branded oil is OK, best to use an engine flush as well, I use Forte engine flush every oil change, it does make a difference!

Changing fairly often with it doing reasonable mileage then a Semi 10/40 would be OK. How many miles is 6 months? If you change it often enough then it doesn't need a flush.

Id go for a proper PAO/ester synth (if youre running synthetic oil now without issue) in a 15w-50 and Id keep it in there for at least a year. One of the principal advantages of synthetic oil is its longevity, so youre wasting money changing it every six months...

i have my car serviced every 18 months due to low mileage of about 1500-2000 miles per year, garage say this is not a problem with syn and semi syn oils

Considering mine is a daily, I'm assuming something like Mobil 1 15W50 Fully Synthetic will do the trick. Or should I stick to 15W40 considering the car may be doing 8-10k a year?

I used Mobil 1 MS 15/50 in my S2 on the last oil change, up to that point I had always used Mobil 1 0W40, but as my tappets are getting noisy on start up I took some advice about the thicker oil holding up in the top end better and I must say it has improved the noisy tappets on cold start. However I had no problems other than the noisy tappets with the 0W40, it never used any oil. I may have tried 20/50 but I could not find any fully synthetic at the time, like many others I tend to waste my money by using fully synthetic oil and changing it too regularly every 6 months which is usually around 2-3K miles, but it's mine to waste and it makes me feel better.

Tom Fergusion (a specialist with 40 years in Porsches and one of our Club Technical helplines) has always told me the same thing.

Stephen

Quite a modern semi will still be far higher spec than when it was new. I've always run an oil that I'm happy to throw away more regularly. So mine gets mineral 1 change a year which is about 2K these days, when it was a daily driver every 6K.
The Jag on the other hand has 15K service intervals & get gold bullion or Castrol Edge 0-30W which seems to cost about the same from Jaguar.

I nomally do less than 10000 miles a year, I have never used engine flush before so not sure how it works and what`s the advantage of using it? thanks for your advice.

The flush removes varnish, sludge, etc from within the engine by disolving them and placing them within suspension in the oil. Well worth it on an older car as it frees all the carbon build up under the rings and generally raises compression. I have witnessed the compression test that they do to trial the product and it does work!
Alasdair

In the old days when Dad ran a garage with a big fleet of diesel vans, when I bought a new (to me!) car I'd give it a new filter & a sump full of Shell Rotella oil which was very high in detergents. Run it for 200-500miles then dump it & new filter & decent oil. It certainly took the muck out. BUT! I'd be very wary of using or flushing oil it on more modern motors for fear of loosening crud in the very narrow oil ways.
Fine if you've always done it, but potentially a bearing killer on a high mileage motor that has never had it done.

As long as the filter is not clogged, the oil ways will be fine as the oil will be filtered before it hits the oilways after the pump. I sometimes drop the oil after the flush has done its stuff, take off the filter and empty it out. replace the old filter and fill the engine with a litre or so of the cheapest oil from Morrisons, Asda, Tesco, etc, etc to cover the pickup. I then run the engine for a couple of minutes to purge all the dirty oil from the oilways and drop the oil again and change the filter. I alway leave the car draining overnight on my own car as you would be surprised by the amount of oil that drips out after the majority is emptied!
Alasdair

Never ever do this on a Rover V8 as otherwise you'll be stripping the pump to repack it so it'll prime!
I'm concerned with the crud that is fixed to things & you're disturbing. Should get filtered but may not, say in a cam feed gallery or similar. But each to his own.