New Lake Speed Jr. Video may be of some interest - differences between U.S. and European Motor Oil Specifications.
What's the deal? Well, in the confusing new world of bizarre engine architectures, it matters. A lot. EPA has gone nuts in forcing engine makers to squeeze tenths of percentage fuel economy increases driving bizarre engine features and API attempts to respond to them.
In many cases, we have found European Motor Oil Specs are better for U.S. engines than API engine specs. Examples: lates U.S. API SP requires more miniscule fuel economy changes, the biggest being much lower oil viscosity WITHIN SAE viscosity grades. SAE 30 weight oils have gone from upper 11 cST @ 100 C to lower 10 cSt @ 100 C, almost a 20 wt! That effects engine wear rates. How much you'd have to track with UOA.
Euro Oils to ACEA specs did not cut their viscosity, in general. And they left a bunch of antiwear (SAPS) additives in. The only thing I've seen changed is they have also swapped more expensive Magnesium for Calcium detergents to reduce LSPI. Even Ram has a high compression turbo GDI engine now - the "Hurricane", and many of us own mouse mobiles with turbo GDI engines.
This is why I recently changed after years of using PUP 5W-30 (now basically a 5W-20) to Mobil 1 ESP 0W-30 (a European Spec'd Motor Oil). Trying to save our engines from EPA is a full time job these days.
So the action in motor oils these days is not the 20 year old Hemi valvetrain tick and destruction anymore. This is well known and mitigated (use Red Line or HPL Motor Oil). Current engine architecture is small displacement, turbocharged, and GDI.
Lake babbles too much history of fuels and engines for the 1st 21 minutes. Fast forward is you want to avoid all the unnecessary preamble.
We’re diving deep into one of the most misunderstood topics in the automotive world: the differences between American API engine-oil specifications and Europ...
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