Oil Viscosity

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Oil Viscosity is a heavy subject. Most people believe they understand it, and for what it is worth, their understanding of how it works is actually good enough for maintaining their engines. For instance a 10W-40 oil should NEVER be mixed with a 10W-30, even in the same brand of OIL. The Polymers are totally different. But,again your understanding of this this is not important to the upkeep of your engine. Just stick with the owners manual recommendations and do not mix different blends together.

A 10W-30 Oil will flow exactly like a regular (Straight) 10 Viscosity oil at 13 Degrees below zero. But a straight 10 Viscosity oil will thin out a lot as the temperature rises. At 100 Degrees a regular 10 Viscosity will STILL flow like a 10 Viscosity Oil would at 100 Degrees. Where as the 10W-40 Oil would flow like a 40 Viscosity Oil would at 100 Degrees.

To make this even more abstract, the Multi Viscosity Oil will start to lose this ability to do this soon after it is put into service. This is one reason why you need to change your Oil. Oil does a LOT, but right now we are talking about Viscosity.

Some things you would NEVER want to put a Multi Viscosity oil in. An aircompressor for one (Although the cylinder does get hot) never gets as hot as your Motorcycle Engine (Spark and Fuel burns HOT). The Actual Aircompressor does not have a spark plug and fuel, although it may have a Gas Engine to Turn the Pulleys on the Compressor.

Some of you will not see or understand the Difference between what I've just posted and what sethan12 posted above. And like I stated, it really does not matter if you don't. We are really saying the same thing for the most part. Both of us are just skimming the surface, the actual viscosity of oil decreases in a logarithmic and predictable manner, and the Polimer Chains actually keep an oil tighter or closer to it's consistancy. A Straight 10 would vary a LOT from flowing like a 10 at 13 Below to flowing like a 10 at 100 Degrees. It would thin out a LOT! The 10W-40 would not thin out near as much. Did I describe this well enough? For those of you who believe I did a good job then I did. For those of you who think I said the exact same thing as Sethan12 you are also right. For those that think this was boring, guess what? You are right too. Like I said, you do not have to understand any of this if you will just follow the manufactures recommendation.

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