Most people use the recommended 20W-50 oil in the VS V6 Ecotec engine and looking at some old threads which date back a few years it seems common. Just wondering if there are any semi-synthetic oils that people use? What other types of oil are people using?
I use Castrol GTX 20W-50 which is a mineral oil.
There is also Penrite 20W-60. Has anybody used this?
Any information would be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Why wouldn't you use a better, fully synthetic oil?
Price & engine age. For a VS Ecotec, Any of the good quality brands 20W50 or 20W60 oils will be fine. There will be many different opinions of which is best, but at the end of the day it comes down to personal choice. I've use penrith and nulon in the past and found them to be good.
GTX is the bottom of the barrel. probably still within the holden spec, but remember that spec was written more than 15 years ago.
If you like castrol and want something better try EDGE 20W50. You won't notice much difference, but its whats inside that counts, and will clean better. Any SM-CF oil will be better than GTX.
Thanks for the advice. I like the idea of Castrol EDGE 20W-50. Is this the one you are talking about @greenacc?
Castrol USA - EDGE 5W-50 with SYNTEC<br>Power Technology
Also it's a Series 1 Ecotec V6 with 182,000km.
Last edited by commodorev6; 20-01-2012 at 11:46 PM. Reason: Add more info.
In my opinion that castrol edge is crap, i used it a few times and it gave me bad lifter noise. Put in the penrite and not as much lifter noise.
VR and VS error codes:
VS V8 DTC/Error codes comprehensive list.
VS V6 DTC/Error codes comprehensive list.
how goods the semi sythetic gulf western oil? i see repco now sell it and atm its only 19.99 intro offer, but yeh i guess u get what u pyay for? ived used gulf western before and it was fine but never used teh synthetic ones?
@seq4x4 What type of Penrite oil did you use? Was it semi-synthetic?
Hpr - 30 20-60
VR and VS error codes:
VS V8 DTC/Error codes comprehensive list.
VS V6 DTC/Error codes comprehensive list.
I use 10w 30, Is that why it slowly burns oil? it has also just cracked 200,000ks and was drivin by a sensible driver and serviced regularly ( inside the filler cap it yellow, NOT BLACK!!)
My ride-VS commo, Just finishing the manual conversion. Working out those annoying bits!
i just use castrol 20/50 in my vs ute, thats what holden used when they use to service her