Its a difficult one as the internal clearances for these engines are quite sloppy and using fuly synthetic could potentially damage the engine as the film thickness of the oil may not fill the working clearances and lead to bore scuffing and premature wear of the internal components. Semi synthetic is the better option as it was the original oil specified for the vehicle and is much cheaper then full synthetic, but does exactly the same job, and being much cheaper means it can be replaced more often if required. Mineral oil is also suitable and will be fine in your engine as it was specified as the oil of choice for many of the vehicles third world countries where semi or full synthetics were not available.
What you need is the engines rated specifications, i will explain these.
API - This is recognised standard specification worldwide and is always listed in the manufacturers manuals, this is denoted by API followed by two letters, a specification may be API-SF, you can use any oil rated as API-SF or newer, but not older.
An older specification may be API-SD which is not suitable and a newer specification may be API-SJ which is suitable.
ACEA is another specification often listed, these are listed below:
ACEA A1, A2, A3, A4 are for petrol engines with A1 being the lowest specification, if the manufacturer lists A2 you can use A2, A3, or A4 but not A1.
For diesel engines the same rules apply, they use B1, B2, B3, B4 instead as this instantly identifies this as a diesel specification.
Sun Nov 20, 2011 2:49 am
