How to Choose Lubricating Oil in Winter

发布时间：2022年03月14日 14:48

After winter sets in and the weather turns colder, maintaining proper lubrication with engine oil becomes a crucial factor in ensuring your vehicle runs smoothly. Car enthusiasts must pay close attention to this. So, how should we properly use engine oil during winter? Under suitable conditions, the lower the viscosity, the better. As the saying goes, “The most important thing in life is making the right choices”—and this holds true for engine oil as well. In winter, the lower the viscosity of the engine oil, the better—provided it still meets the requirements for normal lubrication of mechanical components. Normally viscous oils tend to become thicker and more viscous when temperatures drop in winter, reducing their fluidity and prolonging the time it takes for them to reach the parts that need lubrication. As a result, they fail to deliver optimal lubrication, potentially leading to vehicle problems.

After winter sets in and the weather turns colder, maintaining proper lubrication with your engine oil is a crucial factor in ensuring your vehicle runs smoothly. Car enthusiasts must pay close attention to this. So, how should you properly use engine oil during winter?

Under appropriate conditions, viscosity The lower, the better.

As the saying goes, “The most important thing in life is making choices.” This holds true for lubricants as well. In winter, the lower the viscosity of a lubricant, the better—provided it still ensures proper lubrication of mechanical components. Under low winter temperatures, lubricants with normal viscosity tend to become thicker, increasing in viscosity and reducing their fluidity. As a result, it takes longer for the lubricant to reach the parts that need lubrication, failing to deliver optimal lubrication performance and ultimately leading to increased wear on vehicle components. On the other hand, lubricants with lower viscosity are less likely to thicken in winter, thus continuing to maintain excellent lubrication performance.

It's not necessarily better to spend more.

When choosing winter lubricants, it’s important to avoid a common misconception: that the more expensive the lubricant, the better it will perform. However, this isn’t necessarily true. The right choice depends on the actual conditions of your engine. Don’t use an overly high-grade lubricant in an engine with lower performance requirements, nor should you use a lower-grade lubricant in an engine with higher demands. Doing so can easily damage your engine—especially under the extreme climatic conditions of winter.

Do not mix lubricants.

Never mix lubricants from two or more different brands. Different brands of lubricants may use different additives, and mixing them could lead to oil degradation. Especially during the cold winter months, their individual shortcomings and any adverse reactions resulting from mixing can be greatly amplified, potentially causing damage to vehicle components.

Don't add too much.

It is crucial to emphasize that adding more lubricant is not necessarily better. If the amount of lubricant is excessive, it will increase the rotational resistance of the crankshaft, reduce the engine's output power, and—more importantly—excess oil often finds its way into the combustion chamber and burns there, leading to oil consumption and a corresponding increase in fuel consumption. Moreover, the residues left behind after the lubricant burns can accumulate on the walls of the combustion chamber, reducing the chamber's effective volume and thereby lowering the engine's compression ratio. At the same time, these residues also accelerate the wear of the cylinder and pistons, ultimately shortening the vehicle's service life.

No need to add any more additives.

It’s not recommended to add additives to lubricating oils. This is because the composition of lubricating oils themselves—consisting of base oils and additives—has already undergone extensive testing and selection. Adding additional additives could potentially trigger unwanted chemical reactions. Some car owners often add anti-wear additives to their lubricants; while this might slightly enhance anti-wear performance, anti-wear additives tend to readily react chemically with the lubricant itself, producing various impurities. Not only do these impurities diminish the original cleaning and anti-wear capabilities of the lubricant, but they can also increase sludge and carbon deposits, thereby affecting engine performance and reducing its service life. In fact, many of these issues require attention not just in winter, but throughout all seasons. It’s simply that when temperatures drop in winter, vehicles become more prone to malfunctions, so we strongly advise all car owners to pay extra attention during the winter months!

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