AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
It's always worth checking the cheapest oil in the supermarket! For diesels, Tesco's cheapest mineral diesel engine oil is actually closer to the recommended specification for Volvo 200x series engines than anything else (barring specialist suppliers), and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the same goes for petrol engines.
There's a lot of black magic and voodoo going on about oil - some people swear by synthetic oils, others reckon they're death to old engines! The problem is that what suits one engine might not suit another, so surely the safest thing is simply to look at the specification recommended by the manufacturer and get the closest that you can to that. In most cases, you won't be able to get the oil specified for older engines - the specified oil is no longer produced. So you have to get the next specification up - for example, if I remember correcly, Volvo specify "CD" oil for the 200x series; that is not readily available, but supermarket cheap diesel oil is often "CF", which is the lowest specification readily available.
There's a lot of black magic and voodoo going on about oil - some people swear by synthetic oils, others reckon they're death to old engines! The problem is that what suits one engine might not suit another, so surely the safest thing is simply to look at the specification recommended by the manufacturer and get the closest that you can to that. In most cases, you won't be able to get the oil specified for older engines - the specified oil is no longer produced. So you have to get the next specification up - for example, if I remember correcly, Volvo specify "CD" oil for the 200x series; that is not readily available, but supermarket cheap diesel oil is often "CF", which is the lowest specification readily available.