Oil Change

I have a type I VW engine. Does everyone clean/change the screen with each oil change?
Also, is 20/50 or 10/40 considered best?

Nashville area, not too cold in winter, not too hot in summer.

Thanks

You should clean out the screen with each oil change. That's why the factory switched to sump plates with no drain plugs in 1973 and up engines. 10W 40 or even 10W 30 should work fine in your case.

For me, it depends on how many miles I have put on between changes. I am changing the oil on my bug every four months, regardless of the mileage. Fresh oil is cheap insurance in my book. The last change I had only accumulated a couple of hundred miles, so taking the sump plate off didn't seem necessary since the typical VW manditory service cycle is 3,000 miles. To each his own.
Hoss

If you have an external oil filter,you don't need the screen. It only serves as a restrictor for the oil pick-up.
I never understood the purpose of the screen. It only filters "chunks".
So the screen gets tossed for my motors.

Greg B.

I agree with fresh oil and a scrub of the screen.
-- Greg, that's the method we used to determine what was wrong with my engine. The shavings from my piston and wristpin were stuck in it; no bigger than pencil-sharpener sized bits, but easily enough identifiable.

Cory,
Still...
If it's big enough for the screen to catch it, the motor has to come apart.
If you take it apart enough to find the piston or rings are in pieces, or bearing matl. is in the oil, the bottom end has to come apart.

Greg

Agreed. But it was helpful that the screen caught identifiable metal. I don't know that we'd have seen the clues to what was making all that racket inside the oil filter.
David, back to the original question, yes. Oil, filter and screen -- if you still have one. But Greg's right. If there's stuff in there to gum it up, it will gum it up.

For diagnostic purposes, I do use strong magnets (ones from old hard drives) on the (outside) of the metal sump plate.
If anything is magnetic and loose in the oil, It'll get caught.

Greg B

I'm afraid that the 'strong magnet' thing would screw with the metal plate in my head.

Everytime I'd walk by the engine I'd probably forget my name and piss my pants!!

Jimbo, you crack me up!

I'm with Greg! I too use the strong magnets on my drain plate and change my oil every 1500 to 2000 miles....Yea that's pretty often I know.....but the oil is really is cheap and I like to see clean oil when I pull out my dip stick. I'm not running a full flow oil set up with a filter or oil cooler so I figure this is the best set up for me....I know....it's a bit much, but my oil always looks like it was just put in!

Michael, be careful with that too. I've read that it's not beneficial to the motor to be running immaculate oil all the time. I can't recall the exact argument but you need to let detergent oil do its work too; not that you'll be running tar in your engine but just stick to the 3,000 mile service interval and you'll be fine.

As far as oil goes the standards for it and engine design have changed over the years. Many engines now have roller cams and catalytic converters. The American Petroleum Industry (API) has changed the standards for oil formulation reducing the amount of ZDDP (zinc-dialkyl-dithiophosphate) which reduces the life of catalytic converters and is not as necessary in roller cam motors. Unfortuneatly this ZDDP is required by our motors and lack of it will contribute to cams going flat. ZDDP is mostly zinc and phosphorus and a good oil for us should have about 1200-1400 ppm (.12%-.14%) of each. When the automotive oil standard changed from

Thanks Bruce; I found this at the lnengineering link:

"Failure to use the right oil, use proper filtration, or observe proper changing intervals can affect the performance of even the best motor oil. This also includes changing the oil too often. Against conventional wisdom, engine wear decreases as oil ages to a certain extent, which means that changing your oil more frequently actually causes engine wear; these findings were substantiated by studies conducted by the auto manufacturers and petroleum companies. With this knowledge in hand, using a quality motor oil with proper filtration and suggested drain intervals, as recommended by Porsche, is the best thing to do for your engine and to protect your investment."

I knew I'd read it somewhere.