Should I use royal purple 5w30 motor oil any thoughts ideas

 

Michele,
I think if you search the forum for Royal Purple you will find all kinds of discussion on this and other oils. I have been running RP 5W-30 in my R56 for most of the last two years. Can't say that I noticed the big difference in performance that the RP folks would have you believe you get, but it certainly didn't hurt it any. I change oil about every 5K miles and the car is running fine. I've tracked and autocrossed it a couple of times and the engine still gives me good gas mileage. So RP gets a thumbs up from me.

Cheers,
Greg

 

Thanks I've used rp before but not in my MINI I was thinking of switching and going with 5w30 also

 

OK here is the most honest opinion your going to get.

Everyone that uses royal purple is going to tell you to use it.

Those that don't will tell you another oil will work fine.

Then we can have a 5 page discussion on why what oil is best, so take it all with a grain of salt. Personally different brands of oil are like different flavors of kool-aid, everyone has a favorite. Here at my shop we use Factory MINI oil or Mobil one, and they have worked fine for 6yrs.

 

Way is right, people will tell you that RP isn't worth it or what have you, and others will say it's the best. I personally do use RP, but it doesn't matter what brand of oil you use.

 

It's not so much of a performance thing as it is a wear thing. An independent study done by an Austrailian company showed an engine running Royal Purple had the least amount of wear on the internal components. They were up against a lot of other major brands and the company was not biased. Do I use RP? No, I use Castrol Syntec. Been running fine in my MINIs for 7 years now. I don't have that study anymore though!!!

 

I was looking for some honest opinions

 

Fatherdeth +1

 

Any synthetic oil will be alright.

Dave

 

I use it cuz it's purple!

 

RP 5-30 is fine, what I use.
However, I have been reading more and more use as low min weight as you can. 0-30 or 0-40 is better because of flow at start-up. Also to get 0 weight you will normally be buying good quality syn.

 

How would the 0 weight work out with the temps in new york and does it lower the change out times in terms of miles

 

Should you use RP oil in 0W-30? Certainly. There's nothing wrong with that brand or weight of oil.
It will be fine in both summer and winter and it will not affect the change interval.

Now if you want my opinion...

I use the OEM Mini branded oil.
If I decide to change I will use Castrol SYNTEC 0W-30 European Formula.

Hope that helps...

 

thanks for the info. I have used Royal Purple in my race cars before thats why i have been tempted to use it in my MINI. Ill try the zero weight

 

I've used RP and M1. Did an analysis on the RP and it came back good, I'll do one on the M1 as well. Honestly it really doesnt matter that much...

 

+1
Not sure which is better but you are really looking at good and better with most of the high end oil.

 

I have seen first hand in a test done by a friend of mine that writes for European Car magazine several years ago where in a very controlled environment they tested E36 M3's back to back running Mobil1 5w-30 and RP 5w-30 and the RP makes a few horsepower on the dyno.
They did the test as propoerly as you can using fresh oil, run for a couple days and dyno, fresh factory filter, climate controlled dyno, etc.
Now that was on a larger displacement motor 3.0 or 3.2 liter, with bolt-ons, etc.
I think if you were to get any more power out of our cars with RP it would be minimal at best, like 1-2 max, and thats not worht a $15 premium per oil change to go from $5 a quart to $8+.

Now for wear, I don't ever go over 5k miles for oil changes, in fact most of mine are done at 3,500, which honestly is a waste to spend a premium for any kind of synthetic oil. At that freequency of changing unless you are running sustained at higher revs in 110 degree temps for a few days your oil will not breakdown at a rate that there is any benefit to using RP. In fact I just buy whatever 5w-30 premium brand synthetic I can get on sale for about $20-22 for a 5 quart bottle at Target or Wal-mart, my recent purchase was the Pennzoil platinum synthetic at $20.50.

The only way I would spend the 50% premium for RP is if I'm running it in a $50k+ sports car running high compression or I'm going to run 7k mile intervals on my oil change. And if I'm doing that than I'm likely going to have to add at least a quart to teh MCS due to burning and leakage before the oil change anyway so now I'm paying for 6 quarts of $8 oil instead of 5.

...but this is just my opinion.

 

But if you are running a 3,500 mile interval, you are actually going to use 10 quarts to go 7,000 miles instead of the 6 quarts using the longer interval. If you change the filter at the same time, your cost for that has doubled as well. So you are probably running about the same cost at the end of the day.

 

I like the grape smell, too!

But seriously, Ive been using RP (or Redline) for 206,000 miles with no problems.

Jim

 

I have used RP in my other cars for years, but I use the factory recommended oil in my MINI. I agree with others, that if you change it more often than recommended (4 or 5 thousand miles) you are good to go. I have a related question, though.

With the extended oil change times, isn't the FILTER even more of a consideration? While oil breakdown does occur, I would think that contamination would be at least as much of a concern as the manufacturer of the synthetic oil.

 

Don't second guess Mini......use the weight they recommend for your driving conditions.

Most synthetics are pretty darn good and there's not a whole lot of difference between them. The very best synthetic out there is Amsoil. (And no, I'm not a dealer.) Redline is always at the top of list from independent studies. As is Mobil One. I consider all the others to be also-rans.

 

Making a few horsepower on a dyno is within the measurement error...

 

I like royal purple because it's purple.