Castrol Gtx High Mileage Vs Oem Oil - Corolland: the Toyota Corolla Forums

ever_green

just a review for this product

i used this oil for 3 oil changes, castrol gtx high mileage 5w-30 weight. main reason for switch was with oem/bulk oil car made a burning smell under hard acceleration. this led me to believe that oil leaked into the combustion chamber during high rpm operations. i did some research and discovered good reviews about GTX HM. lot of people said oil consumption went down and a lot of people praised the oil quality. some people claim this oil is superior to castrol syntec, but im not personally sure. also this oil is dirt cheap. so i switched and im glad i did so. about a months and 2000km into the oil, the burning oil smell stopped. whenever i floored it there was no smell of burning oil anymore. for a year and a half i was a happy cruiser with no oil burning, however, last month (after 1.5 years of castrol hm oil) i made the mistake of going back to oem. now about half way through the oil and the car makes the burning oil smell again after WOT. Another issue was the cylinder knocking noise became even more pronounced with oem oil. This is really annoying when idling, car sounds like a diesel engine eugh! With OEM oil i noticed that the car starts easier in winter. using scangauge 2 i compared my fuel economy under both oil brands and noticed no significant difference. I think castrol gtx hm provides better protection at the cost of slightly inferior cold temperature performance and increased engine friction. I am going back to Castrol GTX HM tomorrow! flushing out oem. Also what's your experience with high mileage oil?

Great review - thanks for sharing.

Castrol GTX/Castrol GTX High Mileage are excellent motor oils. Performance wise, I'd say they are pretty close to the "normal" Castrol Syntec synthetic motor oil. "German" Castrol Syntec or "GC" as it is commonly known online, is superior to the standard flair Syntec. The GC variant is harder to find, though, so many choose to run up to Castrol Edge. Given that is it more expensive than other comparable full synthetics in my area, I haven't tried out that series of oil.

As for me - I recently picked up a couple jugs of Valvoline Maxlife High Mileage, picked it on a great promotion. Compared to Mobil 1 0w-30 synthetic and Valvoline Synpower synthetic 5w-30 that was I running before, it seems to be holding up quite well. Already seen a slight bump in fuel economy on the first two tanks (went up 3-4MPG) - will have to check it over several tanks to see if there is a trend. Though I will have to cut back on my oil change interval while I try this high mileage oil out, next oil change interval - will be sending in a sample to be checked out via UOA. Specs make it look like a synthetic blend - VOA (Virgin Oil Analysis) has seen pretty aggressive additive pack on these high mileage oils. So far, I'm quite impressed - saving a little money helps too.

friendly_jacek

The cylinder knocking noise worries me. If you hear it on cold engine only and goes away with warming up, then it's harmless. If you hear it on hot engine and under load, bad news, see the 2003 S "tapping" noise thread.

Looks like MH oil is great for your car and keep using it. I'm starting HM oil diet this fall too (Maxlife). Hoping it will help with oil consumption in my 2003 S, fortunately no abnormal noises.

BTW, is the "OEM" oil 5W20? I developed cold engine knock in my RAV4 when the clueless dealer grease monkeys filled it with 5W20 (should be 5W30).

The cylinder knocking noise worries me. If you hear it on cold engine only and goes away with warming up, then it's harmless. If you hear it on hot engine and under load, bad news, see the 2003 S "tapping" noise thread.

Looks like MH oil is great for your car and keep using it. I'm starting HM oil diet this fall too (Maxlife). Hoping it will help with oil consumption in my 2003 S, fortunately no abnormal noises.
BTW, is the "OEM" oil 5W20? I developed cold engine knock in my RAV4 when the clueless dealer grease monkeys filled it with 5W20 (should be 5W30).

My favorite oil for my '01 Prizm is Valvoline MaxLife High Mileage. I have a big-time oil burner and this oil drastically reduced consumption (qt/400 to qt/800 miles). I switched to the NextGen variety of the same oil on my last change and consumption was not as good but I had some mitigating factors like long road trips.

ever_green

ya heard of Valvoline but its hard to find here and some what expensive. i get castrol gtx hm jugs for 27$ here. castrol edge, which is my fav, is over 60$ a jug. as for mobil 1, they have way too much phosphor content for my taste.

the engine tapping on my car happens when warm. it only happens during idle and when in drive. if i place the car in park, the knocking vanishes (higher rpm eliminates knocking). i noticed that that tapping occurs around ~750 rpm. also some days the engine doesn't tap at all. the tapping is more like something is loose, its not a deep diesel kind of tap.

ps. speaking of the devil (castrol edge) they are on sale for 41$ here a jug now! its a good deal i think, i will change today.

ever_green

i ended up with castrol gtx hm oil because it was also on sale...dirt cheap and im scared switching to synthetic may cause oil burn off / leaks. anyway about 100km in with the new oil, the burning oil smell stopped. no more burning smell during hard acceleration. im not sure if this because of new oil or not but my fuel economy for todays trip was 37mpg according to scangauge. this is up by about 3mpg over oem oil. i can imagine with a bit of hypermiling techniques i can break +40mpg easy in mostly highway driving at 75mph. also the oil seems very clear...its really hard to see the oil on the dipstick, im not sure if this is normal for gtx hm oil.

^^ Sounds like your car really like the Castrol GTX HM oil, so I'd stick with it. Like more high mileage oils, they tend to put a more aggressive additive package and have very good high heat tolerance, some cases meeting or rivaling some of the "synthetic" oils. I also found that most high mileage oils tend to look "clearer" on the dipstick well into the oil change interval, compared to standard synthetics. Might be due to the high solvency of the synthetic oil, acts like a mild flush, so it looses a lot of stuff more quickly. I'd run it for a couple of crankcases - see if the trend continues with good fuel economy and better engine performance.

ever_green

for my 03 TL (3.2l v6) i have been running Castrol gtx hm 5w-30 for 7 months or 10,000km. i think it was 2 oil changes. i recently switched to 5w-20 because that's what the manual asks for and i thought it would improve fuel economy at cost of slightly more wear. the results have been impressive: the engine runs smoother at idle, fuel economy improved by about 2-3mpg city and 1mpg highway, and best of all no more burning smell during spirited driving. Both my acuras develop a horrid burning smell when they hit 4.5-6k rpm or higher. but not anymore after a year of castrol gtx hm, the car doesn't burn even a drop and the dipstick is much cleaner compared to oem oil. Oil is almost invisible on the dipstick (very clear) at about 3000km it starts to darken. This is also the case for my corolla it improved fuel economy, engine idling and eliminated oil burnoff. for my suv, it requires synthetic oil and i can't find any good high mileage synthetics here, just gonna stick with Mobil 1.

after studying some used oil analysis online, i noticed that this oil (gtx hm) has impressive amounts of poly (anti-wear agent) and also it yields satisfying results compared to other dino oils. i understand that it may not be as good as the synthetic Valvoline, but i get them cheap...$30 including labor. im also not a fan of synthetic, i run mobil1 in my suv and i have to say its pretty damn mediocre for synthetic. i think Castrol dino oils have improved greatly in quality over the past years, very close to synthetic...