Quote Originally Posted by Mark View Post
The U.S. Mirage owner's manual lists 0W-20 oil as the only option. Since most 0W-20 oil are synthetic oils (Motorcraft has a 0W-20 synthetic blend), we are guided in that direction. People can debate which brand of synthetic is best.

I would embrace the options listed in your manual. Living in Wisconsin, I would use 0W-20 in the winter & 5W-30 in the summer using your manual guidelines. I use 0W-20, because I don't want to void my warranty.

I've been doing some reading/research on all this, & it's somewhat frustrating/confusing. Full synthetic vs. 100% synthetic & those who use group III base oil stock vs those that use group IV base oil stock (PAO) make it hard or impossible to sort out. It appears the American oil companies has more freedom to market various products as full synthetic oil. Labels on American products are more about marketing. Maybe none of this even matters, but it's surely unclear to me. The Germans, for example, don't allow this confusion to exist (from some of the things I have read).

A quality oil still requires a quality oil filter. My guess is our U.S. oil change intervals (3750 miles/approximately 6,000 km or 7500 miles/approximately 12,000 km) are different than your oil change intervals, too.

The Mirage doesn't appear to be a fragile power train. Clean quality oil with a good oil filter should help it last a long time.
This boy totally agrees, if the manufacturer states a certain oil I'd adhere to that. We have the same utter confusion here too, don't know about Germany. I remember having cars that weren't fussed, a 20w 50 oil seemed to work in all cars from the 60's to 70's then it all went nuts,this spec, that spec one grade of oil wasn't suitable for all cars, you had to study numbers, letters and Lord knows what else.