I'm ready for an oil change and was curious about using 10w-30 oil. i had some Quaker HorsePower Full Synthetic oil in the garage and was wondering if it is ok to use it? I know the manual says to use 5w-30. Any drawbacks if I use 10w-30 vs 5w-30?

 

i wanna say that you dont wanna go to a heavier weight oil.especially if it gets cold where you are in georgia. usually they recomend a lighter weight oil becuause there are very tight tolerances in the engine. im sure you could use the 10w oil but your gas mileage will prolly suffer.

 

I wouldn't use it, but you probably could get away with it in summer.

 

Old school has it 10-30 in winter and 10-40 in summer....5-30 is lighter yes,but believe this is more for milage and emissions( the thicker oil puts more load on the oil pump which is driven by the motor) ,you MAY see a slight decrease in milage depending on your driving,but nothing more.10-30 was the norm for winter for many many years, and being in Georgia I doubt youd see cold enough weather to worry much about it.Anymore 10-30 can be run year round.Ive gone as low as 0-15wt(not HHR),my SS is running 0-30 because of the turbo.
http://www.nordicgroup.us/oil.htm
Try this site..has some good info......then choose your path

 

Just read the guide in you owners manual. It has what GM recomends.

Almost all of todays engines will use 5W30 with no issues. The only reason they use it is gas mileage. The other grades used under the correct conditions will not hurt.

The only reason to use other than 5W30 is extreem use and weather conditions Hot or Cold.

 

I wanted to get the first oil change done this week so I called the dealer - $79 bucks they wanted. I went to Wally World and got the large 5 qt container of Mobil1 oil and a Puralator filter ($30 total) and went to the local Quick Lane and had the oil changed for $11.83. Much better than the dealer. All set to go again, they knew how to reset the old read out.

 

Under a reasonably wide range of environmental temperatures, there should be little difference between a 5W30 and a 10W30. They are both 30 weight at normal operating temperature. Below freezing the differences really start to show.