10W60 in a non Speciale 458

The speciale recommends 10W60 whereas the regular 458 recommendation is a 5W40

Anyone use a 10W60 in their non-speciale 458 normally ?

There are certainly benefits to having a higher W rating as viscosity modifiers deteriorate over use (the 'summer'/hot rating drops over time) so as far as I can tell the only downside would be performance at low temps.

Where I live though it hardly ever drops below 10c(50f) ...maybe twice a year it goes down to 5c (40f).

A 10W is thinner at 10c(50f) than a 5W is at 5c(40f) so the way I see it there's little downside to using a 10W60 in my environment.
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What oil to use?

I don't see cold temps where I live so I don't a low W weight oil.

 

Because one choice for the entire world means it is an inherently compromised choice. 5W is chosen because these cars would need to work in Norway .... I don't live in Norway, I live somewhere that never sees sub 0 temperatures and hardly ever drops into the single digits.

A higher W rating is "better" because over time and use oil will "revert" to the W rating as viscosity modifiers (additive used to 'thicken' oil at higher temps) wears out. The larger the difference there is between the two numbers, the more viscosity modifiers are in the oil. That's bad for two reasons, the reason listed above is that they wear out and two those viscosity modifiers are taking up space in the oil, that's space that's NOT being used by oil, friction modifiers, detergents, anti-wear additives, etc.

If you use a 5W40 for 100k kms (obviously don't do this) it will act like a straight 5 weight oil. Picking an oil that has a higher W rating (thicker base oil) protects for longer.

Also, higher hot-weight oil protects better at higher operating temps as it's the heat/shear which deteriorate viscosity modifiers. So again, if the engine is operating in a hotter environment, it's more likely to operate at a higher temp.

You also get different additive packages in oils with a different weight even if it's the same "model" of oil. There are limits to how much certain additives of a certain type in 5W40 which have a different limit if the oil was a 10W60 even if both meet the same API standard. It's a whole thing.

It wouldn't make sense to use the same type of oil in Dubai that you would in Oslo. It used to be a normal thing for manufacturer to give a range of oils to use based on your environment. It's also why you would run a different oil if you were driving on a track and shorten intervals if the engine was being stressed.


This is from the SLS AMG but if you have older cars you'll find many if not most/all to offer something similar.
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FWIW

API Passenger grade oils are limited to 800ppm for zddp but higher grade have limit bumped to 1200ppm

This doesn't actually impact this particular discussion as both 5W40 AND 10W60 fall into the "higher grade" category but it's a nice little tidbit which is useful to remember for other situations I guess.

 

Man how much of that koolaid did you drink.

You know not everything Ferrari does is correct (look at their F1 team) and it's not like their farts don't smell.

You think Ferrari has never issued a recall notice ?

Plus, are you forgetting the fact that for much of the company's history they didn't give a crap about customers ?


What have I said so far that's so inflamatory ?

Track driving is different than normal driving and requires shorter intervals and different oil. If you someone takes their car to the track, would you recommend they just keep running that oil for another 11 months ?

Cold temps require thinner base oils, is that controversial ?

A base oil that is thin enough to crank at -20c is going to be VERY thin at 80c unless you throw buttloads of viscosity modifiers at it, and those things degrade. Do you disagree with this statement ?

You can't just hide behind "Oh that's what it said in the owner's manual" when providing zero arguments against what are incontrovertible facts. I'm not even saying everyone with a 458 SHOULD use 10W60. I'm asking if anyone has.

You're also ignoring how the speciale recommends 10W60 but the engine shares almost every part of consequence with the standard 458

Same cylinder liners, same piston rings, same rod bearings, same main bearings, same crankshaft, same tappets, same oil pump. Literally all of the parts that are the most stressed are identical (rotating assembly bearings & tappets) and yet there's a difference in recommended oil. Why is that ? Could it be because the speciale is making 30hp more ? Or more likely because the Speciale was the performance/track edition that the use case demanded a different oil.

Well if a different use case demands a different oil, then different conditions would suggest a different oil as well. Wow not exactly rocket science is it ?

 

Yeah I just discovered him about a week or two ago, that's what prompted me to look into the whole thing

 

Speciale and Italia engines share a block.

What you described is impossible. The "hot" weight will never be the cause of the issue you're describing because oil gets thinner as temp increases even with the viscosity modifiers. It's thickest at ambient temp. The reason for using higher weight is to ensure the fluid film doesn't thin out at high load which would lead to metal on metal wear.

60 weight oil at 100c (212f) flows the same as 40 weight oil at 80c (176f).

This isn't a guess, it's reading a graph.

If you don't want to believe me (which is an entirely reasonable knee jerk reaction), look into this guy (who works in lubricants as a career) https://www.youtube.com/@themotoroilgeek

 

Not sure if you just missed it in my giant wall of text (I do that a lot)

Italia and Speciale share the same cylinder liners, same piston rings, same rod bearings, same main bearings, same crankshaft, same tappets, same oil pump.

The heads and pistons and under piston oil jets are different but those are basically irrelevant to the discussion. Heads/camshafts are because the engine is in a different state of tune (that 30hp required real work, not just software tweak), pistons are for compression ratio (but rings are the same so a taller piston really doesn't 'do' anything with respect to lubrication, it's the rings that matter), oil jets below spraying oil on the piston underside is for cooling but again makes no impact to whether a thick/thin oil is appropriate.

Ferrari recommends a higher weight oil for the speciale because it was meant to be worked hard being a track/performance special. My argument is if you drive your italia hard it would behove you to look into this.

 

Heads are not a stressed part with respect to oil/lubrication, even if the oil passages are a different size, it would simply not be a factor worth considering.

The most stressed/critical parts of your oiling system are your main and rod bearings as well as your tappets and your piston rings, those are the parts where the fluid film are most needed and mission critical and demanding. Those are also all identical between the base and speciale models.

compression ratio as well is not really something that affects oiling, sure compression ratio is higher but the combustion chamber isn’t directly exposed to your oil, the chamber pressures (the thing that the piston rings actually “care” about or “see) are higher, but you can get a better proxy for this by looking at max torque which is where chamber pressures are highest ( by definition BMEP occurs at max torque ). A speciale at idle has less chamber pressure than an Italia at 30% throttle.

the head being a different part number is really irrelevant and that goes for the camshaft as well. The camshaft can have a different profile but there’s really no difference in need for lubrication or stress experienced. The stresses between a high lift high duration cam and a low lift low duration cam are minimal, this is far more related to your engine rpm than cam profile. 9000rpm is 9000rpm with regards to how fast is the relative speed between the cam’s surface and tappet moving (it’s not going to be like the special will have 20% more valve lift so the dimensions really aren’t going to be wildly different)

your oil is most stressed in sheer, those parts are where sheer occurs, not when oil is moving through the oil galleys or pump


The car isn’t intended for racing, it’s intended for track driving, that really is a whole different thing

both will have high load, intensity but racing (actual competition) cars have engines stripped and rebuilt after a few races, a road car pulling track duty wouldnt, this isn’t being pedantic, it’s clearly a different use case viewed holistically

 

I intend to keep this forever so my view is a bit different than yours.

if you treat these as effectively extended leases I can understand your perspective.

I also want to drive my car more and harder. I’m not going to be putting on 10k miles in a year no matter how hard I try (hong Kong is just too small) but oils sheer down based on how much sheer AND how intense that sheer is. So it’s a combo of number of revs and how hard the engine was working at those revs. Maybe I am being pedantic and given my use case it wouldn’t be necessary, I don’t track my car and I can’t ever really even see redline that often due to Hong Kong roads being the way they are….but in that case wouldn’t there be an argument for speciale owners to use 5w40 instead of 10w60? I am gonna go out on a limb and assume that you (and the others in the thread who just say follow the recommendations) would disagree with this.

I understand that in the absence of technical knowledge it “feels” sketch to deviate and “just follow the mnufacturer’s recommendation as a default way of thinking is very comfortable. But it’s just a “I was just following orders” philosophy that I simply don’t live my life by. I am willing to challenge authority and status quo and I’m willing to live with the consequences of that. It doesn’t mean that I want to do this haphazzardly, I’ll think about it and make my decision after doing that. “Just do what they recommend” or “they must have a reason, who are you to challenge them?” are just bad arguments in my mind. Do you ALL follow EVERY rule you are given? I presume that every one of us in this forum have driven faster than the posted speed limit and we don’t all ship our cars to Germany when we want to drive 100+ mph…. So why are we all willing to go 30 over at night when there are few cars on the street? Because we think we know better, sometimes we’re correct in that assessment, sometimes we are not.

I’ve tried to articulate the rationale behind my position and I think they’re sound arguments, There’s been thus far been no responses to the validity nor relevance to the matters I’ve brought up. If anyone thinks the things I’m bringing up are irrelevant, then please let me know why they’re irrelevant, I want to learn. If anyone thinks the things I’m bringing up are relevant but I’m WRONG (piston rings/bearings/tappets are NOT the locations where oil is most stressed or where lubrication is most crucial for example) … please let me know and correct me because I want to know. “Just listen to what the manufacturer recommends” is just a nonsense statement, it’s the equivalent to “God did it, mic drop” argument which just does nothing in an honest discussion/debate

 

You’re real snarky about technical knowledge for a dude that didn’t understand how brake fluid will deteriorate over time just 12 months ago.

 

FWIW I do intend to keep my spider forever

It’s my first Ferrari, first super car, it was a purchase to celebrate a life/career milestone. I’ve wanted a Ferrari since I was a kid and the 458 since it launched. To a lot of the rest of the world or even members of this forum it’s just a vanilla basic Ferrari but to me it’s special. It’s got sentimental value and transcends beyond the pile of parts that make it up. While a lot of members go through cars like they were clothes from H&M I am in it for the long haul (at least for this car).

If you or anyone else wants to just buy a car, play with it for a couple years and then try something else, I’m not gonna stop you, it’s your money, your decision, your life. You do you.

 

FWIW no mechanic I've ever talked to has ever thought it was an issue to change oil a higher grade on the hot rating side. On the cold side, a drop in grade is not an issue but a bump in cold grade should take into consideration low temp cranking performance....in other words, literally the exact point I brought up when I first started the thread. The benefit to bumping the W grade is having a heavier grade base oil which mitigates how much and how quickly the oil thins out over time, ensuring lubrication for both longer duration (miles) and after high load use (hard driving).

With regards to your calculations, you're 100% right, before ignition you do see a 12% increase in your chamber pressure between the base and speciale.

But what is the MAXIMUM chamber pressure ever expreienced by the engine? Is it 205.8PSI ? Well clearly not because once you ignite the air/fuel charge chamber pressure increases, that's how torque is produced.

So when is maximum chamber pressure achieved, one can assume it's at max torque(for obvious reasons), sure it probably won't be EXACTLY because neither combustion nor compression is adiabatic but it's going to be a really good assumption.

Well in that case let's look simply at the maximum torque produced by the two engines ... but what's this, they're the same figure ~400lbft. So one can safely assume that maximum chamber pressures are also going to be approximately the same.

So going back to my original argument again, all the parts which are most critical in oiling/lubrication (rings, main/rod bearings, tappets) are shared between the Italia/Spider and Speciale/SpecialeA. The recommendation MUST be because Ferrari foresaw/expect the Speciale will operate at higher average loads. That could mean higher absolutely loads across the board but with the same "profile" (making numbers up, 10% hard driving, 90% low load cruising) or it could mean same maximum loads but the profile biasing towards high load conditions rather than low load conditions(90% hard driving, 10% low load cruising). EVEN if maximum loads are higher, the difference in is so minimal (Speciale makes same maximum torque but it makes more torque across more of the range to achieve a higher max power) that it alone can't really explain a difference in recommended lubrication specs so there MUST be a difference in the expected usage (will be driven harder).

So if you as a user operate your Italia/Spider in a way which materially deviates from what Ferrari expected, do you think their original recommendation would be valid ?

This aint rocket science. How many of you think 1 track day mile = 1 road trip mile ? My guess is 0% of you, no one can be that dumb. What is the "actual" number ? Is it 10 road trip miles = 1 track day mile ? 20? 50? 100 ? I have no idea. Maybe you drive like a pansy on the track or maybe you're Lewis Hamilton, that would certainly be a different use case right ?

Well what about hard driving street miles ? A highway roadtrip mile isn't the same as a mile in the canyons/mountain roads certainly. What's the right ratio there ? Again it's incredibly specific to the individual.

I'm not telling you there's a magic formula for equivalence in these use cases. I'm saying there IS a difference between these use cases and these differences have implications. If there are differences based on use case, then it stands to reason that a difference in prevailing conditions would lead to a difference in what's optimal to use.

A prevailing condition of -25c would require a different cold/winter rating oil than a prevailing condition of 20c. This isn't rocket science. I do not need an oil that can handle -25c, I don't need an oil that can handle -15c, I don't even need an oil that can handle 0c. This is the impetus behind my exploration into using an oil with a higher W grade.

A higher hot grade (the higher number) is actually the LEAST controversial part of this entire thing. 60w oil flows better (lower viscosity) at 100c than 0w oil does at 0c. Your engine at startup is the time when moving oil is most difficult. Beyond that it's not about how hard it is to move oil through the system, it's how hard is it to keep your oil where it needs to be (integrity of the fluid film)

The case of 5W40 vs 10W60 is more about the 5 vs the 10 than it is about the 40 vs the 60. If you don't want to take my word for it, that's both 100% fine (I don't advocate people believe random people on the internet) but you shouldn't dismiss it out of hand either and if you have interest, do your own research. It's not like I'm saying the world is flat and it's not like I haven't provided the receipts for things I'm saying either. If you don't want to use my sources, feel free to find your own. Just don't fall back on "the factory said 'xyz'" as though that's somehow gospel and expect to be taken seriously.

It's not like Ferrari is actually God, they screw things up and don't always admit or fix it. They also don't tell you everything they know. Another example is the brake pads on the 458, if you look at them the pads cover part of the rotor which is not a wear surface (looks like pure carbon fibre and not carbon ceramic). So the pads are wearing down on a surface that isn't intended to be worn down. Look at the 488, the pads on the 488 are chamfered so that the pads do not contact this part of the rotor. Did Ferrari issue a recall on 458 to change out these pads ? No. Why ? Well it won't be a problem until well after warranty expires and it probably won't kill anyone so why do it ? Does that mean it's not a problem ? Well it was enough of a problem to change it in the new model (488) so which is it ? Is it not a problem or not enough of a problem to lose money over it ? I can understand the viewpoint that it's not big enough to do a recall or even change up the service part number but to say it is 0 problem is foolish.

Is something an issue only when Ferrari says it's an issue or is the reality more important ? That's just food for thought. If someone has no interest in engineering or how a car works, then by all means they should stick to whatever the manufacturer says because any deviation they make is effectively random and will have a higher probability of messing things up than helping. But if someone DOES do research and understand the technical minutia then deviation from defaults are less risky, it's not going to be zero risk but it's not a random walk anymore.

 

Thanks but this doesn't really tell me anything I don't already know and it seems like it was written for people who are thinking of putting this into their corolla.

It's not like I'm ignoring things, I AM looking for a reason to not do it and can't find it.

That's why I checked that the relevant parts of the oiling/lubrication system aren't materially different.

The cylinder sleeve/piston rings are the same part#s
The rod & main bearings are the same part#s
The oil pump gear is the same (so the pump operates at the same RPM)
The tappets are the same (cams are different, but the cam lift/duration profile doesn't impact the relative speed/sheer experienced at the interface with the tappet and both engines rev to the same 9000rpm)
The oil pump is the same part number (being driven at the same RPM, it will be able to deliver the same flow/pressure)

If ANY of these items were different I would pause and think about it but the fact they're all the same gives me high confidence that the difference in spec given by maranello was entirely due to a difference in expected use case for the models or more accurately I'd say they spec'd lubrication for the Italia/Spider for a softer use case and they spec'd lubrication for the Speciale for a harder use case. I don't think they actually expect owners of Speciales to actually track their vehicle, they just spec'd it for an "intended purpose" as opposed to what the actual purpose may be (these special editions are almost universally garage queens).