Macan Oil

[Nuclear Nick]

^^^ Quite right VanB. Regular cold starts and short runs result in contamination of the oil, a lot of which would be evaporated off on longer runs. Modern lubricants are good at hanging on to the contaminants, rather than dumping them around the engine, so that they are flushed out with the oil change. Engines now can measure contamination levels, hence condition based change intervals.

[VanB]

Thank you, Nick - that was my understanding also but wasnt entirely sure I had it right.

[Wing Commander]

^^^ Quite right VanB. Regular cold starts and short runs result in contamination of the oil, a lot of which would be evaporated off on longer runs. Modern lubricants are good at hanging on to the contaminants, rather than dumping them around the engine, so that they are flushed out with the oil change. Engines now can measure contamination levels, hence condition based change intervals.

Nick, may I ask an oil-related question?

In my Carrera T, I drive almost exclusively in Sport mode. I have noticed that the oil temperature tends to be just over 90 degrees centigrade when the car’s warmed up. If I run in Normal mode, the oil temp is more like 105 degrees or so. I read somewhere that the oil needs to be over 100 degrees to burn/boil off any water present in the oil?

Does that make any sense at all?

Cheers,

[Paul]

Wingco, in sport mode extra cooling is activated to keep the oil temp lower than in “normal” driving.

Normal mode will run a bit hotter for economy reasons...

(If you’ve got water in the oil you’ve got a problem!)

[Wing Commander]

^^^ Cheers, Paul

[Nuclear Nick]

^^^ Quite right VanB. Regular cold starts and short runs result in contamination of the oil, a lot of which would be evaporated off on longer runs. Modern lubricants are good at hanging on to the contaminants, rather than dumping them around the engine, so that they are flushed out with the oil change. Engines now can measure contamination levels, hence condition based change intervals.

Nick, may I ask an oil-related question?

In my Carrera T, I drive almost exclusively in Sport mode. I have noticed that the oil temperature tends to be just over 90 degrees centigrade when the car’s warmed up. If I run in Normal mode, the oil temp is more like 105 degrees or so. I read somewhere that the oil needs to be over 100 degrees to burn/boil off any water present in the oil?

Does that make any sense at all?

Cheers,

At least an equal volume of water is generated for every litre of petrol burned. Most will be expelled as vapour with the exhaust gasses and since the majority of components in the engine that water comes into contact with will be sufficiently hot to boil off remaining water then there is usually very little left to condense. Your engine oil temperature is a bulk measurement so I would say that irrespective of using normal or sport mode, once the engine is up to temperature then the vast majority of harmful contaminants will flash off. This is not the case with engines that are frequently operated below normal temperature. Water will combine with other elements to form sulphuric acid too, another reason to avoid too much cold running. I try to avoid starting and stopping engines, for example moving the car out of the garage and not driving off immediately, without getting them up to operating temperature as soon as possible.

[Nuclear Nick]

^^^ Quite right VanB. Regular cold starts and short runs result in contamination of the oil, a lot of which would be evaporated off on longer runs. Modern lubricants are good at hanging on to the contaminants, rather than dumping them around the engine, so that they are flushed out with the oil change. Engines now can measure contamination levels, hence condition based change intervals.

Nick, may I ask an oil-related question?

In my Carrera T, I drive almost exclusively in Sport mode. I have noticed that the oil temperature tends to be just over 90 degrees centigrade when the car’s warmed up. If I run in Normal mode, the oil temp is more like 105 degrees or so. I read somewhere that the oil needs to be over 100 degrees to burn/boil off any water present in the oil?

Does that make any sense at all?

Cheers,

At least an equal volume of water is generated for every litre of petrol burned. Most will be expelled as vapour with the exhaust gasses and since the majority of components in the engine that water comes into contact with will be sufficiently hot to boil off remaining water then there is usually very little left to condense. Your engine oil temperature is a bulk measurement so I would say that irrespective of using normal or sport mode, once the engine is up to temperature then the vast majority of harmful contaminants will flash off. This is not the case with engines that are frequently operated below normal temperature. Water will combine with other elements to form sulphuric acid too, another reason to avoid too much cold running. I try to avoid starting and stopping engines, for example moving the car out of the garage and not driving off immediately, without getting them up to operating temperature as soon as possible.

Hope that helps Simon!

[Paul]

Here you go Simon.....(from a GT4 discussion but I’m sure it applies across the range)

Map-controlled thermostat
The thermostat is an insertion map-controlled thermostat with a heating element. The electric heating element of the map-controlled thermostat is energized via the DME control unit. The flow of current through the heating element (electric resistor) causes it to heat up, which in turn influences the expansion element in the thermostat and enables it to be opened. Actuation by the DME control unit is performed by means of pulse width modulation (between 2.5 and 97.5%), which means that the coolant temperature level can be continuously controlled.

The usual coolant temperature is 221° F (105° C) when the engine of the Cayman GT4 is at operating temperature; it is reduced to 185° F (85° C) during sporty driving and in Sport/Sport Plus mode by opening (energizing) the thermostat. This supports a performance-oriented driving style.

The DME control unit can also have the thermostat closed by switching off the heating current. A precondition for this is a coolant temperature of less than 216° F (102° C). The map-controlled thermostat starts to open at 216° F (102° C) +/- 4° F (2° C) when de-energized and is fully open at 239° F (115° C).

[Wing Commander]

Thanks, Nick & Paul!

[Tom 2000]

I was serviced at 20,000 miles and now this morning have a 200 mile warning with 30,400 on the clock. Strange.