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Car is a civic vti 1999.

I've asked on forums and honda themselves who said so long as my weather isn't extreme one way or another, I should use 0w30 or 5w30 engine oil.

When I went to pickup the oil from my local parts store they told me I need to be using 10w40 because my car is old and showed me some specific oils. When I said honda said he replied '..well they would because they want to sabotage your car. older cars do not do well on the new stuff they will put strain on your engine..'. I can't remember if the oils he showed were synthetic or not.

Is there any truth in this?

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    I can't imagine that the wrong oil grade is going to do the V-TEC system any favours.
    – Steve Matthews
    Sep 6, 2018 at 11:43
  • Otherwise asked as "who lnows more about Hondas? Honda or the local parts store"...
    – Solar Mike
    Sep 6, 2018 at 11:51
  • I asked essentially the same question, essentially at the same time: mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/58655/…
    – juhist
    Sep 6, 2018 at 12:33
  • For moderate to light use, the grade of engine oil isn't THAT important. As long as there is enough of it in your engine. But for high performance or adverse weather conditions, it becomes much more important.
    – Captain Kenpachi
    Sep 6, 2018 at 12:45

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The reasoning behind this is that as your engine's internals wear on each other, a thicker oil would find it harder to seep through into places it shouldn't be than a thinner oil. On the other hand though, those parts that have not worn out will suffer because the thicker oil may not always lubricate them properly.

Although in both instances, that was more of a concern back in the days when there weren't such things as multi-grade and synthetic oils.

The right thing to do though is keep using the grade of oil Honda says to use, but check your oil levels every week or two. Because a high mileage engine may burn a bit more oil than a new one. Although you should hardly notice an increase in consumption. Let's say a new Honda engine burns a quart (~500ml) of oil between services. If it's really old, it may be burning two quarts. That is out of about a gallon (~4 liters) of oil you put in.

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  • Could you post this answer over on this question. The questions in essence are duplicates. Your answer is FAR better than the one which is over there, so I don't want it to go away. I'd like to close this question, but don't want to axe your answer.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Sep 6, 2018 at 14:14
  • Sure. I've just done so.
    – Captain Kenpachi
    Sep 6, 2018 at 14:32

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