[jwight]

From the owners manual. Several grades are good for above 86 degrees (F) - 5W-30 apparently isn't one of them.

 

[jwight]

0W-40 seems to be the best "all temp" oil - good for extreme heat & cold.

 

[jwight]

It's your money - the 10K interval is pretty cheap when you average out the cost.

 

[jwight]

Oil preferences and change intervals are up for grabs here and on any other car forum. Everyone has their own idea of what the "best" approach is. About the only thing agreed upon is the days of the 3K mile oil change are over (using a synthetic oil, of course.)

BTW, I'm hard pressed to see how the M-B 229.5 spec applies to a Mitsubishi engine...

 

[jwight]

Part of the reason I just had the oil changed and was not concerned about using Mobil 1 5W-30, the other being if it's good enough for an LS6 engine it's good enough for the engine in the smart. YMMV, of course.

 

[jwight]

The engines for the rest of the world are also built differently. It could even be something as simple as the gearbox being programmed with a bit higher shift points.

An LS6 may be built with bigger bearings than a smart, and/or may not be revved the same way.

>They are? How so? Specific differences, please.

>It's a 350 ci V8 so the bearings are certainly larger; same 6.5K redline as the smart, with six times the horsepower and accompanying loads. I think the smart will handle Mobil 1 5W-30 just fine.

 

[jwight]

...there are too many variables for us to say how things work for them as compared to a smart.

Don't worry, I'll let everyone know if the smart blows up....

 

[jwight]

Now I am getting even more confused (between jwights chart & evilutions chart) LoL! Because if I can use a 5w-30 or even a 10w-40 then I can get those for a much lower price then do the change @ every 5,000 and be fine with that...BUT now what about semi-synthetics? I ask this simply for the reason that my local shop does a semi-synthetic 5w-30 oil change for $9.99! Now, I am not trying to be "cheap" (as I don't mind paying for confidence,safety and security) but since I will be doing a minimum of 500+ miles a week my oil change schedule will be a lot more often than most and being frugal/economical in these times is not the same as being "cheap".

If you're operating the engine under "severe" conditions then more frequent oil changes are called for by the owners manual. No matter, Mercedes specifies synthetic oil for the Mitsu engine. No doubt it will run fine with dyno oil, but for how long? :wink: