oil types

[JohnD]

Weirdly, Peugeot does not put the oil grade in the owners handbook in case they change it.

But they do issue an oil spec, with a reference number, that will be on suitable oils.

I know the reference number for my own car (not a Peugot) but the oil containers these days tend to be marked "conforms to Ford/BMW/VW (whatever) specification"

 

[Avocet]

Weirdly, Peugeot does not put the oil grade in the owners handbook in case they change it.

But they do issue an oil spec, with a reference number, that will be on suitable oils.

I know the reference number for my own car (not a Peugot) but the oil containers these days tend to be marked "conforms to Ford/BMW/VW (whatever) specification"

Manufacturer-specific standards are more and more common these days - and for the reasons JohnD's Google search suggests. The traditional oil classification systems just can't keep up now. Way back in history, oil technology wasn't good enough and we had to use different oils in winter and summer. Then we invented multigrades and it all got a lot simpler. When the only oil you could get, was mineral oil, only the viscosity mattered. All other properties were about the same. Then we invented synthetic oils which are way better, but can be chemically engineered to have different properties besides viscosity and all of a sudden, we needed a way of grading them by some method that covered the other properties besides viscosity.

 

[DIYspanner]

Going off at a tangent a bit.

A lad I used to work with told me the gearbox oil for his little Fiat was only available at Fiat garages. I told him if he got the oil spec of the bottle, he'd likely find the oil elsewhere. He said no, only Fiat had it!