Found some Mobil1 0W16 Full Synthetic on the shelf at Walmart the other day:



. . . for ferrin cars. Still I wonder why such a specific viscosity. Was 0W20 just waaaaay too thick? Was 0W10 just waaaaay to crazy to risk inventing in case the respective engines had real-world lubrication issues? Well then do 0W15 instead. Nope, not quite enough, let'* go 0W16. Ahhhhh. Just right.

What'* next, 5W28 (gas) or 6W32 (for diesel) or 12W47 (for motorbikes)?

I guess it just surprised me that this odd viscosity is apparently so popular that Walmart would supply it in bulk on their shelves. I'd never heard of it before this.

Ya that is a tad odd to say the least.
It is probably about fuel economy I suppose, but if they ever stop making 10w-30, all I know is my Buick wont be very happy LOL

Same here. I'd have to invent something or get it imported from overseas or something.

Oil based water? lol

That'* what I always think of when I see these super-low viscosity oils.

Ya oil based water..
Sounds like we got Honda & Toyota to blame for their new vehicles specifications of the 0W-16.
Video discussions are arising with concerns that lubrication for the new spec'd vehicles may be at risk, over how thin the oil has become.
So now what, better gas mileage but broken engines at 100 k?

100k? 50k!

Yeah no kidding.

Engines hold up a lot better these days than a couple of decades ago, and the computer modeling has gotten a lot better. I just wonder what the gain is by going to 0W16 versus staying at 0W20?

That having been said, round numbers are often inefficient . . . 20W might not be the perfect viscosity of oil from a purely scientific perspective. Maybe 21W or 16W or 23W is. 30W might not be perfect for my older GMs, but it'* the round number they started with many decades ago and what they tested with as the evolutions occurred so they stuck with it. Most of us know that 55MPH wasn't the perfect speed for all vehicles to go for best fuel economy. If every vehicle'* fuel economy were put into a spreadsheet and the math done, the perfect speed for the entire dataset might have been 52MPH or 59MPH. They didn't have spreadsheets back then so we'll never know.

Stepping off my podium and getting back to this thread'* subject: I wonder what gains and losses caused a designed specification of 0W16. Do engines only last 250,000 lab-tested miles on this stuff while gaining 5% efficiency? Or do they last 201,000 miles while gaining 1%? Etc. etc. In the real world, most cars still don't get far beyond 200,000 miles without major repairs so maybe this is another de-contenting evolution?: "[most cars don't see over 200,000 miles in a period of time that we, the big manufacturers, care about by financial performance or reputation . . . and we can see our CAFE rating improve by 0.7% by changing to 0W16 oil while reducing the lab-tested engine endurance to 210,000 miles so we're going with 0W16 . Muahahaha!]"

. . . or something.