iX ... oil change, oil of choice & manual

[EA8]

So here is the deal. Last weekend I changed my oil on the iX for the first time since owning it. I decided to go with 10W-40 Castrol GTX oil because after reading up on the different types, this one had the best protection for cold starts, seeing that I live in Iowa (occasionally in South Dakota), I thought it would be a good choice. I also got purolator filter (as it was the only available option).

The car ran fine for two days and on the third day, temps where in the minus 20s, I go to start the car and it sounded like the engine was spitting out something. I looked under the hood and what I found was all the oil on the ground and the oil filter gasket popped out a bit, where al the oil was coming out.

I went ahead and bought another filter and put 5W-30 Castrol GTX (as it is much lighter) and so far so good.

My hypothesis:
either ... my choice of oil was to thick for the engine to move it around, creating lots of extra pressure, resulting in the oil squirting out of the oil filter gasket (as this is the weakest link in the system) ... or faulty filter??

any input??

Now I gots a couple of questions for you experts ....

1. I have changed oil on many cars and never had this happen. Is there anything special about changing the oil on the e30?
2. What would be the ideal choice for oil in the winter? oil selection for the summer?
3. Kind of off topic ... I know the Bentley manuals dont include the ix in their material. Is it comparable to the i & is that are in there? Or is there a better choice?

Cheers

[EA8]

not even a suggestion :D

[dr.strangelove]

i run 10w30 castrol syntec. pretty happy with it so far. my mechanic recommended 10w30.

Edit: in the summer i run 15w50

[ethirtydavid]

just use synthetic and be done with it

[x68monkeyx]

i use 10w30 Pennzoil. I always thought putting synthetic in these cars was a bad idea.

[combustion325ix]

Since you are in extreme cold weather i would be running 0-40w I think that you would fair better with the cold starts although castrol states that their 5w-30 flows at up to minus 40 but if it is -20 at your place just from viewing the thermometer it could possibly colder due to wind chill

[EA8]

I was thinking about the 0W-40, but I do alot of highway driving (long trips everymonth) and I don't want to risk the chance of the oil getting too thin.

What I might do is run the car on 5W-30 during the winter and switch up to 10W-40 or 30 in the summer (we only have those two seasons :D). Does that sound reasonable to you guys? I know there isn't a problem with mixing oils (when changing from one viscosity to another), so hopefully it works out.

[Adrian_Visser]

i've heard that synthetic oil in engines that aren't designed for it is hard on seals, that said synthetic is supposed to be tested to be compatible so it pretty much a matter of opinion. there is a table in the owner's manual and the bentley specifying the temp ranges of different oil viscosities, according to it in -20F, 5 or 10w 30 is reccomended. I have 20-w50 in my car right now and it has started in -5F (-20C) albeit reluctantly (god only knows what kind of wear i did to my valve train that morning.) However reading this same table you will notice that 5-w30 is only recommended for use below 20F (-6C), and 10-w30 is only recommended below 40F (4C) so technically all yous guyz using those thin oils are using the wrong oil most of the time. according to the table 20-w50 is good for 15F (-10C) to 125F (50C) 15-w40 is good from -5F (-17C) to 90F (30C)