My truck had the cam phaser tick (I believe) so i started using 10w-30 oil and the noise went away. Now my truck is making a noise like a timing chain clanking . Do you think its because of the oil? Should I use 5w-30 instead? I have 105,000 miles on my 04. Thanks

 

Ford reccomends 5w20, I'd say you should probably use that, it was made to run on that

 

The 5w 20 is hard to find, but ditto what Bjp said.

 

How's it hard to find? Walmart has it, any auto parts store, motorcraft is what I use, its the best oil for the $ imho

 

LOL! I was thinking the same thing. Hard to find? its for sale everywhere oil is sold, lol!! Run nothing but 5w 20 theres a reason it says clearly on the cap and owners manual run 5w-20.. no brainer.

 

5w20 is to meet CAFE regulations only, your same engine in australia or overseas uses 5w40, 10w30, 5w30 etc your noise is a common problem on 04-05s and has nothing to do with the oil your running...

 

Let's have a little classroom time here. While you buy a 5w-20 or a 5w-30, exactly what is the actual viscosity? It would seem that one is a 20 at temp while the other is a 30 at temp and there is a major difference. That's not necessarily true. In the oil industry there are several scales to determine oil viscosity.You can have the SAE grade such as 20, 30 etc. But to better define the viscosity, there is Kinematic and Saybolt viscosity scales. For a 20 viscosity oil, on the Kinematic scale, it can be anywhere from a 5.60 to a 9.29 viscosity fluid and still be a 20 viscosity. A 30 is from 9.30 to 12.49. Most of the Xw-20 oils are on the thick end of the scale while Energy Conserving oils are on the thin end. So a Xw-20 and Xw-30 EC oil may almost be identically the same viscosity. As we have seen in testing, the transition to a 5w-30 at about 100,000 miles has shown to add life to an engine. This is due to oil starvation at the ring packs from wear at the bearing where the oil literally runs out. I'd suggest staying with a 5w- oil as the cams need oil ASAP and the thinner oils at cold start up will give longer life to the valve system.