Tag: Oil

A little while back on OzRenaultSport I semi-volunteered myself to look at a couple of the local auto parts stores and determine what oils where available off-the-shelf in Australia that clearly met the Renault RN0700 and RN0710 standards.

The Renaultsport vehicles all required the RN0710 standard oils, while the “run of the mill” models can generally use either RN0700 or RN0710.  The exception is diesels with the particulate filters, they need RN0720.

This was never meant to be a qualitative exercise, just one that would help owners of these great cars buy an oil of their choosing that didn’t lead to Renault Australia reducing warranty coverage  due to “non-approved lubricants”.

Why are we all so keen to use a different oil?  It’s not like the Elf products Renault supplies through their dealer network are terrible, they’re definitely up to the task, but they’re also expensive when purchased through dealers and not very widely distributed.  This means for most owners we have to source oil for intermediate servicing from the dealer or freight 5L bottles of oil around the countryside.  Neither is really cost effective.  On the other hand this study of commonly available oils isn’t about finding the cheapest option, it’s about cutting through the maze of labelling (or lack thereof) and letting owners make choices based on their own brand preferences.

To achieve this I’ve created a Google Docs Form that can be used to enter oils into a Docs spreadsheet that I’ll then use to create the “output”.