Food for thought
 

I'm old school, and by many definitions, old.
The weight of the oil used in my cars, by in large has depended on the age of the car and the miles driven
and the enviornment driven in.
Winter is light weight oil,
summer is heavy weight oil.
Not a recomendation as to how light an oil be used,
based on and EPA estimate as to the best possible gasoline miliage to be achieved which can be influenced by the weight of the oil
but by the need of the engine to last while I am driving it.
5Wsomething is an oil that is a winter oil. Straight 20 is winter oil.
Something with 100,000 miles is long past new, tired, and generally when I lived in the land of 4 seasons, a car that rarely got over 1000 miles to a quart of oil no matter what you used in it.
Winter, is some place it can snow and be below freezing for an appreciable amount of time.
Winter where I live now, makes summer in up state N.Y. look cold damp and miserable.
Running a fleet a few years back, the factory recommended light weight oil (anything with a 5 in it) we had a lot of problems with cars running hot, pounding the streets with temperatures at 90+ and on the freeways a lot.
I had the fleet drivers change to 20 W 50. Running hot stopped.
I've run 20 W 50 for 20 years now. A cold day might be to 50 degree F.
Enter Saturn. I've owned mine for 16 years. I've been a member of this forum recently for a short time. This forum has been around a while I was a member over 5 years ago. S series cars were late model used cars.
There are now a lot of threads on blown up engines.
Never used to see that.
S series cars were new then, for the most part.
Now they are hi miliage and tired. And broken, if you read the threads.
They consume oil. A characteristic of a high miliage car. At least in my world.
A characteristic of something with a light weight oil also, if there is any mileage involved.
I have yet to blow up my Saturn. I have blown up other engines. Usually due to something really stupid and stressfull, so I am familiar with the loud expensive noises they make.
The only engine I have that is cosuming oil is one with bad valve stem umbrella's. That one I have to watch. I've blown it up twice. It's faster than snot!
My Saturn does not use oil between oil changes.
Frankly, I think the factory recommended Oil of 5W something for the purpose of fuel mileage is a bit more than bogus, considering their recommendations are basically valid as long as the warrenty is, if you are lucky.
Opinions?