There’s A New Standard For Engine Oil And You Probably Never Heard About It
From your food to your phone, standardization helps the world go round. Whether it be FDA and USDA labeling standards in the grocery store or the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technology standards that our electronics adhere to, these specifications help keep everyone and everything on the same page. Your car’s engine oil also has to abide by certain standards and, as it turns out, a new one quietly took effect across the automotive industry on March 31, 2025.
It’s called GF-7 and, as of mid-2026, is the newest category introduced by the International Lubricants Standardization and Approval Committee. GF-7 establishes new and improved performance requirements for motor oils used in gasoline-fueled (which is what “GF” stands for) passenger vehicles. It’s an important update made necessary by new engine designs that push engines to run hotter, cleaner, and more efficiently. Like past standards, this new GF-7 standard is designed to improve characteristics such as fuel economy and long-term engine durability.
What the GF-7 standard covers
The GF-7 standard replaces the previous GF-6 category with several stricter criteria. This includes increased wear protection, better piston cleanliness, improved thermal stability, and longer-lasting fuel economy. It also builds on previous standards’ efforts to address low-speed pre-ignition, or LSPI, a potentially destructive condition in modern gasoline direct injection engines that’s been known to cause severe internal damage and even catastrophic failure.
It's pretty typical to see new standards emerge every five to seven years
It tends to keep pace with evolving engine technologies, and for good reason: manufacturers need the standards to meet the increasing demands we put on our engines. Worried about what standard to get next time you go in for an oil change? There’s no reason to worry. GF-7 oils are backward compatible with earlier standards. That means they can be used in vehicles whose engines previously required GF-6 or older formulations.
There are two variants of the GF-7 standard. GF-7A is for oils with viscosity grades of 0W-20 and heavier, while GF-7B is reserved for 0W-16 oils and is only backward compatible with its immediate predecessor. Older GF-6 products were officially phased out in March 2026, at which point GF-7 oils became the new baseline.
