Thread: Synthetic oil?

you can run pretty much what ever brand, or type of oil you like.


i run what ever's on sale with out a second thought, i change it every 3,000 miles, so oil is oil in my book. 20 bucks every 3,000 miles is how i look at it.

synthetic oil you can let go longer, some say 6 to 8,000 miles. but i dont care for that thinking cause its still gets dirty in the first 3,000 miles like normal oil.

The best advise I got was to stay closer to 3000 oci if you have several short trips of less than 10 miles. If you have lots of highway miles or long trips it is ok to stretch out the oci. I get some condensation on the inside of the oil flll cap this time of year so my oil gets changed a little early sometimes in the spring.

Oil is oil in my opinion. As long as you get the right viscocity (5w-30) and the bottle has the API certification on it your good to go.

There is of course a difference between synthetic and conventional as synthetic isn't effected by thermal break down like conventional is and synthetic does create less resistance and possibly could result in a tiny tiny bit better performance. I still personally won't let synthetic oil go much longer than convetional because as scotty said it still gets dirty just as fast as regular oil does.

So if you want to go out and fork out an arm and a leg for oil thats been dyed purple or makes oil horses run out of your subarus engine thats up to you. Not everyone will agree and they are entitled to thier opinon but my dad always change his car's oil out faithfully every 3k miles with super tech conventionl (walmart brand oil) and his car saw 235k before it was demo derbied twice and then finally brought to scrap still running.

if thats your rule. ( good rule btw) use regular oil. its cheaper in the long run.


not saying the synthetic is bad, i just cant justify its price. even tho its dropped some in the last few years.

my brother swears by synthetic oil. he buys it in bulk on line so he gets a good break on the price. he does his oil at 5,000 miles.

we even flushed his tranny and went with a full synthetic tranny fluid. his rears also have synthetic gear oil. not sure if he did the transfer case yet. oh its a 05 yukon. so lots of fluids are needed.

Originally Posted by traildog

3k is definitely the most I'll run the oil before a change. Turbos have to be a bit harder on it.......

Turbo car's are much harder on oil because mostly all turbo's are oil lubricated and turbo's get extremely hot so the oil will break down much faster on a turbo vehicle especially if you don't let the vehicle run a couple mins before shutting it off.

I would ALWAYS use synthetic oil in a turbo car. Supercharged vechicles like ours are not really any harder on oil as they have thier own closed oil lubricating system in the snout.

You can pick up synthetic cheaper at walmart. This last time I decided to give quaker state 5w-30 synthetic a try instead of the usual mobil 1. Quaker state sells for just under $22. As long as you change it and maintain it you are good to go with any oil.

I swore I read somewhere that synthetic is also better for cold climates than dyno oil. Something about it not getting as thick when the temp gets real cold, supposedly your car starts easier.

Car craft did an article on oil. Viscosity breakdown is not a big problem anymore but synthetic is better in extreme cold and extreme heat.


http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ventional_oil/

Originally Posted by sseilmnop

Car craft did an article on oil. Viscosity breakdown is not a big problem anymore but synthetic is better in extreme cold and extreme heat.


http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ventional_oil/

This article is 14 years old, SJ oil ratings. Lots of oil improvments since then.

Its -24*F with wind chills over -46* wind chills right now, I am sure the synthetc cars outside are starting better.

Pretty sure that it said at extreme conditions such as -24 synthetic oil is better. Wind chill doesn't effect cars.