Synthetic Oils?

Just got home from my 3000 mile oil change on my 2000 Dodge Dakota. I'd asked the guy behind the counter about synthetic oils, and he just raved about them (Mobile One and the rest). I'd already settled on old fashion Penzoil though. Is there anyone here whose using this synthetic oil and does it really help with engine wear? Or I'm I just looking at special effects? I've only got 123500 miles on my engine.

chiphead

chiphead said:

Just got home from my 3000 mile oil change on my 2000 Dodge Dakota. I'd asked the guy behind the counter about synthetic oils, and he just raved about them (Mobile One and the rest). I'd already settled on old fashion Penzoil though. Is there anyone here whose using this synthetic oil and does it really help with engine wear? Or I'm I just looking at special effects? I've only got 123500 miles on my engine.

chiphead

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Only think I'll use! My friend John has used it as his oil for decades at this point, and has put 250K+ on 3 different vehicles, and none ever needed engine work

It's all I use, and all my father uses. Great results thus far.

If you are always changing oil at 3K, IMO synthetic won't make much difference. As I understand it, traditional multi-viscosity oil has many additives to make it have the properties it should. As oil is heated and pressured in use, the additives start breaking down and the long chain hydrocarbons start gradually shearing into shorter chain molecules. The oil's ability to protect gradually decreases over time, plus the detergents get compromised and their ability to deal with contaminants declines. But all this takes time (well, use). By 3,000 miles the deterioration hasn't gotten that significant yet. If you waited till 5K, then yes you might see a benefit in less wear.

One thing though, is the synthetic oils will keep seals in better shape. With ordinary oil they tend to shrink and get somewhat less pliable. So synthetic could help there. You might not start using oil as quickly.

A good synthetic like Mobil 1 or Amsoil (I've used both) start with a premise: what characteristics do we want this lube to have? And they manufactured molecules that will do those things right from the start. Whereas a conventional oil starts out as crude, gets refined, gets poked and prodded and added to, all in an attempt to get it where it needs to be. Some of that prodding and adding starts to get counteracted the first day it gets circulated in the engine. Synthetic is sort of a more elegant solution to the lubricant problem. But we pay a correspondingly higher price.

I think the biggest thing one can gain from the good synthetics is extended drain intervals. 15K, 25K miles, maybe more with enhanced filtration systems. If a person isn't going to run a synthetic longer, its cost can be quite a bit higher.

Change your oil regularly and save your money, stick with dino oil. Besides most of the synthetic oil on market today is no longer true synthetic like when they first came out.

It should be noted that I generally buy name brand synthetic on sale for the same price or even cheaper than name brand regular oil. Generally someone has a buy-one-get-one sale or something similar every several months. That puts it much higher on the value scale.

In diesels the only way to go.

My brother works trans Australian road trains. The rigs get oil changes about every two weeks. They have noticed a massive change in engine life and performance since going to synthetics.

On my little Peugeot 307, the good dealers are insistent that synthetic is the way to go.

Peter

Synthetic oil only makes a difference in a very high temperature/very high speed application. If you frequently race your Dakota, it's worth considering, otherwise no.

The 3000 mile change notion comes from the oil manufacturers btw; unless your engine burns an unusually high amount of oil, going ~5k is reasonable.

I have used a blend of conventional and synthetic until my last change and went total synthetic. I drive very little and can go a good span tween changes by just topping up the crankcase( it doesn't even consume any oil tween changes) but when you change the filter you must adjust the level.

IMHO... you're at too high of mileage to switch to synthetic oil. I'm a big fan of synthetic, but (in my personal experience) switching from dino oil to synthetic can cause problems with a high-mileage motor.

Once upon a time, I switched a car from dino to synthetic at 50k miles... the MOMENT I started the motor up after the oil change, a plume of smoke blew out the tail pipe. The car didn't burn any oil before that moment, but afterwards it burnt a quart every 2000 miles - even after I switched back to dino oil.

I use Mobil 1 in both our cars now, with no trouble. BUT, they were both started on synthetic oil from day one.

I use Pennzoil Platinum 5w30 in my vehicle, and only buy it when it's on sale.
I have been using it since the 3rd oil change.

I change the oil twice a year; in late October before the cold weather comes and in late April once the cold weather is gone.

I sent a couple oil samples off to Blackstone for analysis and the reports showed extremely low wear levels and the oil still had active ingredients in it when I changed it.

I run a combination of Mobil 1 and 1 quart of Slick 50 in all of my cars.

One of the long raged discussions running far and wide on car forums.

Basically, follow what your owners manual suggests for oil drain intervals. Remember it was designed with those parmeters in mind at the get go. Follow that service schedule, you'll do well.

Pops ran dino in his Saturn since day one and followed the suggested intervals. He junked it some years back since everything else about the car was falling apart. The motor though tired had 180K and was in pretty good condition. I wanted him to get a compression check and oil analysis so I could gauge wear but one day he came home with a new car. Oh well.

I've used Mobil 1 and have been happy. As posted above, if your car has run dino all this time, I wouldn't advise a synthetic in it. You may find the motor is not as "tight" as you thought it was. Meaning there may be new drips or leaks where before there were none. Been there done that.

As multiple people have said, switching an older engine to synthetic is "interesting" - it cleans out all the old varnish/buildup, and you WILL get leaks

Like I said, I run Mobil1, and still change every 3-4K miles - before I scrapped my last car, I pulled the valve cover - just to look - still clean up there

KC2IXE said:

As multiple people have said, switching an older engine to synthetic is "interesting" - it cleans out all the old varnish/buildup, and you WILL get leaks

Like I said, I run Mobil1, and still change every 3-4K miles - before I scrapped my last car, I pulled the valve cover - just to look - still clean up there

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I have an Grand Cherokee w/ 171K on its strait 6, leaks a bit.

The last 5~6 years been running a high mileage synthetic blend.
Do you think switching to Mobil1 High Mileage would increase the 'interesting' effects/leaks?

thanks

edit: I called Mobil, they say run conventional.
Maybe I'll just keep runnin' the Valvoline MaxLife I'v been using for a while.

orbital said:

+

I have an Grand Cherokee w/ 171K on its strait 6, leaks a bit.

The last 5~6 years been running a high mileage synthetic blend.
Do you think switching to Mobil1 High Mileage would increase the 'interesting' effects/leaks?

thanks

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Probably - the way to tell is to look - how much varnish buildup do you have now? See, what happens is the varnish builds up on the seals, and the gaskets, and becomes a seal in itself - desolve that, and guess what happens?

vtunderground said:

IMHO... you're at too high of mileage to switch to synthetic oil. I'm a big fan of synthetic, but (in my personal experience) switching from dino oil to synthetic can cause problems with a high-mileage motor.

Once upon a time, I switched a car from dino to synthetic at 50k miles... the MOMENT I started the motor up after the oil change, a plume of smoke blew out the tail pipe. The car didn't burn any oil before that moment, but afterwards it burnt a quart every 2000 miles - even after I switched back to dino oil.

I use Mobil 1 in both our cars now, with no trouble. BUT, they were both started on synthetic oil from day one.

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I use only synthetic Mobil 1 5W-50, normally I change oil at 6k miles, but sometimes it slips to 10k miles...
When I bought my car it had about 1.1milj miles, now 8y later its 1.25milj miles and still consumes only about 0.5-1 liters of oil in 6k miles.
Of course previous owners have changed the engine, but the engine definitely was not brand new when I bought the car.

MB W123 limousine lang -84 with 72hp 2.4 liter diesel engine.


edit: leaks, the whole engine room is covered with engine, power steering or hydraylic oil leaks. it always has been and always will be, it keeps the rust away.

I run 5w-30 synthetic and a quart of Lucus stop leak in my old chevy S-10. The stop leak also prevents dry engine starts. I change the filter every 3000 miles and the oil every 6000. Truck has 130000...engine sounds like new...runs great.

It has a timing chain....not a belt...so for me it`s even more important to run synthetic...when I see someone putting in regular dino oils in their cars...I envision sand being poured in.

I believe the truck will fall apart...but not that engine.

I might trade it in under the Cash for Clunkers Program...in which case all the monies I have spent on Synthetics might have been more/less a waste. But whatever...I always will run synthetics in all my cars/trucks.

Synthetic is problematic on an older car because of the aforementioned chance for leaks once varnish and other gunk is dissolved by the syn oil. Probably not a good idea at this time.

For twenty years or so I've been using synthetic and changing every 5K in a variety of cars. I have always used Royal Purple except for a few dalliances with Amsoil. I am of the school of thought that synthetic is a better solution than dino oil.

I switched to synthetic after an interesting accidental experiment.

We were getting ready to leave for a vacation in our 96 dodge minivan, which was always using 10-40 dino oil and got on the road about 17- 18 mpg @ 70mpg on a flat road in cruis control. (yes, I really watch the real time guage a lot)

The van was low 1 qt of oil, and all I had around was some 5-20 mobil 1 that I use for oiling hinges, etc, so I just topped it off with that and we went our merry way.

After we got going, I noticed that our mileage "seemed better than normal" - it was - closer to 22-24 mpg under similar road conditions. With some additional tweeks, I got that van eventually to about 24 mpg on the road.

On one of our other cars, it went from approx 23 - 24mpg (similar conditions) to close to 28 - 29mpg - consistently. With syn rear end grease - got it over 30.

I switched from changing oil every 6 months to one / year, which makes the cost a wash. The extra miles are essentially free.