Change from synthetic??

Why would you do a silly thing like that? Synthetic is more improtant if you have longer oil change intervals. I have been using them for over 20 years in my bikes and autos. Using conventional oil old technology like the dinosaurs it came from. Would you trade in your color TV for a black and white one? Coasty

Any harm switching to regular 5W-20 oil?

the previous owner used only synthetic oil since the car was >new. I have 3 cars and only put on 4000 miles or so a year on this one. I change the oil only once a year and with the low miles driven I >wonder if it makes any sense putting in the synthetic oil.

No, don't do it!

With only 4000 miles a year you are probably putting that mileage on with a lot of very short trips which are not giving the oil a chance to heat up to full operating temps and stay at those temps for a good long time. That is required to boil off all the volatiles like gasoline and water that are blown by the rings and get into the oil. This is extremely hard on the oil and you are much better off using synthetic.

Ted

Hi...

I have absolutely no qualification to answer this, but nevertheless offer an alternative for you to consider, if I may?

I'm quickly turning into a dinosaur myself, so aside from a few

100 mile trips to the lake in the summer, mine spends the long, cold Winnipeg winter making 5 mile round trips to the grocery and bank and Doctor once every week or two. Heck, a tank of gas in the fall is still there come spring :)

What I decided to do is change the oil once every 3 or 4 months despite their being almost no miles on it, but use one of the lower end mineral oils. This way I get to drain any gunk in the oil, and the cost isn't much if any greater than changing less often with more expensive synthetics.

Just food for thought...

Ken

Any harm switching to regular 5W-20 oil?

with the synthetic. I started using it on my dakota at 8,000 miles and have now over 85,000 on it and it don't drip one bit, runs cooler, easier to start in the winter (don't turn into syrup when really

Speaking of Dakotas, I noticed those can be rented cheaply, and was wondering how good they are at hauling stuff. Is it easy to load heavy stuff into it? How do you secure tall items so they won't fall over or fall out during the trip? How much stuff can it hold? Could it hold an average refrigerator, a few items of furniture, and a few boxes? Is there any easy way to protect the cargo from rain?

No harm. Might still want to consider changing the oil more often than once a year though. Most maintenance charts list a time limit as well as a mileage limit. Often the time limit is more important.

Matt

Absolutely no harm in switching back and forth between synthetic and regular "dino" oil. However your logic might be backwards. And there are a couple of ways of looking at it.

1) *Because* your looking at a once per year oil change interval, you should be looking at keeping the highest quality oil/filter in the engine, not looking to lower it. You have one of the best reasons to use expensive oil/filter.

2)As someone pointed out, the concern with low annual mileage like yours is that it means that there are probably a lot of short trips. This usually leads to moisture and fuel contamination of oil, which degrades the oil quality faster than someone that puts 4000 highway miles on over a 2 or 3 month period. Moisture/fuel contamination of oil often leads to low temperature sludge formation in the engine. Viewed this way, you could justify changing the oil/filter every 3 months. And you could further justify using a much less expensive (but good quality) non-synth on that basis.

3) If you read your owners manual carefully, it probably lists your type of driving as "Severe Service" (ie most trips are less than 10 miles or so), and that will call for 3 month oil change intervals, regardless of how low the mileage is at the end of 3 months. You should not ignore this.

The above options are a bid at odds with each other. The real answer for you will be to get an engine oil analysis done, and let the analysis guide you. In your case I would probably get an analysis done 3 months into an oil change and see what the numbers look like. It they're OK, go another 3 or 4 months beyond that and have it done again. You'll only have to do this a couple of times to find out what the real, safe oil change interval for your engine and driving habits will be.

You can get further advise and help with interpreting the analysis at this excellent site :

I'm not sure about the 5W-20 oil for the 300C engine (3.5 L V6 ??).

5W-20 is being used more a more in modern engines; Ford and others have been using it as a factory fill in a number of vehicles for several years now. I would call the toll free number in the owner's manual and get an opinion from Chrysler about it. You should see a slight improvement in gas mileage with it. But at only 4K miles per year, does it really matter.

Good luck...Phil

4-2LGW wrote:

Any harm switching to regular 5W-20 oil?

If you got the balance of the warranty with it and want to claim, you might have to be able to demonstrate that the vehicle has been serviced according to the manufacturer's recommended schedule -- which includes time in addition to miles.

Perce

the previous owner used only synthetic oil since the car was new. I have 3 cars and only put on 4000 miles or so a year on this one. I change the oil only once a year and with the low miles driven I wonder if it makes any sense putting in the synthetic oil.

If that 300C was mine, I'd stick w/ synthetic and I'd also use the best oil & air filters in car care business. Cars with synthetic from as early as you say, will hardly use oil if everything is in top shape. Cars that have been on petroelum, run a risk of using oil because of wear. Others here have said that short trips are "severe" and that's someting most people forget.

If you ONLY change the oil once per year, then why on earth NOT spend the extra for synthetic?!?! Synthetic might make a noticeable cost difference if you were changing the oil 5 times a year... but then I'd argue that you're piling on so many miles that you'd still be better off with synthetic and extending your change intervals out.

But no, there would be no real "harm" in switching. Just not much logic.

Your choice, but I suggest you change oil and filter frequently if you live in a cool climate and do many short drives. The problem with most oil acid and sludge build up, which is much worse with short trips in cool weather. If you only do short drives I recommend oil changes at least every 3 or

4 months.

The myth with any up scale oil is that you can have a longer oil change interval. Acid and sludge build up from short drives is the problem with any oil.

I have used regular oil for many years, changing it at least every 6 months regardless of mileage. I do a long highway drive every month or so. We keep our cars a long time, 11 yrs for my current Concord and have no oil burning or wear problems at about 80,000 miles. Our our previous cars were 14 yrs for a '87 4 cyl Daytona and 10 yrs for a '86 LeBaron GTS. Their engines were also in great shape when we sold them and both were used for mostly short drives.