Engine Oil/Additives for high mileage 3.0

When I changed the oil for the first time in my 3.0, the engine had

141,000 miles on it. I used Valvoline MaxLife 10w-30 as the motor oil.

I was wondering what the experts recommend for engine oil for this motor as well as their opinions on oil additives such as slick-50, and/or engine flushes to help prolong the life of the motor?

Thanks,

Joe

Reply to
jmcgill
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Forget the slick 50. If the engine is REASONABLY clean an engine flush using a mild agent like rislone or ATF can be helpfull. Don't use anything too aggressive, and not if the engine is REALLY cruddy. At that mileage I'd start looking at 10W40 oil - and do NOT believe the crap about 10W40 being no good. Just change it reasonably often and the "red herring" viscosity loss will never be a problem.

In summer I always ran 20W50 in my '88 3.0, and 10W40 in the winter. Central Ontario, 240,000Km on the car when I sold it, still running like a champ.(had heads replaced twice due to the "normal" valve guide issues)

Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

There is no reason to use "high mileage engine" oils such as MaxLife, and several good reasons not to. They tend to be injurious to polymeric seal materials in the long run.

A good grade of standard 10w30 is a wise choice.

NO!

NO!

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

You waited till you had 141K miles on the vehicle to do your first oil change? :)

Seriously, do not use the Slick 50 as it can only damage the engine. Stick to good dino or synthetic oil (Valvoline Max-Life or basic qualifies in my book) and use a good filter (I use Purolator stay far away from Fram oil filters). On flushing, this is your call. I have occasionally used the Kerosene flushes on high mileage vehicles that had not been properly cared for by previous owners and never had any problems, but I followed the can instructions to the letter and made sure I drained the old oil completely before refilling with fresh oil. As I said, I've been lucky here and never had any gasket leaks or major engine problems develop after doing the

5-minute flush. That said, on vehicles I've owned since they were brand new, I change the oil and filter every 3K miles so have never needed to do a flush.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Shuman

I'm ignorant of the whole Max-life thing....I use syntec in my '66 VW, but that thing is my baby....for my new cars, I use whatever the manual says.

If not Max-life, which brand is the best? Castrol Syntec Blend? I'm not going to use pure synthetic if I'm changing every 3000 miles, it costs too much.

Reply to
jmcgill

Unless you drive very short trips that don't allow the motor to get hot or tow large loads, changing every 3,000 miles is a waste of oil. Mobil 1 can be purchased in a 4 qt container for about $20.00 at Wall Mart and is go to go for 7,500 mile changes. Whatever you use go by your vehicle's book to select the proper viscosity and grade.

Richard.

Reply to
Richard
7500 miles on an engine that already has 142,000 on it?

I guess I'm just old-fashioned about oil changing.

I assume you're talking about Mobil 1 synthetic?

Reply to
jmcgill

So the choice is yours ... You can continue to do 3K oil and filter changes and use regular oil dino oil, or you can use the 2.5-3X more expensive synthetic and if you take Richard's advice, go 2.5X longer. Doing this also saves you the cost of the filters as well, so on the surface appears to save both time and money. But, keep in mind that you will need to add oil over that period (at 142K miles, I'd guess at least another 3-4 quarts over that

7.5K miles) and your oil filter will collect 2.5X as much and could constrict your flow of fresh oil. In addition, the detergents added to the synthetic oil will break down and lose their effectiveness over that same time period.

Again, it is your choice and I know many people who follow the manufacturer's recommendation and change their oil at 7,500 miles and almost all have gotten 100K from their cars before selling them. (The exception I can recall came from a woman who did a lot of around town driving and not highway miles.) I'm just not one of them since I feel the cost is minor compared to the risk of waiting. I also only choose to use synthetic (Mobile-1 10W-30) in one of my family's 5 vehicles due to the higher cost and regular Castrol GTX or Valvoline 5W-30 (winter) and 10W-30 (summer) depending on what is on sale at the time. For me, changing the oil myself in my home garage is not a problem. In the 32+ years that I have been driving, I can only think of one oil change that I had done by a service center and that was because I was on vacation and 2,000 miles from home when the 3K miles came up.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Shuman

If you want to use conventional engine oil, there's nothing the matter with plain Valvoline or Castrol or Pennzoil or Havoline. If you want to use Synthetic, get Mobil-1; change the oil every 12,000 miles and the filter every 6,000 miles.

"Synthetic blends" are largely a scam.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Not unreasonable with well-chosen oil and quality filters (not Fram).

Update your thinking!

That's the only kind of Mobil-1 there is.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

If not Fram, what is the best quality oil filter? I've used fram in every car I've ever changed oil in, for better or, apparently, worse.

Reply to
jmcgill

I think Castrol oils do pretty well on most tests. When i have need for a non-synthetic motor oil, I tend to reach for Castrol GTX.

So don't change it every 3k. Use synthetic and go 7k.

The big question is how big an oil-burner is this 3.0? ALL 3-liter Mitsus burn oil, some just are lucky and don't burn more oil than gasoline. :-p If it costs you several quarts of make-up per oil change, then there's your strong reason not to waste synthetic oil on it. OTOH, if you're in an area where visible smoke will cause you to flunk emissions, then synthetic smokes a lot less when burned than conventional oil.

Reply to
Steve

Wix and Purolator are my top picks. Motorcraft and AC are generally OK. Fram is pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel with a lot of gimmicks to boost sales. I personally could care less if a filter has an "easy grip" coating on the end of the can and the internals are garbage.

This link:

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Gives a lot of good ideas about oil filter construction. Note that it doesn't actually test FILTERING performance, but given how really bad some of the Fram construction features are you can't help but wonder if much of the oil even goes THROUGH the filter media on the average Fram filter!

Reply to
Steve

Considering that I can't get an accurate reading on my dipstick, I can't tell how much it burns. I've only had the car for 400 miles.

If it doesn't burn much, I'll probably go the 7K synthetic route.

I don't get any visible smoke anytime using Valvoline Maxlife right now.

Reply to
jmcgill

NOT all Mitsu 3.0s burn oil. After replacing my heads (for the second time at 180,000Km ) at 240,000 it was never down 1/4 liter between

5000Km changes using 10W40. With the old heads (replaced first time at 90,000km) it was burning 1.5 liters between changes and killed the catalitic converter.
Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

If the cat is working properly there can often be no visible smoke with 2 liters per change.

Reply to
nospam.clare.nce

Its all relative. That's still a fair amount of oil (and a lot of work on the engine) compared to my wife's Chrysler 3.5, which has 238,000 miles on it, never had the heads off or the bottom opened, and uses about a quart per 5000 miles using 10w30.

The Mitsu 3.0 is a pretty tough engine (the bottom end is indestructable, and they rarely ever break a timing belt) but it does like its oil, and even the last and best with all the oil consumption "fixes" still burn more than comparable engines. I'm convinced its in the nature of the beast- probably the ring set design or the piston design, because it can't all be the valve guides given how many fixes they've thrown at that aspect of it. The 3.0 is kinda like a tiny version of a Wright 3350- feed it oil, and try not to think too much about it. ;-)

Reply to
Steve

Well, I'm running 10,000 mile change intervals on my 3.3L in my 1996 Grand Voyager that currently has 177,000 miles on it. I've used Mobil 1 since I bought the van with 33,000 miles on it. I used 5,000 mile intervals until it had 150,000 miles and then decided I'd go to 10,000 miles. I did this for a couple of reasons:

  1. It uses a quart every 1,500 miles or so and has done so since I bought it. I figured I'm changing the oil every 6,000 miles anyway!
  2. I'm kind of hoping it dies as I'm getting tired of driving it.

  1. It is a cheap vehicle to experiment with!

Even though I still wouldn't do it on a newer vehicle with less mileage, I do believe more and more that changes at less than 10,000 miles is a waste of oil and money for my driving conditions. I drive 21 miles each way to work with almost no city driving. I don't tow, don't drive in dusty conditions and don't drive on all that many hills. So, I suspect that even 5,000 mile changes are overly conservative.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Have you tried checking the oil cold before starting? I've never had a vehicle that wouldn't give a decent reading then. Sure, when they are hot and haven't been sitting very long, they can be hard to read, especially right after a change when the oil is really clean.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

Wix (NAPA Gold). Purolator. AC. Even Motorcraft.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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