synthetic oil

Great oil no problem. Meets warranty specs. I would do it.

Here's where I'm a bit fuzzy. If I use 5w30 instead of 5w20, would that void my warranty?

And while we're on this subject, what is the real difference between those two grades?

Plasyd

No it will not void the warranty. The difference is miniscule. Ford say use

5-20 because it helps them to achieve their fleet fuel average. With standard petroleum based oils, the 5-20 has slightly less drag on the internal moving parts and thus provides a very small advantage in fuel economy. In real day to day driving, this advantage would vanish as individual driving habits and differing road conditions as well as tire pressure etc were factored in.

With 100% synthetics such as M1, flow is improved providing better lubrication at all temp ranges. You will be doing your engine a favor by using it exclusively as it resists break down and resultant sludging much better than regular oils. Of course, if you change oil and filter every 3500 miles or three months, you'll likely never have a sludge problem any way. The real advantage to using 100% synthetics comes during times of extreme temperature operation. When it drops to sub-zero temps, the synthetics are still flowing freely thus providing much better cold start lubrication. At higher temps, such as are found in the Southwest during the summer and under conditions of extreme load such as pulling a big load up steep grades, the synthetics resist burn off and cooking better than petroleum based oils making them a better choice for these applications as well.

In short, if you change your oil frequently (filter too) and you do not experience extremes of either temperature of load, regular oil will work just fine and 5-20 will give you slightly better mileage. If however, you push your vehicle to extremes, the synthetic will serve you better.

Now, if you happen to have a Wal-Mart near you, a basic change using M1 and a new filter will cost you $29.00. You can't beat that with a stick. In fact, it's hard to beat that doing it yourself.

Thank you for clearing that up a bit. As it is, I use synthetic exclusively for my weekend warrior, but that particular car has a turbo. With my Ranger, I'm not that worried about using dino juice because I will be changing the oil every 3K, simply because it's driven around 20 miles a day, in short distances. If I get the job I'm hoping for, then I'll be driving 50 miles a day, with 40 of it highway, so will bump up the change to 5K. At this time, the truck is giving me 26 MPG in city driving, 32 highway, so I'm not real concerned with mileage. (It helps that my lead foot had liposuction surgery )

Plasyd

exclusively

Mobil 1 5W30 does not meet the Ford oil specifications for your van. Mobil 0W20 does. It is not likely you'd void your warranty using the Mobil 1 5W30, but why take the chance?

While 5W20 is only "recommended," oil that meets Ford Specification WSS-M2C153-H with the API Certification Mark is required. Mobil 1 5W30 does not meet this specification. In fact, I can't find a single 5W30 that does. The only non 5W20 that I've seen that carries the new Ford spec is the Mobil 1 0W20.

Ed

David Henders>

But isn't 0w-20 used for cleaning an engine, not running it through daily driving, or any kind of driving?

"C. E. White" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mindspring.com:

I recently pulled the motor/ LT1 out of my 1995 Firebird Formula with 69K miles on it. I bought the car new with the synthetic oil option and always used castrol syntech in it. Anyway when I pulled the motor and took the heads off I was shocked to find that the stock honing marks where still on the cylinder wall and looked as though they where just done. I have spoken to alot of mechinics who say that it is not possible, but its is the truth. That alone made me put synthetic in everything I own. If I where you i would go for it Tom

Cool, so why did you pull the motor?

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (KDD2333) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m02.aol.com:

I have pulled apart several syn oil motors 100,000 miles or more and all have the hatch marks very visible with little to no ring wear. KB

Cool glad to hear it. I've been running 15W-50 mobil-1 in my rebuilt '75 360 since the oil no longer dissapears like it did before. :) The rebuilder figured it was being burned and sucked into the cylinder by way of the valve guides and valve seals (if any?) on the original. That sucker used oil right from the start and never really let up at 10K like I heard it was supposed to.

But at 148K miles, my 360 still wasn't using as much oil as the chevy 350's were at work at 65K, about a quart per tank of gas. :)

Alvin in AZ

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (KDD2333) wrote in :

In an article I read in some magazine back in the '70s (maybe Car and Driver or Popular Science), when Mobil 1 first came out, they noted the same thing. They put something like 100,000 miles on a new engine in which they had used nothing but Mobil 1, after the engine was broken in. When they pulled the engine apart, the hatch marks were still visible on the cylinder walls. I've used Mobil 1 ever since.

-- Jim

Originally I was only going to change the timing chain, then decided to do the cam at the same time, and headers. Then decided to port the heads. then just figured since I was going this far I decided to just do everything I ever wanted to do with the car. So I bought a 2002 Sunset Orange Firehawk convertable to take the place of the Formula, durring its power boost. Thats pretty much the whole story. Oh and just for the record the Hawk was also ordered with the synthetic option as well.

My SO''s van recently had to have a valve job (burned exhaust valve leading to a minor miss and a check engine light). While the heads were off I took a good look at the cylinders. Honing marks were still visible. This engine had around 115k miles and had never had a drop of synthetic oil anywhere near the crank case, In fact, the oil wasn't even changed at what I consider reasonable intervals (5K to

7K miles) and most of the time she used 10W40 oil instead of the recommended 5W30 (the oil was whatever was on sale at Wal*Mart). So, I don't think finding hatch marks proves anything with respect to the value of syntehtic oil relative to conventional oil.

Ed

KDD2333 wrote:

Stock honing marks will be visible in most newer engines because of hieghtened efficiancy. I dont know how new your engine was but considering you used the thicker oil; I'm sure that contributed to the lack of wear that you had. I dunno. The reasone I mentioned my cars lack of wear is because it is an LT1,

350, so its not a small engine plus it has reverse flow coolant so the cylinders actually run hotter than a normal flow coolant. LT1 operating temp is 195 as is most GM 8's. The hone marks still being as visible as they where just suprised me given the circumstances. But the rings will wear long before hone marks start to show visible wear....