Engine oil advice

ambrin did pass the time by typing:

Benefits... dunno. I've tried everything from synthetic/mix/dino and noticed exactly nothing. Regular changes are the key. With synthetics you can stretch things a bit longer. Cost-wise I think it's about dead even.

The only benefit to the pure synthetic was when I go to higher/colder climates. It seems to run better than dinosludge does. :)

I have used synthetics in my vehicles for about 10 years.. Before that it was Quaker State.

Same thing on my last vehicle, a 98 Cobra. I used synthetic. Sometimes oil changes didn't get done till about 5k miles but usually it was between

3-4k. Just before we traded it in at 77k miles we peered in through the oil filler opening and it was still just as clean and bright as it could be. I couldn't say that with a dino oil.

Seriously, it works great. I use Mobil 1. It's in my Liberty too.

Kate

Persuing this train of logic, much of the food you eat is just that same dino oil refined to basestocks and then synthesized into various foodstuffs and ingredients.

L.W.(ßill) Hughes III proclaimed:

Continuing the same thought, why stop at dinos? They died out millions of years ago. Since then many billions of humans have been buried and recycled, the proteins leaching down into the soil to be returned as nutritional corn or poison ivy. When someone says they see the face of Hiawatha in a potato, it might be.

To me, "synthetic oil" would be something made from other than petroleum. Like corn or straight from the CO2 in the atmosphere. Or C12 atoms made by fusion from primordial interstellar hydrogen. From this discussion and other sources, it appears that synthetic, that you buy off the shelf in AutoZone or wherever, has just been subjected to a few more refining steps. Hopefully, this means that it is free of wax and varnish molecules that might interfere with effective lubrication, but you don't really know that. As far as its value as a lubricant, well I just don't know that either. However, I put a synthetic gear oil in the rear of my Suburban on the advice of a local mechanic, who claimed it would save fuel. The price difference was a couple dollars, what the heck.

Earle

*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com *** *** Encrypt your Internet usage with a free VPN account from ***

Don't use Quaker State. It is full of fly ash, which leaves gooey deposits in the engine. A mechanic friend took one apart in front of me once, showed me how bad it could be.

My opinion is, use a synthetic, if you are going to drive a lot. They are more expensive, but they are better, more reliable and uniform viscosity than petroleum products.

A different mechanic friend told me that one should not go back and forth between synthetic and regular. It will make your engine an oil burner. I don't understand why, but he is a good and experienced mechanic.

As the link Bill posted shows, "synthetics" are petroleum products, just refined differently. The gooey deposits you are talking about are not caused by Quaker State. They are caused by too many short trips, without allowing the engine to warm up. This allows water to accumulate inside the engine. It mixes with heavier compounds in the oil, yielding the waxy goo you saw. Maybe, a purer oil would have less of a tendency to form this, maybe not. The only evidence you have that synthetics are purer, is manufacturer's claims.

If you "drive a lot", you probably don't need a synthetic. Each time your warm up your engine fully, you will cook off the water that is the main source of these kinds of problems. There is lots of misinformation out there. You can waste a lot of money if you believe it.

Earle

*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com *** *** Encrypt your Internet usage with a free VPN account from ***

ibuildthings proclaimed:

Fly ash? Not overly likely.

The issue of engine deposits and their cause tends to vary a lot depending on what they look like and feel like. The folklore was that the pennsylvania oil stocks would all varnish your engine worse than the texas stocks.

I've ran engines for over 250K miles on Quaker and there wasn't a drop of sludge anywhere in the tear down. Granted I actually changed it every now and then...and I did run them under what would be considered pretty abusive high and low temperature conditions year round. The engines ranged from a TR spitfire, MGB, TR4, Chev rat motor, turbo Corsa, Porsche, Datsun 2000, Volvo etc. At one point or another all of those were rebuilt as hop ups.

They just hold their viscosity better under more conditions without the use of viscosity improvers that tend to wear out quicker in dino oil. Other than friction reduction and cold and high temperature performance, all of that is moot if you change your oil at 3-5K miles.

No problem, neither does he. He may be a good mechanic, but on the subject of oil, pretty much just superstition.