Royal Purple, is it really worth it??

For the average owner who replaces their car every 5 to 7 years "high end" oil is almost certainly money down the drain unless you count the benefits that the next owner of the vehicle might enjoy.

For an enthusiast who owns a car they are enthused about and plan to own forever it "might" make a difference, but lets be honest. Enthusiasts spend extra for just about everything surrounding their pride and joy and the fact that some of it is delusional doesn't matter to them one little bit.

I personally spend more on better oil and justify the expense by changing the oil myself which means that overall I still spend less then the masses who sit in line at Jiffy-Lube. Intellectually I know that it might make little or no difference, but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. I have not gone as high as Royal Purple though.

My experience of observing the marketing world is that in every area there are those products WAY at the top that are clearly aimed at people with more money than brains. 500 dollar speaker cables and such come to mind. When a product positions itself in that niche it damn well better have some published (and peer reviewed) research to back up its claims.

It's like all of the gas saving products. If screwing some little such-and-such to your car would instantly improve mileage and/or performance then the automakers would be putting that little such-and-such on at the factory. That is plain common sense. Oil's purpose is such that most of its claimed benefits come at the far end of the product's life cycle. So many other factors come into play that it is difficult to judge whether the oil used really made any difference.

I have always been partial too Valvoline. Been using it sinse the 70's. On the most part just use a Good quality oil and ALWAYS change the filter. Just don't buy the store brand of oil and change regularly. You shouldn't have any problems.

GB

PS;

Monster cables are WAAAAAYYYY overpriced for what you get

Rick Brandt wrote:

I've seen studies that it really doesn't matter which "brand" motor oil you use as long and you stick to the same one for most of the cars life. Rotation from one brand to he next may expose the car to some incompatability between the additives that makes each brand "special" and cause sludge.

I chose Pennzoil and have stuck with it for 160K miles. Just replaced the valve cover gasket and everything looks like new. No evidense of slugde. This is on a 97 Eclipse witn the Chrysler 4 cylinder engine that came in the Dodge Neon (yuk).

The engine doesn't smoke, spark plugs dont show any signs of oil buning. Nothing.

Oil and filter changes at ~ 5K miles. 70/30 city to hwy driving.

I've got a '97 GS with that same wimpy engine (not a problem for me, as I'm almost 60 and have nothing to prove). Anyway, mine doesn't smoke, doesn't leak (I DID have to replace the head gasket at 110K), plugs look fine, but it still manages to go through a quart of oil every 800-1000 miles. I don't know where that stuff goes, but it goes somewhere! I just live with it, because the engine runs great and I get low to mid

30's gas mileage on the highway. Despite the oil consumption, it's still one of my favorite cars of all time - looks good, handles good and cheap to operate.

Geary

I am a real skeptic when it comes to any product that claims to make your car like new. However, I bought my daughter a 97 Camry with 140k. Found out afterwards that it used oil and that it leaked oil from what appeared to be the rear main. I put AutoRX in her car, it is supposed to clean the engine and stop oil leaks. I forgot about it being in there and let go about twice as long as I should of. Her oil consumption went from 1 qt every 1000 to ZERO. The car is in the flush stage now, we'll see if the leak stays fixed.