Engine oil truth?

I guess that's the benefit of living in a sprawling metropolis like Scarborough.

Garage charges £27. Um, local motor factor sells semi-synth oil for £11, filter for £4, so that's £12 saved, plus the gallon of fuel there and back (o.k, not for you, but for us stick-dwellers) plus there's normally about 1/3rd left over, so every 4th fillup is essentially free oil :), so that's nearly another £3, so thats..er...um... about £18, which is even more booze.

Yeah, but I can do it in 15 minutes in the evening when there's nothing decent on telly, and leave my saturday mornings free for sleeping off the hangover which I bought with the money I saved :)

Reply to
Albert T Cone
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National Tyres - get a voucher from the local paper and have it done for a tenner, or 15 quid with fully synth.

You _can't_ do it cheaper than that at home, and if they strip the sump-plug, then it's their problem :-)

Reply to
SteveH

Heh :) I think hes referring to the garage in the little village where he lives :)

Reply to
Dan405

semi-synth,

The differences are that syth oil doesnt break down as quick as normal oil, especially under the higher temp's in turbo cars, for older cars just whack castrol GTX or a comparable product.in.

If you have a Turbo, you cant go wrong with Mobil 1, but it's expensive

So if you use a Syth oil in a normal car, you can go longer without changing it in theory, like 20k miles instead of 10k.

I dont have a turbo and change mine every 10k miles, simple :)

Ron

Reply to
Ronny

£4 and £8 for filters? And some people say that Japanese cars are expensive to maintain. I got a bag of 10 genuine Nissan ones for £23. 5L 10w40 semi-synth £10.53. 3.25L = £9.15 per change = £36.60p per year.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Reply to
Peter Hill

After it was written off at 125K miles I donated the engine from my

910 series Nissan Bluebird coupe to the local tech college. They were pissed off when the student who stripped it down for a BTEC assignment to report on the engines condition reported that all parts were within service limits. Apparently they are supposed to find some defects when they strip an engine for the assignment. A repeat inspection showed it was within new build limits on many items.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Reply to
Peter Hill

Fair enough that. Rather than stating a milage limit, would you think it is better to go on the colour of the oil though, ie, if it is black??

5000 miles for the gearbox?! Just looked through my service manual and it doesn't mention gearbox oil changes at all. I wonder if it uses the same oil as the engine (Astra 2.0 turbo engine).... hmmm

Over the last year I changed it after 6 months from the service and I do about 10k a year, so i've probably done as I should. I know it has been quite black, for a couple of months maybe, before I have changed the oil though...

Thanks,

Dave

Reply to
Dave

contaminants"

That makes sense. I suppose if it has particles in making it appear black, these will increase the abrasion of the oil. I wonder how much more abrasive it is, ie, would it make any significant difference to the lifetime of a car engine..

Its a 2.0 turbo Astra Coupe BTW (which struggled like hell for grip in the snow tonight! And I hate bloody ABS in this weather, i'm sure i'd be better off with it disabled somehow! Sure that 215/40 17s Eagle F1s don't help though!)

Thanks,

Dave

Reply to
Dave

The book states 0W-x, 5W-x or 10W-x where 'x' is greater than 30. With 10k hanges for semi-synth and 20k for fully synth. The thing is, this service book has 2 sections, 1 for all cars vauxhall do except Omega TD (at time of issue in 2001), the other part just for the Omega. So they recommend the same for mine as a 1.0 12v Corsa!! Oh dear....

I would definately get someone else to do it, sames me disposing of oil and seems to be cheaper too.. Last time I got it changed after 6 months (about

5k miles) it cost £34 at kwik-fit for mobil-one. Didn't think it was too bad coz I couldn't buy 5 litres of it for that!! And I think kwik fit can manage an oil change OK too, wouldn't buy anything else from them unless they had good tyre offers on!

Thanks,

Dave

Reply to
Dave

From what I've read of it, it's difficult to tell how good oil is by looking at it. Obviously if it's pitch black or it's mayonaisse it's wrong, but apparently the only way to really tell is to get it analysed in a lab. The molecules in oil are long chain hydrocarbons and ISTR they eventually break down and lose their lubricating properties. How long are you planning on keeping the car for anyway? If you're not keeping it over 100k you ought to be fine.

Generally gearbox oil seems to be some odd spec like 80/90 or something, and very often it's specified as something you'd never change unless you had to. I think it's different to the XXwXX system for engine oil. I'm not sure Matt's gearboxes last much more than 5000 miles anyway :P, I seem to remember him saying he has a spare or two lying around (The motor in his SAAB is 300 horses or so, and the box was designed for something more like

150 IIRC).
Reply to
Doki

And you know it's been done properly. Took the Audi, shortly after I got it, to a small garage near where I work (father and son operation) - had the oil and filter already, but weather was too consistently crap for me to be bothered to do it, so asked them how much to change it, they said £15, fair enough. The son did it. When he put the oil filter on, I noticed that he didn't smear any clean oil on the seal, and asked him "aren't you supposed to.......", to which he replied "there's some oil left where on the bit it makes contact with". That being the surface that should be cleaned properly to get rid of grit and such like, then. I did hear once of an oil filter seal scrunching up because it hadn't had oil smeared on it properly, and as he seemed confident that there was at least some oil there to prevent that happening, I didn't make an issue or worry too much about it - I check my oil every day anyway, so I knew I'd notice if it was losing any oil, which it didn't.

This weekend I did it myself. Didn't get a good look underneath it when it was in the garage to ascertain how easy it was to get to the oil filter, but it was a piece of piss - couldn't have been in a better place (unlike the Fiesta, which was in a ridiculously stupid place that meant oil dripped all over the driveshaft and suspension arm when the oil filter was removed), and the engine undertray was surprisingly easy to re-fit (I'd heard they can be a real pain) - well I say surprisingly easy - not all that difficult to get the hang of might be a better choice of words. Air filter was a bit of a bitch to get to though.

So I like servicing my own cars. I'm going to be doing pretty much everything myself apart from cambelt changes - I prefer it that way - if something goes wrong, I don't have to phone up a garage to try and blame them (even though they'll probably either wriggle out of it) - I'm conveniently situated to have a go at myself there and then - saves money on phone calls as well. There's also the plus side that I know what I'm doing (and if I don't I'll find someone I can trust to do it for me) so I'll know it's been done properly. Plus, doing 10 oil changes a year (and all the other bits) will save me a few quid in garage costs.

Peter

Reply to
AstraVanMan

£34 at kwik-fit for mobil 1? I'm there.

Peter

Reply to
AstraVanMan

Usually check every 2 years but small print on mine says if towing or using in dusty, muddy, rough or desert conditions change every 36K miles or 2 years. Same for diff. Unlike the engine oil it doesn't run over surfaces at very high temperature, there is no leakage path for water vapour, soot and acidic vapour past rings and valve stems. So long as the seals stay intact it will last a long time. Worth doing at the same time as a clutch.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

Reply to
Peter Hill

I see.. the garage that changes my oil puts fully synth in anyway.. not Mobil 1, cos that would be twice the price, but the "next best thing". Think I'll stick to 6k, as it's half the service interval on mine.

Bigus

Reply to
Bigus

Exactly.

So ? If it's still working fine, then what does it matter ?

No. Shagged means not working properly :)

Reply to
Nom

I actually live in the middle of nowhere, not far from Scarborough :)

For proper branded oil, the same as you'd get in the garage ? Last time I looked, a bottle of Magnatec/Duckhams/Whatever was barely any cheaper at the factors than at Halfords !

Reply to
Nom

Every six months (instead of every year that the hankbook states), so prolly every 4,000 to 5,000 miles. I also stick to 10/40 oil, and use SemiSynthetic. If you change it regularly, you don't gain anything by spending more on FullySynth oil.

Reply to
Nom

I rekon keep doing what you're doing. I wouldn't pay the extra for Mobil 1, but it won't cause any harm on your newer lower-mileage engine - you're right that £34 is a very good price !

Reply to
Nom

Well burning the oil is not working properly is it!

Which is why when you measure it up you will find out that some of your parts are scrap...

Reply to
Burgerman

semi synth oil of good quality I sell for £11, magnatec is considerably more, and imho not worth it.

Reply to
Theo

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