Perhaps nitpicking, but It's my understanding that almost all "synthetic" oil, including Mobile 1, is highly refined (Grade III) dino juice, though some may have some amount of synthesized oil added, plus whatever detergents and additives the company adds in. But it's supposed to make little difference in performance compared to true synthetic oil. Fully synthesized oil is somewhat rare and expensive - according to the very informative link I've put below, "To the best of my knowledge, Delvac-1, AMSOil, Redline, and Motul 5100 are the only oils made from pure traditional synthetics."Caretaker wrote:my quip would be: "why switch at all?" Dino oil is very good these days; a lot better than when Mobil 1 first came out. I'd stick with regular oil and not worry about oil getting around the seals, or more importantly, Corolla engines (if you have one) pissing away money as it burns oil. I have never owned a Corolla that didn't burn oil (note the double negative here). Hey, I finally found a word that the genvibe word scrubber doesn't edit out!!
It is mainly the expense. Gas mileage gain is slight. Longer oil change is debatable. I don't increase my oil change interval when using synthetic oil. The type of oil used doesn't really affect the things that cause the oil to get old. For corrosion and wear, the conventional oils are very good these days so I don't see that as a big factor. Like I said, I use it for the improved cold flow characteristics.Chiadog wrote:Hey Johno,
Why not synthetic year round? better gas mileage, longer oil change, far better protection (corrosion and wear). Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Cq,cq358 wrote:no big deal, if you see synthetic go on sale, just go grab a 2-3 jugs. Now their prices is so low sometime it even cheaper than using conventional oil.
I think when synthetic oil first came to the market many years ago , they do give a bad reputation for freeing up seals. But now oil companies reformulated all the synthetic oil and they are backward comparable with dino oil. It does not matter what oil you put in and it still leak. But for some reason i got a 17 years old corolla that has oil burning problem , but after switching from a dino oil ( 1 liter per 3000km) to Canadian tire synthetic (made by Shell Canada) the oil consumption reduced to 0.5 liter per 6000km. I think synthetic seems to flows better that even make the piston rings seal better i suppose.leopardgirl88 wrote:I just bought my Vibe 3 weeks ago. It had 59000 miles and I just changed oil and put in Mobil 1 5w-20 fully syntheitc. I've been using fully synthetic for years in my other cars. But on one I am gonna change because it's leaking oil; hopefully conventional will slow the leak because I'm too lazy to change the valve cover gaskets!
How many miles did the old Corolla have on it when you switched it to synthetic oil? How long ago was that (years/miles)?I think when synthetic oil first came to the market many years ago , they do give a bad reputation for freeing up seals. But now oil companies reformulated all the synthetic oil and they are backward comparable with dino oil. It does not matter what oil you put in and it still leak. But for some reason i got a 17 years old corolla that has oil burning problem , but after switching from a dino oil ( 1 liter per 3000km) to Canadian tire synthetic (made by Shell Canada) the oil consumption reduced to 0.5 liter per 6000km. I think synthetic seems to flows better that even make the piston rings seal better i suppose.
The rule of thumb is to buy the best oil you can find in this 18-22 dollars range. Oil is oil, it won't make your car drive any faster, I won't sweat over it too much.
120k miles,Chiadog wrote:How many miles did the old Corolla have on it when you switched it to synthetic oil? How long ago was that (years/miles)?I think when synthetic oil first came to the market many years ago , they do give a bad reputation for freeing up seals. But now oil companies reformulated all the synthetic oil and they are backward comparable with dino oil. It does not matter what oil you put in and it still leak. But for some reason i got a 17 years old corolla that has oil burning problem , but after switching from a dino oil ( 1 liter per 3000km) to Canadian tire synthetic (made by Shell Canada) the oil consumption reduced to 0.5 liter per 6000km. I think synthetic seems to flows better that even make the piston rings seal better i suppose.
The rule of thumb is to buy the best oil you can find in this 18-22 dollars range. Oil is oil, it won't make your car drive any faster, I won't sweat over it too much.
In the Saturn car community, Synthetic oil is known to turn the 1.9 liter engine into an oil burner! I found out the hard way by ruining the engine in my 2000 SL1 Saturn with 1 oil change to synthetic! I used Mobil 1, if I recall correctly from 2006. The Saturn had 60K at the time.
chiadog