Oil change frequency with synthetic oil

[vibenorth]

What is the recommended milage between oil changes using synthetic oil? I've been going 10,000 km (6200 miles).

[NovaResource]

What kind of driving? City, highway? Alot of dirt, dust? Any towing? I'd say 7,500 miles is fine and even as high as 10k miles if you do mostly highway and "easy" miles (not much dirt and/or towing). How many miles a year do you put on the car? I wouldn't go more than a year on an oil change if you do less than 10k miles a year.

[QUIKAG]

The only issue I have with what Scott recommended is the VERY SMALL oil filter that these cars have. The oil will be fine for the intervals that Scott recommended, but I would be concerned about the filter.

[NovaResource]

Good point. Changing the oil filter only (and adding about a pint of new oil to make up for the lost oil) between full oil changes is a good idea.

[NY Pete]

I've always used a 8,000 mile interval with synthetic oil between changes in every car I've owned except my bimmer, I follow the factory interval of 10,000 miles (it has a very large oil capacity as well)...

[d_m_kolb]

No one is going to beleive anything I say when it comes to oil anymore but I swear I will not lie to you about info I have seen or heard about.If your using Mobile 1 or any other oil you can buy out in the regular world I would go beyond 7,500 miles. Mobile 1 isn't a true fully synthetic like they claim. How can it be fully sythetic when they use crude oil to make it. It can't. I wont go into it any further but a fully synthetic uses no crude oil what so ever to make it. Amsoil, Royal Purple, and Red Line are fully synthetic. I know Amsoil is made to go 25,000 mile oil changes with the filter being changed at 6 months or 12,500 miles. I do these oil changes. They are planning to extend that even further and bring that number up to 35,000 between oil changes. In order to do this you must have a great oil and a awesome filter. You can be using the best oil in the world but if your filter isn't doing it's job your wasting your money.To give you a example of how long Amsoil will last trucking companys that have switched to Amsoil are getting 120,000 miles between oil changes! Doing a oil change every 20,000 or 40,000 miles with a regular oil and then switching to Amsoil oil and going until 120,000 between the changes is saving these companies huge amounts of money.Ok I'm done with my sales pitch. LOL If your going to use something you can buy off the shelf I'd use Mobile 1 and use the Mobile 1 oil filter that is made for synthetic oil. Change it every 7,500 miles. If you want something even better go with one of the 3 brands or a truely fully synthetic brand.

[NY Pete]

That's what I use. Mobil 1 and Mobil 1 filters (only commercially widely available filter with a synthetic filter element). No offense, but I've always had the impression that AMSOIL was snake-oil... if it was as good as they claim, I'd be able to purchase it at Autozone, or what's more than that, it would come as factory fill in Porsches, Corvettes, etc... like Mobil 1 does.PeteP.S. I'm always game for trying new products, though - where could I even buy any around Cincinnati, OH? And how much does it cost?

[d_m_kolb]

The reason Amsoil is aviable at Walmart or Autozone is because Amsoil Inc. (The company it's self) doesn't sell Amsoil. Indenpendent dealers such as myself sale Amsoil. Your thinking ok so why doesn't a dealer sale to Walmart or Autozone then? Well a dealer contacted Walmart a few years ago and had a deal set up with them that was going to be in the range of a 40 million dollar deal and Walmart would then sale Amsoil. Since the deal was so big Amsoil reps from Amsoil Inc. went and were trying to work out the deal. The problem was Amsoil would sale Walmart the oil and then Walmart would turn around and sale the product for much cheaper than any dealer saling Amsoil could sale it at. Many dealers would have lost their business because everyone would have started buying the cheaper Amsoil products from Walmart. Amsoil said they wont have this and to protect there dealers (Thank god) they rejected the Walmart deal. If Walmart would have aggreed to sale Amsoil pruducts at the prices dealers are set at Walmart would have been able to sale Amsoil products. Walmart didn't want that. The same has happened with larger chain auto parts stores and since they want to try to under price dealer (which would hurt dealers) Amsoil hasn't let this happen. Now several dealers have and do have deals with some quick lube oil change stores, and some auto stores but these auto stores aren't under pricing the set prices that are set for them.GM contacted Amsoil Inc directly trying to work out a deal so they could put Amsoil in the Corvette as a factory fill. Amsoil turned this multi million dollar deal down because they didn't want to sale to the public unless it was through a dealer. GM didn't want to work with a independent dealer so they went with the cheaper easier to get Mobile 1.Amsoil does everything it can not to hurt it's dealers that sale their product. This insures these dealers will have businesses no matter how big or how small well into the future because they don't have to worry about being under sold and losing all there business.Many people think many different things about Amsoil. I have some dyno testing as well as other testing where Amsoil has gone head to head with other oil companys and the results speak for themselfs. Another problem that oil companys have been running into is being sued for false claims. Amsoil is the only oil company never sued for false claims. They can and have backed everything up with independent studies and tests.

[NY Pete]

See, that story sounds even fishier... I never heard of a company that was more interested in maintaining a mom and pop dealer network than MAKING MONEY... I think the product speaks for itself. If it really is as awesome as you claim, I'm sure it'll be widely available at a lower price sooner or later. I refuse to pay retail for anything I can get cheaper somewhere else - and you have quite clearly told me that there's a huge mark-up on that oil (due to being sold through low-volume dealers)! Works or not, I'll let the racers use Amsoil in their racecars, and I'll still use plain old Mobil 1 in my daily drivers... Pete

[d_m_kolb]

You can look at it that way but I'm very glad to see there are still a few companys that care about the little guys and not screwing over there dealers is a great way to show that this company actually cares.I didn't ever say there was a huge mark up on Amsoil. There isn't all that much of a mark up in my opinion. There is a way to get Amsoil products at below retail prices and that is to get involved in the perfered customer program. In this program you get Amsoil products at cost. You just can't turn around and sell them in this program.

[DABEAR95]

quote:No one is going to beleive anything I say when it comes to oil anymore but I swear I will not lie to you about info I have seen or heard about.If your using Mobile 1 or any other oil you can buy out in the regular world I would go beyond 7,500 miles. Mobile 1 isn't a true fully synthetic like they claim. How can it be fully sythetic when they use crude oil to make it. It can't. I wont go into it any further but a fully synthetic uses no crude oil what so ever to make it. Amsoil, Royal Purple, and Red Line are fully synthetic. I know Amsoil is made to go 25,000 mile oil changes with the filter being changed at 6 months or 12,500 miles. I do these oil changes. They are planning to extend that even further and bring that number up to 35,000 between oil changes. In order to do this you must have a great oil and a awesome filter. You can be using the best oil in the world but if your filter isn't doing it's job your wasting your money.To give you a example of how long Amsoil will last trucking companys that have switched to Amsoil are getting 120,000 miles between oil changes! Doing a oil change every 20,000 or 40,000 miles with a regular oil and then switching to Amsoil oil and going until 120,000 between the changes is saving these companies huge amounts of money.Ok I'm done with my sales pitch. LOL If your going to use something you can buy off the shelf I'd use Mobile 1 and use the Mobile 1 oil filter that is made for synthetic oil. Change it every 7,500 miles. If you want something even better go with one of the 3 brands or a truely fully synthetic brand.HI!, I'm new, but I just wanted to call BS on this one. Mobil 1 is 100% synthetic oil. They don't even use mineral carrier oil for their additive as they once did. Every oil used to use mineral oil as an additive carrier at one time. I'm not bashing Amsoil or anything. Red Line, Amsoil, Mobil 1, blah blah blah. All good stuff!http://WWW.BOBISTHEOILGUY.COM Some good information for everyone concerned about oil, change intervals, performance, etc (good forum too)Jason2002 Vibe GT

[d_m_kolb]

Amsoil has gone head to head with Mobile 1 and did much better in testing. Amsoil go head to head with Mobile1Amsoil vs Mobile 1Here's a very good explaination why you can't find Amsoil in any stores.

[DABEAR95]

I didn't way that Amsoil did not do better than Mobil 1. I just wanted to state that in fact Mobil 1 is actually 100% synthetic oil. Here is a bit of information from the other side of town...http://www.78209.com/oil.htmlhttp://the ... 5#000003Go to the used oil analysis section of that site and take a look at the wear metals found in the oil analysis. I would trust this prior to any testing that we have posted. These are people like you and me. I have thought about using amsoil myself but I am not looking for extended drain intervals. I have thought about using an amsoil bypass filter in my Golf, but I can't justify the price.EDIT - Admin, does Amsoil make anything comparable to Yamaha's Yamalube for 2 stroke engines? It works well in my 2-stroke snowmobile...Jason

[d_m_kolb]

Red line is a good oil hands down but I have tests that show that Amsoil has beaten it. I have them posted at the link above. Also if you think the 4 ball bearing test does stress a oil to it's limits your wrong. 1,800 RPM for an hour and during that hour having steady heavy pressure applied to the bearings makes some nice heat. Amsoil stood up to this test and continued to lubricate where so of the others totally stopped. People can and will say that the 4 ball bearing test isn't what happens in your engine and that's ok because Amsoil has consistently shown it can take a engine 350,000 mils and much higher in some cases and this is real world vehicles.Again I believe there are several different good oils out there but I honestly believe Amsoil is the best hands down and saves you money in the long run.This is a explanation of how a four ball wear test works. This is a very intensive test. If a oil can hold up under this test I'd trust it in my engine any day!http://www.twocom.com/high_performance_ ... dFour-Ball Wear Test (AS D4172)60 kg pressure @ 150°C, 1800 RPM, 1 hour As Tested February, 2002 The smaller the wear scar the better the oil performed.Oil Tested Wear Scar AMSOIL Series 2000 20W-50 (TRO) .44 mm Redline 20W-50 .73 mm Here's Amsoil dynoed against the competitionhttp://www.twocom.com/high_performance_synthet ... tition.htm