Great68
Founding Member
I used to use Mobil 1, but I change the oil so often, and drive my car so little it's not worth it. Just regular Pennzoil 20w50 for me.
do not use synthetic oil
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65ShelbyClone
Founding Member
70vert said:
Also known as Mobil 1 "red cap". Its the only widely available Mobil 1 that doesnt have(or has the least of) slip-causing additives like molybdenum. It has been said that oil companies change formulations occasionally and only a wear analysis will tell how much, if any bad additives are there. I found my bike to smoke alot more on startup with M1, but I may use it anyway when the summer gets really hot here. It definitely doesnt break down as fast, but does cost ~$20 w/filter every 300-500 miles.....for the bike.
An oil I may start using in my car is either Chevron Delo 400 or Mobil Delvac, both for diesel engines. I already use Delo in my bike.
70vert said:
Here is an explaination of what the ratings on an oil bottle mean. "S" refers to Service, typically gasoline engine use. "C" refers to commercial engine use, read that as Diesel.
http://www.performanceoiltechnology.com/apiserviceclassifications.htm
Mobile 15-50 . . . 409 Stroker, 500 hp, 157k miles, 30th and 40th Mustang Anniversary Show in Nashville on the same motor. NO major repairs (alternator . . . I think . . . and a water pump).
Intervals between changes? 15 years, and never "changed" the oil. It does that for me! LOL! Leaks like a seive from EVERYHWHERE. I just change it a quart at a time and the filter now and again. LOL!
Wouldn't ever CONSIDER anything but Mobile ever again.
Intervals between changes? 15 years, and never "changed" the oil. It does that for me! LOL! Leaks like a seive from EVERYHWHERE. I just change it a quart at a time and the filter now and again. LOL!
Wouldn't ever CONSIDER anything but Mobile ever again.
doug68hoss
Founding Member
zookeeper
Founding Member
I think the bottom line is that any oil is better than no oil, right? You can argue all day that one is better than the other, but has anyone here, EVER had an oil related failure in a well-maintaned daily driver? I'd bet not, regardless of oil type. If you check the oil regularly, change the oil at resonable levels and drive within 15 MPH of sanity, you'll likely wear out the car before you ever experience any engine failure. By the same token, has anyone EVER switched to Synthetics and picked up a noticeable difference in ET, or speed? Picking up 1 mpg really doesn't count, because I'd bet any one of us could boost our mileage by 1mpg by just changing our driving habits. I've seen these posts a lot in the MX forums and everyone has an opinion, but the bottom line is poor maintenance kills more cars than poor oils do.
washMO66
Founding Member
gp001 said:
+1 Mobil 1 Sythetic 10W30 in my 347 - works like a champ.....
Plus I run it in my high miles 2001 F150 super crew and the more miles it has on it the longer I go between changes. I only change it now every 7500 miles and it still runs fine.... I have a friend that swears that the mobil 1 syn is the reason he got 250K miles out of his yukon....
my 2 cents
I use kendal GT-1 oil... I think its a blend. I did some research online and it seems that it has the additives that other modern oils lack, as far as the health of the cam/lifters go. Its also cheap as hell, under 2 dollars a quart. Best part.... it doesnt leak past my gaskets like synthetic used to 
zookeeper said:
Agreed, to a point. I am very religious about my oil chhange intervals on my hobby cars, and I have had more than one SBF develop a rod knock over the years. Even with good maintenence, these things can fail. Would Mobil 1 have prevented that? Maybe, but it's impossible to say.
With frequent maintenence, the advantages of synthetics are reduced. One of the selling points with synths is the flexibilty of maintenence schedules. On my daily driver, do to a lot of business travel and a hectic schedule, it is nice to be able to push that oil change back 2 or 3 thousand miles. With a synthetic oil, I am comfortable doing that. Dino? No way.
65ShelbyClone
Founding Member
washMO66 said:
It certainly wasn't good engineering.
My old man bought a '94 Toyota pickup new in '94. For the first 75k or so, he wouldn't go more than ~4500 highway miles before a change(I think the manual said 7500 is normal. After that, oil changes got fewer andfarther between. He even went as much as 15-18k on it when the miles were pretty high. He eventually went over 250k before the radiator blew a tank and the engine got rattly. I think it was 280k on the original engine and it still didnt use any oil.
The purpose of my rambling? He never used anything but the lowest price petroleum oil. I just did some quick figuring and he saved ~$500 by using petroleum oil. The replacement engine he got was less than that. Before I get roasted, I'm not saying synthetics don't have their place. I am saying they are a waste of money in many applications. Then again, I just bought 1.8L of castor oil today for $27.
Just my opinion. Draw you own conclusions.
reenmachine
Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
All of these impressive testamonials are great, but they're all scientifically invalid to draw a conclusion from. So many people base their purchasing decision (about anything, not just oil) on "product x worked a miracle for me, so using anything else is stupid."
An otherwise average vehicle going an insane number of miles is unusual. So is one blowing up very early. They're both natural statistical outliers. The funny thing is that it seems like in every case the owner thinks that if it dies early, it's the manufacturer's fault, and if it lives forever it's because of something smart that they (the owner) did.
Until someone here buys 100 identical vehicles, fills 50 with dino oil and 50 with synthetic, and drives them all in an identical fashion until they die, this thread is useless. Of course, such an experiment is extremely difficult and time consuming, so several laboratory tests have been developed to simulate the demands placed on motor oil. These tests repeatedly prove the superiority of synthetics.
That being said, here's my testamonial: I consistently get better mileage and more power using synthetic oil. The differences are small, but I interpret them as meaning that the higher efficiency is coming from better lubrication, and a by-product of that is less wear, which is a good thing. I have also sent an oil sample (Amsoil synthetic) that I put 21,000 miles on to a lab for testing and it came back fine. This was in a high-revving V6 that I flogged mercilessly.
An otherwise average vehicle going an insane number of miles is unusual. So is one blowing up very early. They're both natural statistical outliers. The funny thing is that it seems like in every case the owner thinks that if it dies early, it's the manufacturer's fault, and if it lives forever it's because of something smart that they (the owner) did.
Until someone here buys 100 identical vehicles, fills 50 with dino oil and 50 with synthetic, and drives them all in an identical fashion until they die, this thread is useless. Of course, such an experiment is extremely difficult and time consuming, so several laboratory tests have been developed to simulate the demands placed on motor oil. These tests repeatedly prove the superiority of synthetics.
That being said, here's my testamonial: I consistently get better mileage and more power using synthetic oil. The differences are small, but I interpret them as meaning that the higher efficiency is coming from better lubrication, and a by-product of that is less wear, which is a good thing. I have also sent an oil sample (Amsoil synthetic) that I put 21,000 miles on to a lab for testing and it came back fine. This was in a high-revving V6 that I flogged mercilessly.
fasttback
New Member
Since everyone is hitting on this old thread, I might as well too.
I tend to agree with reenmachine on the need for independent scientific tests with results based on statistical significance, but this can be very costly and time consuming to cover all applications. When numbers are not available, I do use testimonials from the individual and companies supporting their product (obviously companies can be bias).
Testimonials gain their strength from numbers. While a few people tell me this synthetic oil is superior, probably won't do it for me but starts to open my eyes. If ~100 testimonials covering all possible applications of the product were available (which will start to shape the bell curve) I would most likely accept this information when sound scientific data is not available. I use this forum along with other sources for just this purpose.
So far from this thread and other source information I gathered over the years (mostly testimonials), I would tend to believe that synthetic oil does have some qualities that surpass dino oil - mainly less friction and less susceptible to breakdown. On the other hand, it does appear that synthetic oil is more prone to show leaks where dino might not. Is one synthetic oil better than another - don't know. Have yet to see enough info on that.
I still use both products depending on application and will continue to.
I tend to agree with reenmachine on the need for independent scientific tests with results based on statistical significance, but this can be very costly and time consuming to cover all applications. When numbers are not available, I do use testimonials from the individual and companies supporting their product (obviously companies can be bias).
Testimonials gain their strength from numbers. While a few people tell me this synthetic oil is superior, probably won't do it for me but starts to open my eyes. If ~100 testimonials covering all possible applications of the product were available (which will start to shape the bell curve) I would most likely accept this information when sound scientific data is not available. I use this forum along with other sources for just this purpose.
So far from this thread and other source information I gathered over the years (mostly testimonials), I would tend to believe that synthetic oil does have some qualities that surpass dino oil - mainly less friction and less susceptible to breakdown. On the other hand, it does appear that synthetic oil is more prone to show leaks where dino might not. Is one synthetic oil better than another - don't know. Have yet to see enough info on that.
I still use both products depending on application and will continue to.
washMO66
Founding Member
Not from a GM product... but my buddy drives alot and goes through alot of cars, his first Yukon didn't fair as well with regular old oil????65ShelbyClone said:It certainly wasn't good engineering.
But your right, draw your own conclusions, you daddy probably could have run Wesson oil in that Toyota motor and got the same results....
so you don't think synthetic works..........i'm sure you read.....like all the others before me, you should read scientific findings performed by chemical engineers upon synthetic versus conventional oil.
I have a roller 5.0 (306cid), i broke it in with Castrol 20W-50 for the first 1K miles. Ever since i've used either Royal Purple or Castrol Synthetic 10W-30. Never had a problem...ever. I bought a Honda S2000 recently..I changed out all the fluids ...ALL the fluids with Royal Purple synthetics...I saw a jump in miles/tank of gas by as much as 15 miles...explain that!....Synthetics are bad.....I think ignorance is bad.
I have a roller 5.0 (306cid), i broke it in with Castrol 20W-50 for the first 1K miles. Ever since i've used either Royal Purple or Castrol Synthetic 10W-30. Never had a problem...ever. I bought a Honda S2000 recently..I changed out all the fluids ...ALL the fluids with Royal Purple synthetics...I saw a jump in miles/tank of gas by as much as 15 miles...explain that!....Synthetics are bad.....I think ignorance is bad.
