Synthetic Oil / Tow Vehicle

[MLD]

How many of you are running full synthetic oil in your truck? Pros and cons? Do you change every 3000 miles with synthetic? What viscosity for spring, summer, and fall? Thanks for any info.

Mike

[TRinMT]

I highly recommend synthetic lube in frt. and rear diffs. on 4/4 vehicles. Chrysler uses synthetic in manual truck transmissions strait from the factory.

However, I don't use it in my engine. If you have a small oil leak with regular oil, it will be a large leak with synthetic. I change my eng. oil every 3k miles. If you changed synthetic that often, it would be way to expensive to use.

Most synthetic manufacturers recommend 10k miles between changes. Since the same amount of dirt and contaminants get your oil and filter no matter what type you use, I prefer fresh oil and a clean filter every 3 thousand mi.

If I lived in Alaska or Arizona where they have extreme temps, I would certainly consider synthetic in my engine, but I would not run it as long as recommended between changes.

[DennisS]

I run Mobil 1 in my tow vehicle (Subaru Forester). I use 5W-30 in winter and 10W-30 in summer. I change the oil every 5,000. Subaru recommends 7,500 between changes, even if you use regular oil. Improves my mileage, no sluggish starts in dead of winter. I am considering switching the diffs and manual trans over to synthetic.

By the way, in response to the post above, one thing regular oil does that synthetic does not do is break down and form contaminants (sludge) from the oil itself. It is much superior to regular oil in every way. A guy on the Forester board runs Amsoil dual by-pass filters (filters out exremely small particles), and changes his oil every 25,000. HD diesel truckers follow a similar practice.

Highly recommended if you want your engine to last a long time. You can find (on the internet) a test of a BMW engine run continuously on a stand for one million miles, afterwhich it was taken down and showed no wear.

Dennis S.
Long Valley, NJ

[eyeman_1]

MLD,

Try this site for more information - http://ultimateoiltechnology.com this guy - Dave knows or can find out everything and anything you need to know about syn oils. It's a great product and it's definetly the way to go with as hard as our vehicles and outboards work.

A friend of mine just sold his old truck and has been using the stuff since day one.... his truck had 140K on it and it still ran like a top and didn't burn a drop of oil the he knew about.

Good luck!

[moreyes]

I run Amsoil in all my vehicles, I still change it at 3000 or so miles, I know in my 89 Ford after switching to Amsoil my mileage increased, and it was a older truck and did not leak at all. I swicthed my 97 to synthetic and will do so with 02 after it broke in.

moreyes

[Paul H]

Run Mobile one in every 4 stroke I own - including 9.9 Merc. Change the truck and Jeep at 5500-6500 miles.

Used in every vehicle since 75....

Just did first oil change on a small generator I just bought. Broke in on straight oil - changed to Mobil 1 - and noticeably more quiet - seen this an every engine that I've done this to.

Also use gear lube, gear box has Mobil 1, and grease - best thing ever for trailer wheel bearings.

[Reels]

Running Mobile one in my Yukon XL 3/4 ton. Change about every 5000 miles.

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[Red Ruffandsore]

I run Syntec in my 97 TJ and change every 3000km (nevermind miles). The big question is...do you own or lease? If you lease, why change the oil at all, ever? But seriously, if you lease, change the cheapest oil you can find every 10,000 miles. Screw the next owner. Now if you own.....I have been anal about oil since I was a teenager building hot rods. You could pull any head off of any of my engines and eat out of it. Since I'm running 33" tires and off road a lot, it works hard. Synthetic oil is worth every penny, considering the inevitable power loss that comes with wear and tear.

If you have a steel oil pan, take a large magnet and stick it to the bottom of the pan (outside). It will catch minute metal particles that don't make it into the pick up. The best is a magnet from a speaker because it can ring the drain plug. I also pull the drain plug at night and finish the job in the morning. That allows you to get out every last drop of old oil. Try taking the filter off and not mixing the oil with the rest. Look at the oil from inside the filter compared to the oil out of the pan. If there is a noticeable difference (contaminants), the filter did it's job.

That brings me to the point of my post. I don't care what oil you use because they will all do the job. The filter is the most important part of the equasion. If you run dual filters your engine will love you and the kit is not expensive or hard to install so there is no excuse. Fram Double Guard is by far the best filter on the market.

Cost prohibitive? A bunch of hooey? Sure, whatever you say. If you go to one of those rapidlube places and let those kids change your oil, I hope you are leasing your vehicle. They don't even wait for the oil to drain. Think about it, you want to be in and out in ten minutes. Next time you have the opportunity, see how much oil will drain after the initial rush of oil is out. It's quite a bit. You new oil change has already started out 10% bad oil. Hey! But you're on your way quickly and thats important right? What do you think most oil leaks are caused by? Eroded gaskets. And what erodes gaskets more than anything else? Acids in broken down contaminated oil.

There are more urgent things in life, yes, but your engine will last longer and run better if you put the effort in. You know how much smoother, easier and quieter your engine runs with fresh oil...or do you even listen?




Stay off the pipe...and don't forget to wipe.

Red

[Chris]

Screw the next owner? Great philosophy,...perhaps a friend or relative? Hey maybe it will blow up in a bad area,..the sucker will lose control and kill a family,...Hahahaha! I'll bet you have that same additude with rental cars, hotels and rental houses. Why not top it off with waste oil? I'm not saying you have to put the very best oil in your leased car,..but not being religious, I still think if you "do unto others" it gets back to you,..and also when you don't. It doesn't break me to add decent oil to a leased car. If everyone treated things badly, the commodity wouldn't be worth as much, which is part of the formula that sets rates,.. then see your how your rates go up. Of course you can hide in the numbers of people who try to be fair.

[Red Ruffandsore]

Ok Chris..What's the matter... easter Bunny bypass your house this year? I'm not ragging about wasted money, I think you can tell by my habits. "Screw the next guy" was not a good choice of words. I'm the kind of guy who would change the oil and grease a rental. But I definitely would not go over factory reccomendations.

And HEY!!! all of you out there...dispose of your oil properly dammit


Stay off the pipe...and don't forget to wipe.

Red

[Reels]

Your asking a guy who goes by the name redroughandsore to be like Mr. Rogers? :-)

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[chrism]

I use it year round in the truck. It makes a HUGE difference in the winter - I live in Winnipeg, and I have yet to plug in my vehicle over 4 winters regardless of the temp. The engine runs smoother sooner. Works, looks, and feels the same at -40f as it does at 90f!

I change about every 6000miles, and have done so since the truck was new. There is "little if any engine wear" as quoted by my mechanic when I had my last checkup/valve adjustment (done at 172,000km (about 108,000miles))..... and as mr.redroughandsore said, you can eat off of the internal engine parts - there is no sludge at all.

By the way, the leaks that people talk about with synthetic mostly occur when the synthetic oil washes away the sludge/carbon which builds up in the cracks of the gaskets. No big deal, just something to be aware of.

You will not be dissapointed!

[Phil T.]

All my vehicles are capable of towing my boat. The rebuilt '73 Chev 3/4T pickup carries a slide-in camper as well as towing the boat. The recommended viscosity is 10-30. It lives on Mobil 1, because that 454 V8 generates a lot of heat. The '87 Suburban with just over 200,000 miles (no overhauls yet) gets 0-30 Mobil 1 for cold weather (no towing) and a blend of 4 qt normal 10-30 and 2 qt 1-30 Mobil 1 for the summer towing, changed like normal oil, every 3000 miles or so. Until it had 100,000 miles on the engine, the summer oil was straight Mobil 1. My wife's car, a 1995 Ford Crown Vic with towing package gets 5-30 Mobil 1 year around.
If you go the synthetic route, remember to change at least the filter every 2000 to 3000 miles. The synthetic oil won't wear out or oxidize, but the detergents do their job, and filter changes are still mandatory. Sometimes you only have to add a quart of oil to make up for the loss from the filter change, sometimes you have to add two quarts. Either way, the detergent package is replaced.

[wallywacker]

I run synthetic, BUT, I read a Consumers Report where they did a test on taxi cabs in NYC where they ran synthetic and petroleum based oils for 7500 mi. between oil changes then did a tear down and mic parts. Then run 15,000 and tear down and so on up to 75,000 mi. and concluded there was no appreciable difference in the engine wear between synthetic and petroleum based oil. But I hear auto racing industry people say synthetic is better.

[Red Ruffandsore]

The synthetic oil is affected by all the crack in the atmosphere where those NYC cabbies drive. Different results in Iowa


Stay off the pipe...and don't forget to wipe.

Red

[Reels]

Maybe, but its after the 75K that the wear will really kick in. There is no reason a truck can't reach 200-300K with todays engines if taken care of IMHO.

Thats why RR&S was saying if your going to lease, makes no sense to spend the extra doe.


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