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[quote=”garageman402″ post=111723]I think most people are thinking of synthetic oil as a “fountain of youth” for their engines. My experience shows it is not, at least in stock, everyday drivers. I ran Redline 0w-30 and Chevron Supreme 5w-30 oils in a 2000 Pontiac Montana 3.4L V6, and a 2008 Buick Enclave 3.5L V6. Analyzed the oil and the wear numbers were identical. I did do a few changes with each oil before sampling to be sure there was no conflicting chemistry.
I also was under the impression I could run a lower viscosity synthetic oil as it would protect better, flow better, disperse heat better, and result in fuel economy gains. The 0w-20 and 5w-20 (not Redline) I tried did not lube the wrist pins adequately and I lost the bottom of a piston. The 3.4L V6 had 158,00 miles, and is notorious for intake gasket failures every 60,000 miles allowing coolant into the crankcase, maybe this added to the engine’s early demise. The analysis comparison was done on the new GM service replacement engine in this vehicle.
The Chevron or Shell 5w-30 or 10w-30 oil you can buy at Costco when it is on coupon special for $27 a case is just as good (for stock engines) as the $137.88 per case Redline 0w-30. For the price, you can change the oil every 1,000 miles, and still be ahead.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do for oil is change it. I think Eric has the same opinion. As a bonus, you are getting all the small particles out that cause engine wear.[/quote]
I agree. The best thing to do is change it on a regular basis with a quality filter and the correct viscosity as called for by the manufacturer. That’s the best insurance for your engine.
Hello everyone.
First of all I did not read all 14 pages of this thread.
I just want to share some of my experience working with cars and other machinery.Synthetic oil is always better from a lubricating point of view.
But there can be instances where the fully synthetic oil can do harm.
As a test i used a fully synthetic oil (I think it was 10w40 expensive well known brand) in a old ford 15M engine.
The 15M an 17M engines can be found in old Saab V4 and Ford Taunus.
The camshaft and lifters in those engines are lubricated trough the oil coming through the rocker shaft and drips down from the shaft and rocker arms. The oil then passes under the intake manifold and drips down to the camshaft and lifters. The synthetic oil don’t “stick” to the parts as a mineral oil does. It was not enough oil flow to keep those parts lubricated enough. The camshaft was almost completely round and the lifters had so much wear that they were concave on the friction area. All other parts i the engine were fine. I can post a image of one of the lifters if anyone are interested.Another experience I have of the mineral oil sticking better is when you look in a junkyard, the engines with the cam covers taken off the parts don’t start to rust as fast. The synthetic oil have a tendency to slip off so to speak. This is also the reason when you assemble a engine you use a thick mineral oil or a assembly oil specially formulated for assembling engines. If you use a “normal” synthetic oil, thick or thin there is a risk that the parts gets damage before the pump can fill all of the engines oil canals.
But that problem with the cam and lifters wont happen in a modern engine where the oil gets pumped to all places in the engine. When the parts in the engine get enough lubrication you can’t beat synthetic oil.A example of this I experienced with a fully rebuilt and honed engine, every part new.
When you break in a engine I recommend you using a cheap mineral oil because the synthetic oil gives to good protection so the piston rings don’t wear in as they should. I was in a hurry and poured the fully synthetic oil in, two jugs, both gray with similar labels, I took the wrong one. I discovered this 620 miles later. That engine would never stop smoking and used a lot of oil. The oil escaped trough the piston rings. The only solution to this was new honing of the engine block an new piston rings.
I know of other honing techniques that prevent this, but that’s not what I am trying to share.
For those interested in breaking in engines, this man explains this much better:
“Break-In Secrets”As for a engine to bee cleaner inside, the synthetic oil does a better job you say ?
This is a myth, almost every oil in modern times have additives to keep contamination trapped in the oil. Another example: I had a Saab engine tuned from 185HP to 300HP, I changed the oil in this engine every 3200 miles or so, Red line, Quaker state Mobil, Valvoline and so on 20w50 15w50 fully synthetic. A friend of mine had a old Volkswagen beetle, he also changed the oil every 3200 miles with mineral oil 10w40. When he opened up his beetle engine an I opened mine after about 75000 miles or so, they where both identical clean looking inside. It doesn’t matter what engine oil you use as long as you change it when you should from a cleaning point of view.As for wear and following the manufactures recommendations I want to share this.
When the 0w40, 0w30 (and so on) oils where intruded in 1998 or so, almost all manufacturers recommended these synthetic oils. And the service at the professional service workshops use/used this type of oils.
I have opened up identical engines, one only being fed 0w something oil from the service workshop. The other one (mine) only using 15w40, 20w50, 10w50 synthetic. Both engines where tuned the same way and had about 80000 miles on them. Both where Saab 2.3L engines and both where owned by the same owner, the cars where bought with about 18000 miles on them. One in 1998 and the other one in 2002.
The one that used the 15w 20w oil had little or no visible wear on the bearings and other parts. The most wear found on that engine where at the TDC and BDC of the cylinders.
The other one using the 0w oils, all of the bearing where missing the babbit surface the steel in the bearings showed. The lifters had deep groves in them from the camshaft and the springs for the lifters were very worn on the sides.
I haven’t reed up on the 0w oils since, maybe they have solved the problem today, but I never put anything thinner than 10w something or if in a pinch 5w something. As the salesman ones said to me: The difference between the 0w oils and 5w 10w oils are that the 0w oil is just as thin cold as it is hot. So it is identical to the old oils when hot.
This is bullshit. All oils gets thinner when they are hot and that effects how well the oil can keep the surfaces apart in the bearings.
My point is that the manufacturer isn’t always right. There priority lies in low emissions.
Another example is just to look at the oil when changing it, removing the sump plug from a hot engine or a cold one. The 0w oils when hot has the viscosity of water.These are some of my personal experiences and I don’t claim to be a expert. I’m only trying to share some of my knowledge.
I hope this is of some interest. Feel free to comment.And thank you EricTheCarGuy for all those interesting and informative videos.
/RonnieNo thoughts ? 🙁
Anyway, Here are the pictures of one of the severely damaged lifters from the engine not made for synthetic oil.
Hi Eric, Sorry I’m a bit late to this topic. I’m not an expert, but I had asked a representative about the synthetic oils and some of the leak issues I had with them. This individual stopped by our shop at an Air Force base I was stationed at a back in the 80’s to talk to us maintenance folk about the new synthetics that started to get to us through supply. I was told that some unit had experienced some problems and someone was trying to blame the synthetic oil and some rumor’s were going around. At about that same time I had changed the oil in a 68 Camaro I had with the synthetic. I had rebuilt the engine a few years back and had mileage on it and I changed the oil at recommended intervals. But when I switched to the synthetic it started to leak, so I asked the Rep if the new oil had caused it. He told me that the non-synthetic oil I had been running in the car had built up some carbon around the seals that had dried out a bit and got hard. The synthetic oils are very high detergent and washed some of the carbon build up that had formed on some of the seals and had caused the now noticeable leaks.
What he told me was that if you had been running conventional oil in an engine for a long while, don’t use synthetic oils or the small unnoticeable leakage would become much larger. However if it was a fairly new engine or a rebuilt, go with the new synthetics, it keeps the new seals from drying out and getting hard. It keeps the engine wear down and the engine would be much cleaner with the regular oil changes. How much of that was BS or selling points for the synthetic oils, I really don’t know. But, I had rebuilt that engine and never had leaking problems for about 100K. Unfortunately my ex wrecked it. Every other car I’ve had since then I’ve run synthetic and have not had a leakage problem. I’m now of the opinion, that if someone wants to run the synthetic in an older car, that has been using conventional oil, my advice would be to tell them not to. But on a new rebuild or a new crate engine, synthetic oil is the way to go.
I hope this might help with the synthetic vs conventional oil. Synthetic is so much better for the seals and keeping engine wear down.Car manufacturers are now picky on oil or the engine warranty is void.GM is like this with the 2011 and newer GMs,dexos approved oil only.The Ford 3 valve 5.4s and V10s,synthetic oil only.The lifters will tick if 5w 20 synthetic is not used.
I doubt the car manufacturers are calling bullshit on the type of oil. Current day it’s synthetic because lazy ass joe or jane doesn’t want their light going on after 3500 miles and the dealership can charge $80 every 70k not to mention newer engines are probably designed for synthetic. Older cars that use dino have change intervals every 3-4k and we;re pumping 300 to 500k miles on an original engine with roughly the same HP and torque. Conventional oil is the way to go. Sythn is for the lazy who think their newer car is cool and want nothing to do with it. Just my opinion now that I’ve been dirty for years.
Eric. Great video. It verified my concern about which oil to use.
Here is my concern, I have a 98 Mustang GT it has 100k plus on it. The first 99,000 miles is unknown. I don’t know how hard it was driven, if it was city or hwy, what type of oil or how often it was changed. I dont think she leaks. There is no sign of oil on my garage floor.
My driving is a Saturday or a Sunday cruise on the back roads of upstate NY. Very little mileage per year. She sits all winter.
Should I go with Synthetic or regular oil?I normally run M1 synthetic in my daily driver. I bought the car new, I put 100 miles a day on it. But the Stang…I dont know the car, i do very little to no mileage…
Thoughts?
I’m not an expert by no means on which is better. Just to put that out there first. Everything I say is just based on personal findings and opinions.
I personally do oil sampling on oil changes. One main reason is I Owen a trucking company and when your dealing with a $35000+ engine you kind of want to know what works best and they will also tell you when you have a potential problem coming into the mix.
I started this with a Cummins ISX engine. Yes it’s a big truck engine but the principal is the same as a gas engine. $35000 motor or a $3500 motor. I bought the truck with 507k on the motor. It had conventional oil in it from the eh day it was new to when I bought it. I drove the truck to 600k and changed it to synthetic oil. Now mind you a truck interval for oil changes veries. I go about 15k miles on conventional and I have gone to 115k on synthetic oil. Ok wait I’m not nuts. Yes I said 115k . The reason why I was able to go that distance on the oil was because I installed a bypass oil filter system and with that system I sampled my oil every 10k to 15k. I sent the oil to Polaris Labs for oil analysis. The synthetic oil tends to have a better additive package in it. One of the big things with any oil is the base number or what’s called the TBN (total Base Number) the TBN is the additives that are able to nutralise the acids that are developed from combustion.
The lower the base number gets in a sample means that the oils additive package is starting to degrade. When doing maintenance on the oil during this time you do change oil filters and what not. Even the bypass filter gets changed about every 40k (huge filter). So as you change filters and sample you do need to put in makeup oil. During the 110k oil change interval I used approximately 40 gallons of oil. Yah it sounds like a lot but the sump on that engine was 11 gallons and both the oil filter and bypass filter combine used 2 gallons alone. I presonally used Amsoil 15w40 high TBN oil. Worked great excellent oil samples until about the 75k mark. My samples started showing that the additives we’re starting to degrade faster and the makeup oil wasn’t able to boost the additives as much. So the next 35k worth of miles it started getting worse. So I changed the oil.
The really cool part of the oil samples is it actually caught a problem before it actually became a huge expensive problem out on the road. I ended up showing high partical levels of iron in the oil. I ended up having a cam roller the cracked and actually cut into the cam. $12000 later it was fixed.
Ok now your going to say that the oil was old. Wrong the base oil really never gets old or wear out. The additives do or well deplete. Base stock is base stock for oil. I put a new cam shafts in and new roller rockers at about 105k. I put on new filters and ran that oil for 5k more or the 110k mark and dumped it. Just wanted to wash out any crap that may have dropped into oil pan. Now mind you at that point I was leaking about another gallon of oil in 15k interval plus the 2 gallons towards that mark. So I decided to change the oil to conventional. So conventional I switched to Cenex 15w40 oil. I think I was paying about $11.00 a gallon at that time. I was running that oil up to 40k on a change. Part of the reason is the oil additives tended to deplete quicker in a conventional but while sampling the samples would come back with normal TBN numbers. Around the 4 mark. I was able to run that motor until I sold it at 970k. At that mark though the oil was good the oil seals and gaskets are getting really hard and stiff and I was getting lots of leaks. Looked like an old Harley after a five Mile ride. It left it’s marks. Lol
I don’t condone running oil that long or short but the fact I was taking the steps with oil sampling to make sure bad stuff wasn’t happening.
Oh by the way. A full sample analyst costs about $32.00 so it’s the price of an oil change for a car now days.
Oil is oil, some oils have a little more parifin in them than others but it still all comes from the ground. Oh and some oils do better in some engines than others because combustion gasses can naturally be higher in one make of manufacturer from another. Just my two cents
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