Help me pick an oil, should I/how should I switch to synthetic

[09fx4guy]

To each his own I guess. I mainly got the quaker state as backup for my power equipment. The Pennzoil is for another vehicle I own, and so far I have been happy with it.

No arguments with Napa products, but sometimes they are a little hit or miss as far as finding them in stock nearby.

 

[Dirtman]

I'd consider $1 a quart for Quaker State and $2 for anything Pennzoil makes to be overpaying.
Napa often offers a good price on 5 quarts of their synthetic and one of their silver or gold oil filters which are both good Wix products.

Man you REALLY hate jiffy lube.

I mean, don't get me wrong I'd never go there, never recommend anyone ever go there, or spit on the building if it was on fire. But hating Pennzoil products because they own the chain?

If you dig deep enough you will find all giant companies own tons of random other businesses. Mobil owns a clothing company in Singapore that used child labor, do you denounce the use of Mobil 1 oil now?

I'm not defending either company just pointing out how you will basically never find an oil company with no skeletons in their closet. Pennzoil makes good oil. There company owns some horrible businesses. So does Mobil, Bp, and everyone else. If you only want to support a company who has perfectly ethical business practices, your gonna need to start grinding up your own dinosaur bones...

 

[Patrologia]

If you only want to support a company who has perfectly ethical business practices, your gonna need to start grinding up your own dinosaur bones...

Paleontologists all over the world rushing to make objections to the ethics of grinding up dinosaur bones...

 

[19Walt93]

I don't hate Pennzoil products, I just refuse to give those jerks any money. If the auto repair industry got 10% of the respect it deserves the concept of jiffy lube would never have occurred to anyone. My old dealership made a ton of money straightening out cars jiffy lube had "serviced". They'd take the shift pivot bolt out of T5's to check the fluid-even though it was about 2" from the top and no one with brain would think a trans would have that much fluid. We'd have to pull the transmission and tear it down to fix it. They put 14-15 quarts of oil in several vehicles that held 5 or 6 each and we'd get them with horrendous engine vibration because the crank was waist deep in oil. They'd put "universal" fluid in transmission and we'd get them with all kinds of shifting problems. As I'm sure you know, there is no "universal" automatic transmission fluid. They'd either leave the lower engine shields loose, leave them completely off, or strip out the retainers so the shields fell off afterward. You can tighten screws in plastic retainers with a screw gun if you have 1/2 a brain, that lets them out. Then the customers would bitch to me because parts were falling off their new Ford.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Being in a "franchised" business... I can say that not all businesses within the franchise are terrible. Sure... some should just be closed down because they ruin things and create a bad name for the others.

I think it's really the owners fault. Most think they spend the money to open up and the money just keeps running in the door. I'll also say it's a bunch of hard work and you simply have to train your employees... and as the owner... you have to put your time in the business.

 

[wordsmyth]

Loads of good advice here already.

For my part, I use the factory spec’ed synthetic blend and change it every 5k miles. Rotate the tires at the same time. 160,000 miles on it and my 2010 4.0 doesn’t use oil.

 

[gaz]

Patrol,

I switched to full synthetic @ 28kmi, that was when I bought it. I have always used 10w40 for my cool, wet environment. According to Ford's recommendations, I could have used 10w30 and 5w30 but I have yet to find a reason to change.

Now this is in an 87 Ranger with a 2.9L
but it was with 10w40 on that engine when stock that it made 28mpg (highway) with 140kmi on it.

I like Mobile1.

 

[sgtsandman]

If the engine is in decent shape with no existing oil leaks, switching to synthetic wouldn't hurt. Running standard motor oil doesn't hurt either. Synthetic tends to keep the engine cleaner inside. There is one catch with old engines though. Build up from standard engine oils may be plugging up small leaks that synthetic oil may clean out and cause oil leaks.

As far as weight, 5W30 is acceptable in just about every engine I have that isn't 2-Cycle. Air cooled or water cooled, it doesn't matter. The owner's manuals say it is good in all of them. I makes my shelf stock easy and less complex.

 

[19Walt93]

10w40 is an old formula,5w30 and 10w30 are a newer formula and better oil. Multi viscosity oil is a misnomer, the viscosity is just more stabile. 5w30 for example, gets no thicker when cold than a 5 weight and no thinner when hot than a 30 weight. There is no benefit to running 10w30 over 5w30, the "worst" thing that will happen is quicker, better oil circulation when cold. I would have no objection to running 5w30 in place of 5w20, especially in older or higher mileage engines. The key is changing it a couple times a year, the 1 year/10k interval is a marketing gimmick but if you'd like to follow it I still have friends who sell engines.
My argument with Pennzoil isn't necessarily with their products, it's that they conceived Jiffy Lube. The whole concept is insulting, degrading and disrespectful to the auto service industry. When my line techs did "simple" oil changes, they often noticed potential problems that we could fix and prevent our customers from experiencing future breakdowns and expense. That and their oil filter weighs about as much as a Motorcraft oil filter box.

 

[rubydist]

Actually Walt, the new synthetic oils are so much better you can run them a year with no problem - I've got plenty of Blackstone oil reports on 10k mile oci synthetics to document that as a fact, not an opinion. I was not a believer until I started doing used oil analysis on both old-school oils and new synthetics. There is literally no comparison.

 

[19Walt93]

Oil doesn't need to be changed because it failed somehow, it gets diluted with combustion byproducts which go past the rings- especially under hard acceleration or if the engine is cold, and moisture drawn into the engine by the PCV system. Synthetic oil can hold more dirt in suspension but it still gets polluted/diluted. When the price of an oil change is compared to the price of an engine, the oil change looks like a bargain. If you feel confident going a year between changes that's what you should do. I'm not above saying I told you so if I see a post about oil use, engine noise, contaminated cats, or catastrophic failures. If lack of maintenance and overheating were removed as reasons, we had very few engine failures in my 42 years in the service department.

 

[rubydist]

The oil does actually break down due to the contaminants (combustion byproducts), and the condition of the oil can be determined from the used oil analysis. Its not about how much dirt can be held in suspension, its about how much the base stock is corrupted by the chemical reactions that occur due to the combustion byproducts getting down in the oil. Synthetic has been proven to be significantly more resistant to breakdown than conventional oil.

 

[Dirtman]

I have about 20 Blackstone oil sample kits if anyone wants them. They keep sending me more! They give them out free but still... I DON'T NEED 20!

Sending oil samples to blackstone is what made me switch from mobil 1 to Pennzoil ultra. My wear numbers dropped from mobil 1 to pennzoil. Can't argue with science. At least for my 2.3 duratec, pennzoil works better.

 

[Sean4818]

I've been running Mobil 1 (fully synthetic 5w 30 high mileage) oil for about 3 years now and never had a problem. It says you can go for about ten thousand miles but just to be safe I change it around 6k-7.5k.

 

[Super_Cracker]

By 2000 the 4.0 was the only engine Ford hadn't respeced to 5W20, because the tensioners didn't like the thin stuff.

I generally agree with the advice to stick with whatever the manual calls for, but the 3.0 Vulcan is an old design going way back to the days when 10W-30 was considered thin. 5W20 will get you a bit better fuel economy. 5W30 will get you a bit longer life. Anything yellow, slippery, and with an SAE rating on it will keep the engine going just about forever though.

I have a 95 3.0 i use the 5w20 every 4000 miles or so never went past 5000.