Oil Change

[2.3LRNGR]

Hey guys i own a 99 ford ranger ext cab 4.0L and was wondering a decent oil for my truck bought it with 131k and its got 135k now

 

[exbass94]

For the most part oil is oil. It doesn't really matter which brand you choose. The important thing is changing it regularly. If you simply change it every 5k miles, the engine will outlive the rest of the truck, no matter which brand you use.

 

[pcollins]

Ditto on the above. I use quaker state normally.

 

[CHKNFKR]

i disagree with the "oil is oil" statement above. if oil was oil, there wouldn't be half a million different oil types available at your local parts store. I'm a big fan of Valvoline Max Life. its a synthetic blend with a few extras thrown into the mix. It has some detergents to keep things clean, it softens seals to lengthen their lives, etc...

It's what i use in my truck, and what I sell to my customers.

A quality filter is just as important as the oil. stay away from Fram, K&N and Driveworks. Use a Motorcraft if it's available, if not look for Bosch or Purolator.

 

[daniel3507]

My choices:

Highly recommend sticking with a Motorcraft filter

 

[pcollins]

i disagree with the "oil is oil" statement above. if oil was oil, there wouldn't be half a million different oil types available at your local parts store. I'm a big fan of Valvoline Max Life. its a synthetic blend with a few extras thrown into the mix. It has some detergents to keep things clean, it softens seals to lengthen their lives, etc...

It's what i use in my truck, and what I sell to my customers.

A quality filter is just as important as the oil. stay away from Fram, K&N and Driveworks. Use a Motorcraft if it's available, if not look for Bosch or Purolator.

At such high mileages its recommended not to suddenly switch to synthetic. You could start leaking oil out of quite a few places. and OP has 135k miles on er.

 

[CHKNFKR]

At such high mileages its recommended not to suddenly switch to synthetic. You could start leaking oil out of quite a few places. and OP has 135k miles on er.

Mythology right there. Even if it were true maxife is a sythetic blend, not a full synthetic.

 

[kryptonitecb]

At such high mileages its recommended not to suddenly switch to synthetic. You could start leaking oil out of quite a few places. and OP has 135k miles on er.

I have ~175000 and I only use synthetic, and I bought the truck a year ago. Are you saying that the small rear main leak is only cause I started using synthetic and not cause of the mileage?

Synthetic oil is made to out perform dino oil in every way. It lasts longer and will lower you engines friction level more than regular oil can. The leaks that come with a switch are caused by the way synthetic is made. Synthetic oil has a small charge, therefore if your engine already had a small leak the synthetic oil is pulled through the gasket. Dyno oil wont do this since it has no charge and isn't pulled through the gasket. Do some research before you spread more mysticism about something.

Sent from road while ignoring traffic

 

[CHKNFKR]

Fwiw i run it in my psd with over 363000 miles on it and it loves it!

 

[pcollins]

Mythology or not why the hell should I spend so much money on synthetic when im swapping oil every 5k miles? My step father runs Quaker state Regular 5w-20 for 8-10k miles between changes and it comes out fine.

 

[6.2]

Because synthetic is better for your engine. That's why.

 

[pcollins]

Oh great reason. And all the engines people run up to 300k miles without synthetic. Explain those?

How about the 50+ year old tractors on our farm we don't run synthetic in that are still working fine and see more stress in one year than majority of vehicles on the road see in 10. Synthetic has its benefits. But when I'm changing my oil every 5k miles why should I bother with the money? When I bought my truck I asked about oil and they said I could run any brand as long as it had the correct weight and proper change intervals and it wouldn't void my warranty. That was straight from the tech. Ford doesn't even use a full synthetic oil. Its a semi synthetic.

I just never bought into all the oil hype. My familys run many many many vehicles into the ground from rust and never used synthetic oil. Hundreds of thousands of miles. Myself, I've owned only 4 vehicles so far but never had a problem with quaker state. what I WOULD like to try is the Valvoline NextGen. But its damn expensive.

 

[exbass94]

Oh great reason. And all the engines people run up to 300k miles without synthetic. Explain those?

How about the 50+ year old tractors on our farm we don't run synthetic in that are still working fine and see more stress in one year than majority of vehicles on the road see in 10. Synthetic has its benefits. But when I'm changing my oil every 5k miles why should I bother with the money? When I bought my truck I asked about oil and they said I could run any brand as long as it had the correct weight and proper change intervals and it wouldn't void my warranty. That was straight from the tech. Ford doesn't even use a full synthetic oil. Its a semi synthetic.

I just never bought into all the oil hype. My familys run many many many vehicles into the ground from rust and never used synthetic oil. Hundreds of thousands of miles. Myself, I've owned only 4 vehicles so far but never had a problem with quaker state. what I WOULD like to try is the Valvoline NextGen. But its damn expensive.

^^This is why I said as long as you change it regularly, it doesn't matter what you use, as long as it's the correct viscosity. There are millions of engines with well over 200k miles on them using nothing but the cheapest conventional oil.

Some engines (not Ranger engines) REQUIRE synthetic, because either the automaker specifies long oil change intervals, or the engine gets the oil really hot and synthetic handles the high heat better. In those cases of course you should use synthetic.

If your engine does NOT require synthetic (Ranger engines): If you plan on going over 7k miles between oil changes, or if you're beating the hell out of the truck in extremely high or extremely low temperatures, you should use synthetic. Otherwise it is not needed, and it will NOT help your engine last longer.

If you would just like to think that it WILL give you some benefit and want to use synthetic anyway just for some peace of mind (which is why I use it), then I suppose that qualifies as another legitimate reason to use it.

 

[6.2]

I'll be using full synthetic. Is it required? God no, does the engine like it better? Yes.


It's like pizza, is pepperoni necessary? Nope not at all. Do I like it better with pepperoni? Hell yeah I do.

 

[b2rich]

i use castrol syntek. seems to be working for me. been using it since the truck had 110,000 on it. now has 130,000.
with synthetic lubercant, you dont really need to change ever 5000 miles. i change mine about every 7500, and it still comes out nice and clean with alot of properties still in the lube.
hence i dont have to change lubricant as often. it actually works out about the same thru the year.