dino or synthetic?

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I am currently driving a 97 maxima with 100,000 miles. I have been using 5w30 (i live in new york) valvoline maxlife and OCI every 3,000 miles. I am thinking about switching oils but I don't know what. Should I change to synthetic or change companies? Also, if i get synthetic, what should be my interval for oil change? Thanks for any suggestions
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I personally think most people do not benefit much from the high price of synthetic oil. Good dinos like Chevron, Pennzoil, Havoline. Motorcraft and others with a reasonable interval of 3 to 5K will help most motors last longer than the owner keeps them. You could probably run 5w30 all year.
 
Yeah you are wasting your money with synthetic, there is no proof that it will make your engine last longer. I can change my oil for $7.50 with tax and filter. Even if synthetic did make your engine last longer, it would still be in the junk yard because everything else fell apart!
 
The car I commute to work in has M1 10W-30. I switched to synthetic at 7,200 miles only because I am going to follow the "oil life monitor", which came on at 6.5k miles. I would have a hard time following the manuals recommendation to change when the monitor says so if I used dino. See it's mostly a mental thing. If I just did a 3k OCI, I would have no problem using dino, like Cheveron Supreme. I also think a good dino and LC could go to 6k and still protect and be cost effective.

Now all my old cars that I have owned including my 1970 Dodge Dart have and will run dino. Their oil gets changes at three months no matter what.
 
I'm using Mobil1 now to make it as mindless as possible. I plan to change it every 6 months regardless of miles (could be 5K, could be 10 I don't care).

So I can count on two precious weekends a month that the old lady will be off my transom for at least an hour.
 
I think you're fine with what you have. If you want to step up to synthetic, go with the new Max Life Synthetic and stretch the OCI out to 5 or 6k. The plain Max Life is a pretty good oil though.
 
You have 100,000 miles on your car and do not indicate any problems. Why do you want to change what apparently has worked well for you?

If you want to save $$ start using the cheapest API rated oil you can find (maybe Wally World Supertech @$.88 a quart) and a $2.00 ST filter. At 3,000 mile changes any API dino oil is probably just fine.

If you want to extend the oil change interval (but I don't know why) then you probably have to go to more expensive oil and filters and do some oil analysis to be sure all is well.
 
quote:

I plan to change it every 6 months regardless of miles (could be 5K, could be 10 I don't care).

imo, 6 month intervals is where it's at.

I say adjust oil quality for miles to be driven in 6 months, done.

I ran GC several times for 6 months, up to 11,000 miles.
 
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