GC Green and Gold Mix in my (new to me) 95' Explorer 4.0L V6

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Just recieved a "new" 95 Explorer with 93k on it, that appears to be pretty clean, and runs well. Would it be okay to use a mix of green and gold in the 4.0L V6? I think I have 3qts green 2qts gold.(don't know for sure though, cause I not at home). It has been run on all dino so this will be the first synthetic it sees, is GC a good choice for this motor? Has anyone used GC in a 4.0L Explorer? Hope you guys can help me out, thanks.
 
bw,

Use it with gusto! My 95 Ford Taurus 3.0L loves the stuff...I don't see why your 4.0L should be any different.
 
Naw. You just won't have a full Green glow radiating from under the hood illuminating your way at night. You might need to use your headlights more often.
grin.gif
 
Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say: "Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
grin.gif
 
From experience and from reading the experiences of many others, I think it's risky to start a higher milage engine on synthetic if its been using mineral oils up to that point. The engine often increases its oil consumption considerably and isn't just a temporary thing. This seems to be from the synthetic oils cleaning out the engine and opening up clearances between parts that were previously partially filled up from varnish/sludge (false seals).
 
Is this true, it says in the manual it's okay to use synthetic and it has been using Motorcraft syn-blend so I figured it was all good. I was thinking about a 5k OCI for the first run of GC and a MC oil filter, does this sound good? Do I need to arx first?
 
This matter is unrelated as to whether the manual says the engine can use synthetic. It's about synthetics' ability to clean out "dirty-high mileage" engines so much that they start burning a lot more oil. Since you say it's been on MC Synblend, it's a tough call...it may be clean enough inside to not have this issue when GC is used. If you are sure it's been on MC Synblend its whole life and the oil change intervals weren't overly long (~6k miles or less), that would be encouraging.

But I can't say with certainly how it will work out...I'm just giving you some guidance about what can happen, not what will happen. You'll have to decide whether you think the risk and higher cost of going to a synthetic are worth the benefits (longer possible OCI is probably biggest one). How clean does it look when you peak into the oil fill cap?
 
I have found records going back to about 97 showing that oil changes were made at the dealership with Motorcraft oil about every 3k miles it looks like the previous owner took it to the dealership for everything. I don't think Motorcraft oil was syn blend back then though, but I think it has been for the last few years. I also looked through the oil fill hole and did not see any sludge or deposits, only a bit of light varnish, there was also nothing on the oil fill cap. Does this make you feel better?
 
That's good. Go for the GC and let us know how it goes. Just keep an eye on oil consumption.

In case you are wondering, my story with this is that my fiance had an 01' Civic with 70k miles and had always used mineral (dino) oils. The oil level barely dropped on the dipstick over 5k miles. I then started changing her oil using Mobil 1 5W-30, and GRADUALLY over several intervals the oil consumption got worse and worse and by 105k miles, it was burning about a quart in 3k miles - much more than it used to before synthetic was used. That increase was much more than would be expected just from the engine getting older (from 70k to 105K miles). At 105k miles, I changed to Gold GC, thinking that maybe it was just that Mobil 1 and her engine weren't a good match. Same thing, the consumption was about the same as with the M1. She traded it in soon after so I didn't get to try anything else.
 
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