High mileage stories using dino or synthetic oils

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Originally Posted By: gmchevroletruck
I wonder if it was necessary at 680k, and why? (can't believe i'm even asking that - who cares? Lol, it's amazing anyway!)


From the letter written by Irv Gordon himself: "The engine has been rebuilt once at 680,000 miles..completely. The head has not been off since and that was in 1978. I had the work done by the same dealer that sold me the car in 1966 and they still service it today. I had it done as preventive maintenance as I never heard of an engine that could last that long."
 
wow! that is truly amazing...any way you look at it. what may be even more amazing than the car itself, is that there is a dealer of any kind, somewhere in the world that was able to consistently and properly maintain that car for that many years lol
 
Originally Posted By: gmchevroletruck
wow! that is truly amazing...any way you look at it. what may be even more amazing than the car itself, is that there is a dealer of any kind, somewhere in the world that was able to consistently and properly maintain that car for that many years lol


I work with a guy that could fix it. He probably has the tools to balance the dual-carb setup too.

Rumor has it that his tool boxes were on the plot of land before the dealership was built, they just built a building around his stuff and started a Volvo dealer.
 
I purchased my `93 245 11yrs ago with 70k miles. The car was somewhat neglected by the original owner. I did frequent OCIs with MaxLife 10W30 initially, but I switched to 5W30 a few years ago. The engine has never been apart...I keep the PCV system clean...and there's not a hint of sludge under the valve cover.
 
Originally Posted By: speedyswede
I purchased my `93 245 11yrs ago with 70k miles. The car was somewhat neglected by the original owner. I did frequent OCIs with MaxLife 10W30 initially, but I switched to 5W30 a few years ago. The engine has never been apart...I keep the PCV system clean...and there's not a hint of sludge under the valve cover.


70K miles?

That old redblock engine could probably go that far with no oil changes :-P
 
256K on an 83 Cutlass Supreme with the 307 engine. Took 18 years to do it. Exclusively ran Castrol 10-40 and Fram orange can every 5K miles. Never even had the valve covers off-died from the 2nd transmission failure.

Steve
 
we run a fleet of Savana 3500's in some of the toughest duty imaginable.

One of our vans has 335,000 miles on it, driven daily at 9000 pounds. 2004 6.0 Gas V8 with oil changed by OLM with Amsoil SSO and Ea filters exclusively.

Our best van ever was wrecked at 400K miles, 2000 5.7 gas V8, and the engine and trans are in my sons friends car now for a year! Still runs perfect and no knocking or oil consumption. This motor ran Amsoil SSO and had their filters and a bypass set up. We sometimes ran this engine an entire YEAR without draining the sump. Just change the filters and add oil required.

We are Amsoil fans because it saves us money.
 
Originally Posted By: gmchevroletruck
funny that the Amsoil website is the only source that i've seen so far of multiple high mileage stories on synthetic...not that i'd be surprised to see them, i know they're out there...just, how convenient for Amsoil...


As I said, my auto mechanics teacher had TWO VW Jetta's, first hit 1,000,000Km, second was almost 3/4 of the way there when I finished school. M1 exclusively since day one, thing ran like a top.
 
285,000 km (178,100 miles) now, only switched to synthetic at 265,000 km (167,000 miles) after a couple ARX treatments.
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I used to be a fleet mechanic for a shuttle service, running mostly Dodge Ram vans with the 5.9. When I quit, the oldest, a '96, had 450,000 miles on it using dino bulk no-brand 10W-30 oil (came in a generic green and white drum with just the distributor's name on it). I changed the oil every 5,000 on it. The engine had never been opened. It's still on the road and must be closing in on 600,000 miles, but that's just a guess. Most of the other vans had 350,000 + miles and none of them were ever opened up.
 
My '91 Corolla All-Trac had 293k on it when I sold it to a buddy.
He beat the snot out of it for 5k (he was 17), then no compression.
Ran fine when I sold it to him, just low compression (100 psi across all 4 cylinders, and it was that way since I bought it.)
It was fed Valvoline AC and later Castrol GTX Dino 10w30 3k OCI's with the US made Toyota filters since I bought it with 210k.
I believe it had Valvoline AC 10w30 before that.

And I also have one second had story.

Justin
 
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Fuel injection is what made insane high millage a reality. It reduced fuel dilution to such a point that carbon ridges and excessive wear where all but eliminated. The synthetics just make the engine cleaner for the most part. Bear is mind the huge gap that was their between Dino oil and synthetics say 20 years ago!!!

Today if you oil change interval is a good match for how you operate your vehicle and you do proper maintenance almost any vehicle can last a long time even on dino. The trick is changing the fluids for the transmission and diff's and such on a regular basis and much sooner then OEM's recommend.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
Fuel injection is what made insane high millage a reality. It reduced fuel dilution to such a point that carbon ridges and excessive wear where all but eliminated. The synthetics just make the engine cleaner for the most part. Bear is mind the huge gap that was their between Dino oil and synthetics say 20 years ago!!!

Today if you oil change interval is a good match for how you operate your vehicle and you do proper maintenance almost any vehicle can last a long time even on dino. The trick is changing the fluids for the transmission and diff's and such on a regular basis and much sooner then OEM's recommend.


Unless your engine comes equipped with a Leprechaun that taps his cane at you in the cold if you use Dino.

Should have paid extra to get it deleprechaunized before I bought my truck.
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my father handed down a 1984 toyota pickup, cant remember the engine that it had it was the standard toyota 4 banger they used in trucks till about 94. well point is the truck got to 545k miles before i retired it in my backyard due to electrical problems. original engine. used just standard castrol or valvoline and toyota filters.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
The trick is changing the fluids for the transmission and diff's and such on a regular basis and much sooner then OEM's recommend.


I believe this is very true, I believe many people ignor diffs, auto transmissions and standard chasis lube but know to take there car every x miles to get the oil chnaged.

I have a few trucks and all have over 180k on them as daily drivers.

93 c1500 2wd pickup, 4.3L
Mile 0-45k it was a work truck for a construction company. I dont know how it was treated, but it didnt appear abused. They ran 15w40 in it always and it was a PA truck. My dad bought it and ran it up to 97k miles and he also ran HDEO pennzoil with 3 to 4 k mile oci . So the truck had HDEO in it from day one to 97k miles at this point, winters included. I bought the truck from him and continued the 15w40 oil changes at about 3k miles. I lived in NC so weather was a bit milder than the truck was used too. I used many oils over the years in that truck, winters i would use 10w30 ST or HDEO just depended on the season and my mood. As the truck got older, i could hear a slight lower engine knock on cold startups. After obsessing over oil for the last year, i have switched it to 5 or 10w30 as i am convinced that the way i use it dont warrant the HDEO and actually is just unnecessarly hard on it upon start ups. Anyway the years that i had it, it has been used very lightly, interstate driving to college and stuff for 40 mins at a clip ect. A few times i pushed the little 4.3 pretty hard, towing cars or trailers with 4 atvs on it thru the mts. Anyway the engine is still in very good shape. Oil consumption is about a qt per 3k miles, compression is still within specs, i believe they were all at 180 ish and one was about 1 psi lower as of a year ago. Maybe the numbers were 160 and 150 cant remember now but i think it was 180. Lower engine knock is still there upon cold starts. It is very light but noticable. So the truck is now at 215k miles and still in pretty good shape. I have replaced the intake manifold gasket and valve stem seals.

01 chevy blazer, 4.3
mobil1 5w30 forever on 5 to 8 k oil changes, since new here in nc and the engine was flawless up to 170k miles when the leaking IMG caused the engine to sludge up and a lifter to start sticking. After changing the gasket and running a few ST 10w30 flushes and a HDEO flush, it is now back on its synthetic only PP not M1, high iron stories got me to switch. Seems to be doing good now and has 180k miles on it. I have other issues with the truck but not engine.

Now for the engine that ran until failure.

99 suburban, 350
I bought this truck with 167k miles, and the body was in great shape and everything seemed to be okay with it. Well when i got it home, i changed the rear diff fluid and it come out jet black and there was a flim of sludge covering everything in the diff cavity. The front diff fluid came out like chocolate milk mixed with cottage cheese. Well seeing this, i figured i would do an oil change and when i did, i notice that the oil that came out, was very very thick. Well i threw some dino 5w30 in there thinking i would do a 1000mile flush or so being everything else appeared to be neglected. Well the truck held about 5psi oil pressue when hot with 5w30 in it. I did two very short runs with dino and changed it to M1 5w30. Not a good idea, within 500 miles it started knocking and another 1k down the road it spun a bearing. Upon taking the engine out to replace it with a rebuilt, i noticed a 1/4 inch hard crusty black stuff all over everything inside. It was apparent this engine was very neglected. So i have had to rebuild the front diff, transfer case and replace the engine. Yea, im not making this up. I would bet that the care that the lubes in that truck got would probably make most bitog guys loose sleep at night.

Stepfater has a chevy work box truck with a 350 in it that now has 320k miles on it in PA. No internal engine work and gets changed with dino between 3 and 5 k miles. Still in use

My cousins S10 with 4.3 gets 10k oil changes in PA with any name brand dino usually castrol. I think the marker is at 140k miles around. This engine has been used very hard at times. When we were younger, he was into car audio competition and they had a SPL Van built that they would haul to different shows. I dont remember the weights, but the van was very heavy as it was full of MDF and batteries and was towed on a HD lowboy trailer. One summer i went to a comp with him in ohio from PA. I almost could not ride in that poor zr2 when we would hit those mt hills. Petal to the floor and that 4.3 would just scream as it pulled probably twice what it was supposed to be pulling. Anyway his dad has it now and it is still going strong.

Anyway that my truck story, All three of my truck are still in service and hopefully will continue to pile on miles because i dont want to buy a new truck anytime soon.
 
Originally Posted By: StevieC

Unless your engine comes equipped with a Leprechaun that taps his cane at you in the cold if you use Dino.

Should have paid extra to get it deleprechaunized before I bought my truck.
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I think if you tried some other conventional oils you'd find that the knock you are hearing would be gone.

Plenty (correction MOST) SantaFe owners could NOT tell you what oil is in their engine and don't have the knock. I know my co-workers love theirs.

Take care, Bill

PS: To answer the OP, almost 380k on 86 Jetta using conventional, over 300K 1982 Toyota SR5, over 250k 1996 Chevy C1500 V6, 240k 1993 Caravan and others. All on various conventional oils changed 4-7k. ALL run fine and pass smog (some dyno) where needed with flying colors.
 
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