Is oil really too expensive??????

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^so you're saying, conventional is good for 9k yet synthetic you're afraid to run past 12k?
 
I'm "pretty sure" I could get 12-15k+ out of a good synthetic given my driving style. But I'd have to do 18k OCI's to make it cost-worthy. I can't always get the deals on oil many on here seem to find regularly. Dino's go on sale much more frequently than syn's do, unfortunatly.

Perhaps when I get really sick of changing oil every 3.5 months, I'll run a syn and do a UOA around 12-14k and see where it's at.
 
Originally Posted By: Zaedock
BITOG is a lifestyle, not a forum.

I find pleasure in buying $1 /qt oil, both syn and dino. The same for filters and anything auto related (brake, carb cleaner, starting fluids, etc). It's the thrill of the hunt.

When you look at the UOA section, you don't see many who take full advantage of it. Dumping any syn at 5 or 6K miles is a waste.


I love buying up stuff on sale, esp oil and car products. You can easily find name brand synthetic oil for $4-5 if you shop smart. @ that price, i don't feel so bad dumping the oil after 5 or 6k
 
Originally Posted By: Artem
I love buying up stuff on sale, esp oil and car products. You can easily find name brand synthetic oil for $4-5 if you shop smart. @ that price, i don't feel so bad dumping the oil after 5 or 6k


This is especially entertaining, that you like to buy stuff on sale, but pay double what you need to and change it 2-3 times as often as you should! Isn't this the definition of the expression "penny wise, pound foolish?"

"Feeling" that you're doing the best thing is different from doing the best thing. It's the unwillingness of people to tune into reality, evaluate facts, and change their mind that makes them feel old and stagnant. The brain is like a muscle; you have to use it or it just withers away. Buying into hype, marketing, and advertising from expensive oil and additive corporations, and giving yourself a warm fuzzy feeling by overthinking and overbuying motor oil should be a chapter in an abnormal psychology textbook.
 
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Personally, I run my cheap dino's out to 9,000 miles now, in our car. I see many, many syn UOA's (in fact more often than not) with fewer, sometimes half, the amount of miles.

But like so many have said, it's your money, make yourself feel good.


Two thoughts -

1) Dino does go on sale more often, and I'm fortunate that the most we put on a car in a year is ~7k and the dino is fine for that mileage. The few dollars I save every time I buy my $2/quart dino (or synthetic) adds up and is what allows me to take my wife to Outback for that good steak. For us, it's all about prioritizing how we want to spend our money.

2) Both of our DDs were purchased with well over 100k on the clock. I very seriously doubt that the POs ran synthetic - one was an older woman that did maintain it, but wasn't a 'car' person. The other used the car for work and didn't even maintain it very well. My expectation is that even on dino I will put well over 200k on these cars before getting rid of them.

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giving yourself a warm fuzzy feeling by overthinking and overbuying motor oil should be a chapter in an abnormal psychology textbook.


Ouch! That's a bit strong. I'm a self-admitted cheapskate, but if someone wants to pay a bit more for a OC and get's a little piece of mind from it, more power to them.
 
i like synthetics. my entire stash is made up of GM4718M registered products. my car does not even specify them. i can listen to arguments against them for days, and i will not change my mind. are they too expensive? probably not... maybe... dunno? i just do not care. i will not pay more than half price for oil, and i know they still make a profit at half price.

i am that guy. gas and oil are necessary evils and i want the best. i want the best, every time and at the cheapest price.

i never use coupons at the grocery store, rarely look for sales... but oil is different. i just hate giving oil companies my dollars. i have a longtime hatred of oil companies. i have bought my entire stash on sales and rebate and when possible, both. with OCD like certainty, i look at the sale and rebate section daily. there has not been a good rebate on a 4718 registered oil in ages.

but who cares? i have probably 3 years worth of oil stashed. i will continue to look for a good rebate every day, and i will not buy any more until one comes out. i hate oil companies, with a passion, but i still want them to subsidize my stash. i am changing my oil on sunday, and i have been looking forward to it for weeks.
 
Originally Posted By: pompadour
i never use coupons at the grocery store, rarely look for sales... but oil is different.


Its all relative, and im the opposite.

Now if for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction then im relative opposite action, thus cancelling each other out.
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Once every few months, GC will be $27.99 for 5 quarts and a filter. Thats cool beans.
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Originally Posted By: HangerHarley

Its all relative


totally fair. but a few times a year, there are good rebates. i wait for those and jump on them hard. most recently, the synpower and QS ultimate durability rebates were pretty good. they will allow me to do oil changes super cheap.

i also hate paying full price for filters. i doubt i will single handedly do any harm to advance auto or ac delco or wix by using sale codes. there always seem to be codes. ac delco filters for my car are $4.62. totally reasonable, but i just plain refuse to pay more than 80% of retail for them.

it is relative. we all have our quirks. mine is to do my own oil changes for less than $15, with the best oils.
 
not too expensive, i just bought 10quarts for $24 in quart bottles.

i will use those to make up the 6th quart in my crown vic police interceptor.


kmart FTW, that is all
 
Originally Posted By: Artem
^so you're saying, conventional is good for 9k yet synthetic you're afraid to run past 12k?


In a word yes, the oil itself holds contaminants , you can't get around this many ways other than adding some specialized filtration/system. You have say 5 quarts of oil, and all the contaminants will build up in each the same... just another way to look at things... however ZI have run synthetic out to 15k ( and plus) but I think the more wise decision is to shorten the OCI somewhat.. I'm not a 3k schedule by no means, but just because it says synthetic does not mean it will go 3 times as far.. Then I at least take into account that most if not all off the shelf synthetics are just beefed up conventional oils (grp III and this is not a grp III war, just my opinion based on research etc.. I also think it has many advantages both to conventional and true grp IV/V etc)

Everyone has their own views this is just mine, and I guess it would really blow your top to know that I run my oil filters for 2 consecutive runs when running conventional !! as per my owners manual etc.
 
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Originally Posted By: rclint
I guess it would really blow your top to know that I run my oil filters for 2 consecutive runs when running conventional !! as per my owners manual etc.


With Subaru mandated 6k km (3750 miles) OCIs running the filter for two consecutive OCIs is starting to make sense. I'm sure a P1 could handle a measly 12k km (7.5k miles). That brings my oil changes down to $4.50 each
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Now that's cheap!
 
webfors

I would guess you can make 7.5K on a P1 as I have hit 18-20K before with no problems, but that is very few times, when doing conventional I hold to around 7500 miles*2= 15K... unless getting cheap synthetic oil this is by far the most economical route for my, but my laziness kicks in, and I do put on a lot of miles around 100 mile round trip to work every day... so it's nice to extend my drain time out just a little helps a lot.

I would not worry about 7.5K on a P1 or even a purolator white can for that matter any, I think any mid tier filter could handle this with no problems.
 
If you're on this forum then you care about your oil and you will probably also know about all the oil sales that go on. I just got 8 Purolator Pure 1 oil filter's for just $24 total thanks to this forum.
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How about M1 for $12.00/ 5 qt jug after MIR?
How about PP for $5.00/ 5 qt jug after MIR?
How about M1 EP 15W-50 for two bucks a quart or so on clearance?
How about PP for $1.49/qt on clearance?
How about Edge for ~$2.00/qt with AA $10.00 off coupon and MIR?
These are the oils I have in my stash, among others.
Whether I drain them at 5K or not, they seem cheap enough.
Mt point is that if you can use quality syns at low price points, why wouldn't you?
You can't get any oil for much less than I do.
 
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
How about M1 for $12.00/ 5 qt jug after MIR?
How about PP for $5.00/ 5 qt jug after MIR?
How about M1 EP 15W-50 for two bucks a quart or so on clearance?
How about PP for $1.49/qt on clearance?
How about Edge for ~$2.00/qt with AA $10.00 off coupon and MIR?
These are the oils I have in my stash, among others.
Whether I drain them at 5K or not, they seem cheap enough.
Mt point is that if you can use quality syns at low price points, why wouldn't you?
You can't get any oil for much less than I do.


now that is my kind of stash! you set a great example by buying quality oils and being fiscally responsible. a great stash with no concessions.

whether full synthetics are too expensive may be debatable. i guess what it comes down to, is why pay retail when you do not have to. another BITOGer put it pretty well. he said something to the effect of "buy oil when you find good prices and deplete your stash when prices are high".
 
The most I paid for syn oil is Pennzoil Ultra 5W20 at $19.xx a case of 6 quarts and $17.xx a case for PU 10W30. I paid $2 or less per quart for M1, PP and Synpower, the least cost was Synpower at less than $0.00 a quart (I got some money in my pocket after mailed in 2 rebate forms to Kragen and Valvoline).

Black Friday $3.99/qt M1 at Pep Boys is too high for me.
 
all i know is 15 bucks for a name brand oil change with a Motorcraft filter is hard to pass up at walmart.
some folks have to choose between food and electricity right now
we are in a depression man.
if it gets any worse im gonna run bacon fat and used cooking oil in my truck! maybe i can blow the old filter out or something idk
 
I usually spend $15/5 gallon jug on average. This is total oil spending, as I use and have stashed both dino and synthetics of various brands (I use both, just separately). The least I've gotten oil sale here was my QS GB 10W30 which was $9.88/5L jug on WM rollback. Least expensive syn was PP (bought 5 and 10W30 jugs of it), at $19.88. I bought one jug of Syntec for $28.88 for the free Castrol cap it included
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I change my oil on short OCIs right now because I'm doing a cleaning phase, but plan to extend it out to 5k on dino and a little more on syn, especially in the summer whenh using my big stash of PP 10W30. I also burn one quart every 1,200 miles.

I get raped here on gas though, as its about $1.15/L, which makes oil cheap by comparison.

-Spyder
 
I look at it as planning ahead.
You know how many oil changes you'll do in a year based upon how much you drive your cars.
You know you'll need oil and filters to do those changes.
Why wouldn't you buy what you'll need when you can buy cheaply?
When the deals are too good to pass up, you add to your stash.
When the deals dry up, you deplete your stash.
Take advantage of closeouts, MIRs and coupon codes, and you can use syns and P1 oil filters for less money than the guy who doesn't plan ahead will spend using ST oil and filters.
 
Petroleum products are only going to go up, on average, with increasing scarcity and increasing demand. It is just a fact. However, they are not "too expensive" or we wouldn't continue to buy them--the law of supply and demand still works with regard to oil.

My personal opinion is that synthetics are probably worth the price if you can double your dino drain interval. I'm currently switching from a 5K average to a 10K average on one of my vehicles that sees mostly highway use. Along the way I'll gain better cold starting capability, probably a slight gain in fuel mileage (debatable), and better engine protection. I realize that dino protects sufficiently if changed at regular intervals, but why not go for the longer drains that help the environment, my wallet, and provide me with more leisure time?
 
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