long time syn advocate needs opinions

[Hillbastard]

I have long used and praised the protection gained by using synthetic oil, but after reading some of the UOA's on this forum it looks like from a engine wear standpoint (under normal conditions, non turbo or high performance) that I am waisting my money.
Mobil 1 has been my oil of choice and I ran a 2001 E350 5.4 285K on 15W50 when I lived in central FLA and it ran like a top when I sold it.

Now I live in a colder (WV) climate and run M1 10W30 regular syn in my wife's 97 Venture with 178K, I have a 95 4.3 caprice that I currently have 10W30 Supertech SYN in only because I plan on a 5.7 swap.

What is your opinions on changing over to a Rotella T syn 5W40 in the Venture after 178K miles, wouldn't this be hard on the seals with this oils increased detergents?

The Caprice is definitely going on dino, what do you recommend for a dino oil that has a good reputation for low wear and low cost, I know about the ZDDP thing but it doest seem to make much difference as far as wear is concerned, that and staying on the inside of the seals is my only issues besides cost.

Thanks for any opinions you care to share.

 

[c3po]

I knew a guy who used regular oil, then went to synthetic, and then he went back to regular dino oil and he threw a rod and destroyed his engine, I would think that living in a colder climate you would benefit from the cold flow properties of a synthetic oil, how long have you been using synthetic, Synthetic oil is the factory fill on corvettes, if I am not mistaken before synthetic oil was the factory fill on corvettes they had oil coolers on them and when they went to synthetic they no longer put them on. The car that threw the rod was a Chevy product and I believe the Caprice is a Chevrolet product.

 

[REDDOG]

1. Changing over to Rotella T synthetic should not pose a problem, especially in a vehicle previous run on synthetic.

2. It is my honest opinion any reputable SM rated oil will suffice for resonable drains of 3-5k. Pick what is available/you can get a good deal on/you have a personal preference for. My .02.

REDDOG

 

[glennc]

Hill, I came to exactly the same conclusion as you after finding BITOG a couple of years ago and switched back to conventionals for almost all applications in my garage, either conventional PCMOs or HDEOs. Only exception is Maxlife, which I really like and which is a Grp II/III blend, but which costs about the same as conventionals. I have not had any problems and have been very happy with the performance of the oils I have been using.

Another factor that affected my decision is that most of the REALLY high-mileage vehicles I seem to hear about are run on conventional oil their whole lives, such as the recent 1,000,000 mile Chevy.

Synthetic users come back with the cleanliness argument, but I don't really see any way to test or measure the correctness of the claim that synthetics keep an engine cleaner. And if they do, it does not seem to affect wear or longevity.

Another good argument for synthetics that sometimes comes up is that if you have a cooling system failure and radically overheat the motor, the synthetics will give you a greater margin of safety before forming hard deposits in sensitive areas - that is, of course, if the engine survives the heat itself.

Synthetics are also better if properly used for long drains, 10k - 15k+.

 

[Hillbastard]

I know the synthetics and especialy HD synthetics look to offer more protection on paper going by the levels of ZDDP, cold pour and flash point etc., I just cant believe the wear metal levels in the reports don't reflect this.

I know any SM oil is fine bla bla bla, but would like opinions based on looking at the wear metal levels of these oil reports, I have only looked around on here for a few days and although interesting find it hard to digest the vast amount of info.

It seems to me like going off memory these would be some top dino's:

Pennzoil 10W30 Yellow
Castrol 10W30 GTX (although I swore not to ever buy it based on to much advertising money spent and the annoying commercials)
Supertech 10W30

You guys are a lot more educated on this than I, and would like to here what you would use for a cheap dino, if you had to stick with one brand.

 

[Dyoel182]

Originally Posted By: Hillbastard


It seems to me like going off memory these would be some top dino's:

Penzoil 10W30 Yellow
Castrol 10W30 GTX
Supertech 10W30


Add Quaker State, Mobil Drive Clean and Formula Shell among many many others.

 

[Hillbastard]

Add Quaker State, Mobil Drive Clean and Formula Shell among many many others.[/quote]

I always heard bad stuff on Quakerstate probably unwarranted I'm sure, like the other 2 just have not found the great UOA's like on Pennzoil and Castrol.

 

[Hillbastard]

How do you quote just a section like that?

 

[Vincent_Vega]

That QS [censored] is totally unfounded on the basis of todays SM rated oils. Any SM rated oil is just fine for a 5k drain interval.

 

[Hillbastard]

Like I said before about the QS, I am probably wrong, not trying to ruffle feathers.

Just thought someone might say they have noticed less wear in the UOA's with brand X dino, I am not trying to start **** just trying to get a recommendation from a educated enthusiast, instead of a TV commercial or a seat of the pants opinion.

If anyone wants to share a (specific brand) recommendation, thanks in advance.

 

[glennc]

Pennzoil yellow has had some very good UOAs recently and Havoline has always been good. Just my impressions. If you did a mathematical analysis I'm not sure there would be any statistically significant differences between any of them.

 

[Hillbastard]

Thanks for your opinion, I agree, the Pennzoil UOA's look just as good as the syn UOA's as far as wear metals is concerned.

This is still a gut felling though as no 2 engines are alike.

 

[Eddie]

A major piece of the puzzle on Syn or dino is the oil change interval. For normal driving (non turbo etc) there is no difference if the OCI is <=5,000 but run to 8,000 or 12,000 and the results might be quite different in favor of Syn.

 

[TokyoJoe]

Originally Posted By: c3po
I knew a guy who used regular oil, then went to synthetic, and then he went back to regular dino oil and he threw a rod and destroyed his engine, I would think that living in a colder climate you would benefit from the cold flow properties of a synthetic oil, how long have you been using synthetic, Synthetic oil is the factory fill on corvettes, if I am not mistaken before synthetic oil was the factory fill on corvettes they had oil coolers on them and when they went to synthetic they no longer put them on. The car that threw the rod was a Chevy product and I believe the Caprice is a Chevrolet product.

Molecules of synthetic oil is much smaller than those of regular dino oil. There are more molecules in the same amount of oil compared to dino oil meaning that synthetic oil is much denser than dino oil. So, synthetic oil takes longer to warm up and even longer to radiate heat just like a piece of metal and wood under the summer sun. Metal is too hot to touch but wood is cool . It makes more sense to have an oil cooler if the oil is synthetic. You may think that synthetic is more durable under extreme heat, yes, oil itself is, but its viscosity improver(usually polymer)breaks down and becomes sludge. The original viscosity of synthetic oil is "0" compared to "100" of paraffin based oil. That's why synthetic oil's additives count for 70-80% compared to 10-20% of the dino oil. To me, oil with less additives is better when it comes to engine protection.

 

[XPR]

Its not true at all that 70-80% of a synthetic oil is additives. In fact because of the way synthetics are made, they need less additives. Synthetic oils do not need pour point depressants like "dino" oils. Synthetic oil molecules are uniform not always smaller.

Sounds like you have no idea what your talking about TokyoJoe.

 

[Hillbastard]

What XPR said.

I should have elaborated on what my intent was with my OCI's to get a more informed opinion I agree, I am the type not to leave it in much past 4500 miles, always a couple minutes of idle at warm up (I never force anything to a RPM that is unnecessary beyond keeping it running at start up) and grandma it until at full operating temp.

 

[dnewton3]

Let me get this straight:

c3po, you're crediting a thrown rod to an oil brand swap?

And TokyoJoe is saying that synthetics are 80% additives, and that synthetics are "denser than dino oil" so it takes longer to warm up?

You guys are just killing me here.

I don't even know where to begin to debunk all this manure, but I'll give it the ol' college try ...

Typically, a "thrown" con-rod happens from the MASSIVE amount of forces generated from grossly over-revving an engine. Other than that, oil has NO ABILITY to push a con-rod out of an engine block and "destroy" the engine. Further, even if oil were to be a suspect here (which I vehemently disagree with) it would be in regard to a failed bearing, not a thrown rod.

And to suggest that synthetics are denser (as a group) than dino oils is pure poo as well. Density is typically described as a ratio or percentage of numeric value when compared to water, and it's usually stated as specific density, or specific gravity. (here's a wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_gravity). Now most any typical engine oil is lighter than water, so they all have a specific gravity less than 1. I know that there will be small and subtle differences between brands and viscosities, but in general they are nearly all the same. I am not a triboligist, but bear with me here. Just because a molecule is smaller does not mean it's denser. If I remember chemistry correctly, the fields of electrons, protons and neutrons are all in play, some faster or slower, some with larger fields and some with smaller fields. The distance between molecules is effected by the fields themselves, the number of protons and electrons, the heat energy available in that molecule, and so on. Here's a link to substantiate this: http://www.uam.es/departamentos/ciencias/qfa/DAM/chemicalforces.html
. If you look closely, you'll see that some molecules can have more "parts" but less inter-respective energy, so the density would be nearly the same.

Further, go to the Mobil Oil web site, and you'll find that (PAO based) Mobil 1 is around .80 specific gravity, but the Mobil Clean 5000 (dino) is actually .86 SG, SO THE DINO IS DENSER. Futher, look at the Penzoil web page, where the Penzoil Platinum (group III) and the conventional Penzoil are BOTH AT .86 SG. What this shows is that there might be a difference in density based upon base oil stock group, but since "synthetic" is such an over used term for nearly any oil nowdays, it's fair to say that most any oil has approximately a SG of around .8x or so.

And while I do agree that density of a liquid can effect energy transfer (the effect of something "warming up" faster or slower) it has little if any bearing on engine oil. The typical water cooled 4 stroke engine first heats the piston and cylinder head, and everything else draws heat from that interaction. The head heats the coolant, which flows constantly, but not into the radiator until the thermostate opens up. Then the coolant helps heat the block, and so forth. Actually, the oil is one of the last things to come up to temperature, because the bulk of it is usually in the pan, where gravity keeps it. The pan is the farthest from the heat source (heads)and also has a great surface area with a thin metal barrier. And while there is a thin layer of oil laying on the cylinder walls and bottom of piston, that pales in comparison to the inches of oil in the pan. Well, you should get the picture by now.

 

[dnewton3]

Hillbastard - regarding your intent for OCI's (5k miles or less) there is really no reason not to use any good oil brand you can find on sale, perhaps in a 5w-30 for both your vehicles.

There are mounds of UOA's to support this conclusion. Just spend some time looking at them. A word of caution; never accept or reject an oil based upon one UOA. Many people here are well intentioned, but sometimes they lack the fortitute to truly use UOA's as they should be, which is a long term statistical analysis tool for charting ranges and trends.

Overall, I think that your limited OCI length will lend itself to nearly any decent brand of dino oil. For all that it matters, choose by the color of the bottle; it truly will make that little of difference. Mobil, PZ, Castrol, QS, Shell, and on and on. I'm running QS dino in my rinse phase of ARX right now in my Taurus; no problems whatsoever. Further, I've never had an engine issue that was related to actual failure of the lubricant. Sure, there are lube system failures (failed oil pump, etc). But actual lubricant failure (chemical breakdown, etc) is rare, and usually is the result of negligence, and not the oil's fault (coolant intrusion, excessive OCI, etc). Typically my luck has been overheating, and oil brand selection isn't going to solve that problem anyway.

 

[Hillbastard]

I now there is no miracle cure for normal engine wear, but I would have to say their has to be differences in various brands(and different weights and API ratings of those brands) ability to produce the least amount of wear possible, that's all I am asking advice on is the most cost effective way to get the least amount of wear as possible.

Thanks for the responses,

 

[Hillbastard]

Dnewton3, you admit there are (decent brands) of dino oil, so there must be a (indecent oil) that one could use and get less desirable results than with other better performing oils, admittedly the difference is probably small, but why not use the best choice one has.