Oil and OCI recomm for GM 3.8L? Long commute

[Dominic]

5W30 Valvoline Maxlife and 5000-7500mi OCIs worked great for mine.

 

[levi]

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My brother-in-law uses only 15W40 HDEO on his 1995 Olds 88 with the 3800 Series I with over 170,000 miles on the engine. The engine is smoother than my wifes Lexus.

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My '92 Olds Silhouette has the venerable 3.8. It also has 240K on it. Over half its life, I've used Rotella T 15W40 and it still runs great. Smooth!

IMO, you can run about anything you want to in this engine, and it'll be fine...

What color plastic bottle/jug do you prefer?

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[bmwtechguy]

Get some Schaeffers 5w30, either the blend (good for at least 10k miles) or the full synthetic, probably good for around 15k miles for your use. They have a 10w30, too, if you want to go by the book, but where you are located, I would use a 5w30, at least in the winter. There are many good suggestions in this thread. I have a Series I 3.8 in a 94 Lesabre that is rapidly approaching 300k miles, and it was switched over to synthetic around 140k miles. Two later treatments of ARX made it run all the better. Car now has slight rear main drip, but otherwise burns no oil. Car now has Schaeffers 5w30 and still gets great fuel economy.

 

[bobfather99]

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The Bonneville/Lesabre are probably the easiest cars in the world to change oil. I just roll a large floor jack under the front end where the frame member goes across and raise the front end up on its strut travel; the wheels never leave the ground. The drain plug is in easy reach and so is the filter. There's no excuse to run a long OCI on these cars is the point I'm making.

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I change mine the exact same way...

 

[aquariuscsm]

IMO, you can run about anything you want to in this engine, and it'll be fine...

What color plastic bottle/jug do you prefer?

*

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Yeah,the GM 3800`s seem bulletproof! Incredible engines!