Switching brands almost every oil change

I use a combination of whatever is on sale or convenient for me to go buy. If I'm at Costco and remember to buy a case of oil, I'll buy it there. I live 20 minutes from Costco so I won't go there just for oil. But Walmart is 7 minutes down the street and they have oil filters.
 
When was it ever a concern?
My Dad did it seemingly religiously on our cars and vans when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's and we never had an engine failure. The one car we lost to a fatal flaw was an old '74 Impala with a 400 that leaked enough oil through every gasket that we only changed the filter and topped off the oil about every 4 months. It eventually caught fire as I waited for a pilot car at a highway construction area on a hot summer day. Good times.
Now that they own an Ecoboost Escape, he sticks with Motorcraft oil and filters when he changes it
 
Yeah! never had a break down or any oil related problems, 200+ mileage with not one using oil between oil changes, could go on but you get the picture, that's thanks enough. :D


I was hoping this was going to be your answer....

And it's totally right.

A car that runs 200,000 plus miles that runs great still, does not burn any oil between changes and is clean as it can be inside.... Equals a big thank you from the car or truck.


Amazing to think that in the 70s and 80s if a car got to 100,000 miles it was considered very high mileage.


Now that is more like 250,000 miles plus. Amazing when you think about that. EFI and much better oils truly changed the ability of cars and trucks to run so much longer from the mid 80s going forward.
 
Now that is more like 250,000 miles plus. Amazing when you think about that. EFI and much better oils truly changed the ability of cars and trucks to run so much longer from the mid 80s going forward.
I believe that removing lead from gasoline also contributed to increasing engine longevity.
 
I change oil on 3 vehicles (mine, my wife's, my son's). Once or twice a year I stock up when someone has a sale and a rebate. I rarely pay more than $10-12 for a 5-qt jug of synthetic after rebate. I currently have a stash of around 70 quarts of Mobil 1, Valvoline, Castrol, Quaker State, Pennzoil and Rotella Gas Truck. All synthetic 5W30. All dirt cheap. I switch all of the time. If I have a bunch of a particular brand I'll tend to run it in the same vehicle several OCIs in a row until it is gone, but on my old truck (2002 Tacoma that I've owned since new) I just put whatever/whenever at this point. It usually gets the leftovers when I have 2-3 quarts of a couple of different brands of oil left. It is all synthetic 5W30 and the truck has over a quarter of a million miles and doesn't really care. :) My wife's and son's cars are newer and I don't mix oils in an oil change, but DO vary *between* OCIs. But as I said above, if I have several jugs of a particular oil in stock, I'll run it in one vehicle or the other in consecutive oil changes until it is used up.
 
Although its all anecdotal there are plenty of folks here that have vehicles with many hundreds of thousands of miles on them that have used whatever was on sale that meets the spec or have blended their own Frankenoil
Ive been doing this exact thing for about 15 years. Used to use Havoline conventional every time (that's what my dad always used), then I started searching out sales on synthetic oils and have not used the same oil more than 2 or 3 changes in a row since, even some frankenbrews when cleaning out the oil cabinet along the way. No issues to report.
 
My Mustang and Trax are going strong with whatever in spec oil I throw at them no matter what the brand. What's more important is proper and timely maintenance aling with a good filter. Have at it!
 
My Dad did it seemingly religiously on our cars and vans when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's and we never had an engine failure. The one car we lost to a fatal flaw was an old '74 Impala with a 400 that leaked enough oil through every gasket that we only changed the filter and topped off the oil about every 4 months. It eventually caught fire as I waited for a pilot car at a highway construction area on a hot summer day. Good times.
Now that they own an Ecoboost Escape, he sticks with Motorcraft oil and filters when he changes it
You were fortunate that your `74 only burned. Our `74 BelAir spontaneously crystallized the front U joint and the drive shaft catapulted the car, with my dad at the wheel, into a bridge abutment, then into a ditch. The cracked collarbone from the shoulder belt ended his cancer remission. Left me with a burning hate for GM products. (Pun intended.)
 
You were fortunate that your `74 only burned. Our `74 BelAir spontaneously crystallized the front U joint and the drive shaft catapulted the car, with my dad at the wheel, into a bridge abutment, then into a ditch. The cracked collarbone from the shoulder belt ended his cancer remission. Left me with a burning hate for GM products. (Pun intended.)
Between that and the engines and the tires you’ve had trouble with you’ve seen a lot of problems.
 
Between that and the engines and the tires you’ve had trouble with you’ve seen a lot of problems.
Could have been worse. Engine rebuilds at 100K to 138K miles with 1960s and 1970s tech metallurgy aren't unexpected. The Kumho tires weren't mine. They belonged to colleagues, were on rental cars, and were featured in a supreme court decision.
 
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