Using different oils each time

[dlundblad]

Why does this wives tale live on?

This may have been the case back in the days of the waxy Pennzoil, but why do people say it now?

I know a guy that does mechanic and body work on the side of his other job. Very smart guy, but he thinks its a bad idea to change oils.

 

[InvalidUserID]

I usually feed my cars whatever quality oil I get on sale. In the past, it's been PP, QSUD, M1EP, etc.

The only downside for me is remembering which oil I used come sending it in for UOA.

 

[fdcg27]

I think that there might be some advantages in staying with a given oil.
You can only get clean UOA results after a few runs of a given oil and your UOA results are really only valid for that oil.
I usually run any given oil for at least a few OCIs, which is easy to do since I load up on oil when it's cheap.
OTOH, back in the day, I changed brands and even mixed them without hesitation.
I have no UOAs from those engines, from back before BITOG or even Grp III syns existed, but I never retired a car as a result of a dirty or otherwise impaired engine.
It might be better not to switch back and forth between an oil using sodium and those that don't, but I doubt that anyone would see any difference in engine life.
Use whatever you want on any OCI.
There's too much experience to the contrary to think that it would be any sort of problem.

 

[EA82]

Just look at " Post Your Latest Oil Change " thread, most people don't put in what they drain out.

 

[Jiblet]

Originally Posted By: laserred96gt
Just look at " Post Your Latest Oil Change " thread, most people don't put in what they drain out.


That could be self-selection bias. Maybe people who don't switch also don't post there...

 

[Zaedock]

Using different name brand oils every oil change is perfectly fine.

What's more important is actually changing your oil.

 

[artificialist]

Even if you used the same brand and viscosity of oil every time, you would still end up with different oil at times, simply because oil manufacturers have to make changes to their formulas to meet newer specifications.

So I guess this makes the debate even more confusing.