Originally Posted By: Nodak
Thanks 08 Sienna for the info.What about the QS synthetic? Is that a decent one to run? I have never used synthetic oil and the corolla I bought as I said earlier has had Mobil 1 in it. Should I stay with the M1 or can I use QS without too much worry?
As far as the conventional oil goes, does cheaper basestock mean I should stick with the valvoline that I have been using for years or should I switch to Pennzoil?
quaker state synthetic is what i run in most of my cars. it is a high quality synthetic that also happens to be priced pretty cheap. it's usually only about $5 more than a conventional at walmart so it's worth it to me to have the piece of mind of having synthetic in my vehicles. and since you are in north dakota where you will be seeing colder temperatures, a synthetic will definitely help during the winter. for the summer, like others mentioned, if you want to save some money you can still run conventional, it won't really make a difference.
on the conventionals..they are all pretty much the same. you can use any name brand with no worries. on that website i sent you a link to, you can see quaker state has a higher TBN than valvoline, which is basically the amount of additives or detergents in the oil. calcium is a cleaning additive, and you can see quaker state has more of that. then phosphorous and zinc are anti-wear additives and they both have similar amounts of those. molybdenum and boron also help with cleaning and are usually more expensive than calcium. if you research all the different things on that spreadsheet a little you can come to your own conclusion on what are the better oils, but IMO valvoline and castrol are a little more lackluster than some of the others.
also there is no reason for you to run a 10w-30. u should stick with a 5w-30 year-round. or if you are going to run a synthetic you could run a 0w-30, but it will probably cost a little more.
