What is better

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Ok, I'm only adding this topic as a friend of my dumps his oil at 1500 miles and wants to know which is better. To use synthetic and dump it every 3000 or to use conventional and dump it every 1500. He wants to keep his engine crystal clean mind you
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LOL
 
Yes, but he wont do that. I was only asking this question for him. I really didn't even want to post it. He's a lunatice..I thought I was bad because I change my every 3 months regardles of mileage.
 
No, I was infering that after you drain his 3k young synthetic oil, you put it in your crankcase and run it for an additional 5k miles. Free oil!
 
I think the dino option would be better for the engine, except in cold winters. I also think it would be ridiculous to change it that often, except under certain unusual driving conditions.
 
Thats alright Mossad I change my oil at about
2k using either Castrol GTX or Havoline.
Keeps the motors nice and clean. No need for
Auto RX or any of the other flushes.
 
Tell him to use dino and change his oil every 5000 miles. Clean? Look in my '97 Northstar with almost 150,000 miles using this schedule. OCIs according to the GMOLM, cylinder head looks golden brown through the oil fill port, but I don't know much beyond that...never even had a cam cover off this engine.

Why doesn't he change his oil after every trip to the store?? That would surely keep it clean!
 
I don't fully agree with this but it's been stated here that it takes an oil some time to actually work at its optimum. That thinking would lead me to synth for 3k. I'd just use the cheapest grp 3 synth I could find.
 
Guys...you would have to meet him to know. He's way to cheap. He actually doesn't use synth, but will only use dino, and wanted confirmation that his engine will be in better shape dumping his dino every 1500 vs using synth and dumping that at 3000. All he uses is either Supertech or Havoline because both are so inexpensive.
I must admit, you would have to really wonder what condition at engine would be in if OCI's completed every 1500 miles. I would bet that his engine would be spotless next to and engine ran on synthetic and ran at higher OCI's.
 
quote:

Originally posted by mossad:
Guys...you would have to meet him to know. He's way to cheap. He actually doesn't use synth, but will only use dino, and wanted confirmation that his engine will be in better shape dumping his dino every 1500 vs using synth and dumping that at 3000. All he uses is either Supertech or Havoline because both are so inexpensive.
I must admit, you would have to really wonder what condition at engine would be in if OCI's completed every 1500 miles. I would bet that his engine would be spotless next to and engine ran on synthetic and ran at higher OCI's.


These two things in the same sentence don't make sense. Establishing the fact that he is cheap, and will only use dino, would indicate he should be using dino for 3000 miles. Havoline for 3k would certainly be fine, as well as ST. I doubt his engine is one bit cleaner with 1.5k dino OCI's vs. Synth at 3k. That would depend on driving habits and engine design regardless of the OCI.
 
How often is he changing the filter?

If he is one of the "change filter every second oil change" guys then i think "lunatice" does not do him justice
grin.gif


If he is changing the filter every time then it starts to eat into any cost argument. eg
2 x Dino + 2 x Filter is likely to be closer in total cost to 1 x Synth + 1 x Filter.

While the above detail adds to the background, it does not change my recommendation. Of the two choices I vote for "Synth every 3000".

I think Dino every 1500 is manifestly insane under all but the most strange conditions (eg something like driven all city miles in extreme temperatures a total of only 1000 miles a year). As others have posted, there has recently been some interesting data showing that oil often shows lowest wear numbers somewhere around 2000-3000 miles in. So your friend doing Dino changes at 1500 may actually be doing more harm than leaving it in for 3000.

On the other hand I change my GF's oil about every 2000 miles, because it takes her 6 months to do that and her trips are mainly two or three miles. I just figure that with short trips like that a twice year OCI is worth it.

I admit to doing many 3000 mile changes of Mobil 1 and Mahle filters in my Porsches. Do I think it was necessary? No. Wasteful? Possibly. But generally these were motivated by things like changing grade for seasonal reason, having the car in for service for other reasons. My current Pcar will not be Winter driven so I no longer worry about seasonal grade changes. For the 7 months a year it is driven a total of about 5500 miles it will get a fill on 0w40 synthetic. Once a year OCI now.
 
quote:

Originally posted by mossad:
He is changing filter along with the oil.
Also, his car smells like a rolling oil refinery because it is dripping/leaking oil/burning oil every second the engine runs. He is continually adding makeup oil. Heck, after 3 months, he may not even have the original OCI oil in there due to the number of times he is always adding new oil to top off.


so why is he even bothering changing the oil every 1500 miles if he is pouring new oil for makeup continuously?
nono.gif
 
quote:

Originally posted by mossad:
He is changing filter along with the oil.
Also, his car smells like a rolling oil refinery because it is dripping/leaking oil/burning oil every second the engine runs.


This sentence alone is proof that what is he doing hasn't worked if it's burning oil every second the engine runs.
Time to forget this guy and move on.
 
quote:

Originally posted by Bryanccfshr:
No, I was infering that after you drain his 3k young synthetic oil, you put it in your crankcase and run it for an additional 5k miles. Free oil!

funny you should say that
I had an old mechanic that
use to change my oil that had say 20K on it and he'd run it another three to five in his old beater

I asked him why

he said I changed my oil too early
frown.gif


oh well

He used my gear oil too :-(
 
quote:

Originally posted by peterr:
How often is he changing the filter?

If he is one of the "change filter every second oil change" guys then i think "lunatice" does not do him justice
grin.gif
....


Please, elaborate on that thought.
 
He is changing filter along with the oil.
Also, his car smells like a rolling oil refinery because it is dripping/leaking oil/burning oil every second the engine runs. He is continually adding makeup oil. Heck, after 3 months, he may not even have the original OCI oil in there due to the number of times he is always adding new oil to top off.
 
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