What Year Did you Start Using Synthetic Motor Oil?

Mobil 1 1987. I "tested it" at the Car Craft Nationals DuQuoin Illinois. Car, 1966 Chevy II, "mild" 355 small block / 350 turbo automatic, 3.54 gears. Day 1. 98°. Pennzoil conventional 10W30, hot (201° water temp) idle 800 RPM oil pressure, 22lbs. Day 2. Hotter...99°/100° Mobil 1 5W30, hot (201°-212° water temp) idle 800 RPM oil pressure, 32lbs. New NAPA Gold 1060 both days. 3 core radiator with 12" fan, 5qt total capacity. Cruised both days. Normally water temp stayed around 170°-185° driving around, then the Pennzoil would stay at hot idle 28-32lbs. Anything over 900/1000 RPM oil pressure would be 60'ish lbs, both oils. I have no idea how hot the oil temp got. But that proved synthetic oil to me. Been using it ever since.
 
1977 Original Mobil1
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The year was 1985 after talking with Smoky Yunich. Back then he mixed his own. I asked him about Amsoil and he had tested it and liked it. So I became a dealer and I use Amsoil in everything since. I'v had no mechanical issue caused by lubrication over the ensuing years. Highly recommend, they even have a 0w16 oil and European specific oils.
 
2004
Had a 2000 Intrepid with the Chrysler 2.7.
Switched to synth after my first tensioner failure to [try to] combat the blossoming sludge/varnish/timing chain issues that were becoming well-known with this model.
 
Tried the Original Mobil One in the early eighties (1981?) Drove around the block - then the drained it at great cost.
Engine ran poor. Excessively Noisy. Likely, it was too thin. That was a excellent GM2.8L V6 with the good heads and the good flowing Rochester VARAjet carburetor. It was in a nice Short box, STD cab S10 2wd with some Asian 4 speed MT.

Back to Havoline 10W30 dino and all was well.

Rochester VARAjet: Impressive Carburetion for the 80's smaller engines:

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I think 2008 . Was using SHELL Full Synthetic 5w-30 that was available at BJs Wholesale for under $3 a quart . It was a 6 quart box . Still have 1 full quart left from the year in picture . Was used once in place of the 5w-30 . Looked in bottom of the bottle pictured and no dropout like its relative Pennzoil Platinum does . Always shake rigorously before use .
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1993 Amsoil 10W-30 with our 1993 Toyota Pickup after 500 mile break-in period of the new vehicle. Used synthetic ever since.
 
I may have thrown a quart in my chevelle or trans am but I didnt spend the money for full sumps until 1990 my mitsubishi eclipse turbo.
Thing is I may have drained 1-2 sumps, but for most of 80K I changed the filter at 3-5K and replaced the missing amount.
Granpda winced - he was right, I shouldn't have done that.
 
2016 in new to me, mint condition Mercedes W210, synthetic engine oil and ATF. Never cared about oil before and everything had 10/15w40.
 
2007 when I got my learner's permit as a teenager. I immediately got placed on oil change duty and basically was free to throw any oil in the cart at Wal-Mart for our cars. In my mom's 2001 Ford Taurus with the 3.0 Vulcan motor I tried pretty much every mid-priced synthetic around (no Royal Purple or Mobil 1 Annual Protection) and would regularly change synthetic out at 3000 miles religiously. Between said 3000 mile changes it used almost no oil. I didn't know about the synthetic causing leaks in vehicles ran with conventional thing until relatively recently. My favorite running oils were Valvoline and Mobil 1 0W20. I read about 0W20 in some sort of Import Tuner or similar magazine back then and just had to try it out, haha.

Weirdly, though, as a comparatively old man, I'm much more likely to just use conventional or synthetic blend in stuff. One vehicle I owned, a 1997 Galant, I used a NAPA Gold filter and Supertech conventional (not even high mileage, just normal green label conventional) 5w30, and ran it this way for about 40K miles. It would use almost no oil between changes at 5-7K doing this. I switched to conventional in it as money got tighter and I stopped having my cool Import Tuner dreams and viewed the car just as an appliance like "adults" do. I was pretty religious with PCV maintenance and would spray the valve out once a year or so with WD40 or brake cleaner, and there was only light varnish on the head when I pulled the valve cover off.

However, towards the end of its life, I got a bug up my ass to use Rotella HDEO synthetic blend 10w30 for a few oil changes, and shortly after it started leaking a lot more and developed a major front crank seal leak. That eventually spurred me to sell the car, since it would leak a quart every 10 miles or so. I can't say for certain the oil choice alone was the reason, but now I'm hesitant to use synthetic in stuff. Even my mom's Five Hundred, I ran a Valvoline synthetic 0w20 in it once and it leaked quite a bit more compared to the Motorcraft 5w20 synthetic blend I normally used.

So, a story of someone converting back to dino, haha. I do like how synthetics run for sure, and do notice a smoothness difference usually, but now I err on the side of caution. I don't think I've ever taken any oil change beyond 7000-8000 miles based on how black the oil gets and the difference I perceive in engine smoothness, I'd rather go conventional/syn blend and just change it more often.
 
2007 when I got my learner's permit as a teenager. I immediately got placed on oil change duty and basically was free to throw any oil in the cart at Wal-Mart for our cars. In my mom's 2001 Ford Taurus with the 3.0 Vulcan motor I tried pretty much every mid-priced synthetic around (no Royal Purple or Mobil 1 Annual Protection) and would regularly change synthetic out at 3000 miles religiously. Between said 3000 mile changes it used almost no oil. I didn't know about the synthetic causing leaks in vehicles ran with conventional thing until relatively recently. My favorite running oils were Valvoline and Mobil 1 0W20. I read about 0W20 in some sort of Import Tuner or similar magazine back then and just had to try it out, haha.

Weirdly, though, as a comparatively old man, I'm much more likely to just use conventional or synthetic blend in stuff. One vehicle I owned, a 1997 Galant, I used a NAPA Gold filter and Supertech conventional (not even high mileage, just normal green label conventional) 5w30, and ran it this way for about 40K miles. It would use almost no oil between changes at 5-7K doing this. I switched to conventional in it as money got tighter and I stopped having my cool Import Tuner dreams and viewed the car just as an appliance like "adults" do. I was pretty religious with PCV maintenance and would spray the valve out once a year or so with WD40 or brake cleaner, and there was only light varnish on the head when I pulled the valve cover off.

However, towards the end of its life, I got a bug up my ass to use Rotella HDEO synthetic blend 10w30 for a few oil changes, and shortly after it started leaking a lot more and developed a major front crank seal leak. That eventually spurred me to sell the car, since it would leak a quart every 10 miles or so. I can't say for certain the oil choice alone was the reason, but now I'm hesitant to use synthetic in stuff. Even my mom's Five Hundred, I ran a Valvoline synthetic 0w20 in it once and it leaked quite a bit more compared to the Motorcraft 5w20 synthetic blend I normally used.

So, a story of someone converting back to dino, haha. I do like how synthetics run for sure, and do notice a smoothness difference usually, but now I err on the side of caution. I don't think I've ever taken any oil change beyond 7000-8000 miles based on how black the oil gets and the difference I perceive in engine smoothness, I'd rather go conventional/syn blend and just change it more often.

A quart every 10 miles isn't leaking that arterial hemorrhaging.
 
Probably around 2001. That was the year that I bought a V-8 Dodge Dakota. 5W30 Valvoline Synpower. Before that it was Motorcraft Synthetic Blend or Havoline Synthetic Blend.
 
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2004, per the advice of this site for my 1997 Camry with sludge-prone engine. M1 slowly cleaned it over the course of 3 OCI - about a year. That car ran fine for 20 years.
 
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