Recommended oil for HIGH MILEAGE festy

[yamir_h]

I know this is one of the most basic of basics but ive never really payed attention to what kind of oil goes in my festy and i usually have some other place like wally-world do it for me but im finding it harder to trust them. My festiva currently has about 200,000+ miles on it and i need to change my oil.
What kind of oil should i put in it? im not very good with viscosity and all that and knowing all you guys out there must have some experience with oil? :wink:
thanks alot.

-Yamir

[darkdan]

First I need to know a few things.

#1 What type of climate do you live in?
#2 Interested in extended drains?
#3 Do you have an unfounded unreasonable fear of synthetics?
#4 Will you now be doing it yourself?
#5 Budget?
#6 How much oil does your car currently consume?


Answer those and I'll give you two to four good recommendations.

Regardless of your answers I will tell you to do 2 treatments of www.auto-rx.com and you'll thank me later for it. The stuff sounds like snake oil, but it does work. Frank is a great guy and will also refund your money if you're not happy.

Here's an independent test done by a skeptic:

http://rms13.com/

[yamir_h]

#1 South Texas, hot usually humid
#2 ??
#3 no, dont think so
#4 yes
#5 dont care
#6 less than a quart a month

and BTW, ive read numerous posts of yours about auto-rx and have been wanting to do it for quite some time so im definitely gonna do that.

-Yamir

[HappyMom]

Don't want to highjack yamir's thread but I'm interested too....

#1 Montreal (cold winter down to -20°F hot summer up to 95°F)
#2 I have an unfounded fear of extended drains
#3 Something about the cleaning power of synthetic oil; cleans the sludge out of holes and then your motor is a sieve.... Wait...I think I know the answer... is it www.auto-rx.com ??
#4 YES, Can't be that hard
#6 Nothing significant, never add any between oil changes car has 120000 miles

Re #2 On the new rolla, the recommended interval is 8000kms (5000 miles!) That freaks me out, I'm used to 5000 kms intervals or 3 months. At least they recommend 5W30, which means oil changes don't have to be planned around the weather.

Can someone sell me on synthetic oil

[studdyhalllooser]

i second that notion

1-north mississippi-high 90s summer, rarely below freezing in the winter
2-extended drains?
3-im the only one in the world who doesnt know the diference between synthetic and non. whats the dif?
4-always do it myself
5-dont matter
6-one quart per month at the most....drips thru the valve seals when it sits cold.

what weight should i use? i plan on using auto-rx by the way as well next oil change. looks impressive
my mileage is a lot...should be in my signature
make this a sticky if you can respond to all of us!
if not thanks anyway

[darkdan]

#1 South Texas, hot usually humid
#2 ??
#3 no, dont think so
#4 yes
#5 dont care
#6 less than a quart a month

and BTW, ive read numerous posts of yours about auto-rx and have been wanting to do it for quite some time so im definitely gonna do that.

-Yamir

1.) 10w30
2.) It means realizing that 3 months/3k miles is a way for jiffy lube to make more money
3.) Good

Conventional Oils (in order of preference):

1.) Rotella T 10w30 $11 for a gallon
2.) Supertech Synthetic $3.06 a quart
3.) Havoline/Chevron Supreme 10w30

Synthetic Motor oils:

1.) AMSOIL ATM 10w30 About $5.50 a quart after shipping
2.) Mobil1 10w30 EP
3.) Pennzoil Plat

Conventional Drain schedule every 3,000 to 4,000 miles depending on driving habits (lots of highway miles means 4k).

Synthetic. I'd start out at 7,500 mile intervals. If you want to go further I recommend spending the $20 to have your oil tested. It will show you wear metals and basically "life remaining" in the oil. My aspire with 141k miles will soon be on 12k mile OCI (oil change intervals).

[darkdan]

Don't want to highjack yamir's thread but I'm interested too....

#1 Montreal (cold winter down to -20°F hot summer up to 95°F)
#2 I have an unfounded fear of extended drains
#3 Something about the cleaning power of synthetic oil; cleans the sludge out of holes and then your motor is a sieve.... Wait...I think I know the answer... is it www.auto-rx.com ??
#4 YES, Can't be that hard
#6 Nothing significant, never add any between oil changes car has 120000 miles

Re #2 On the new rolla, the recommended interval is 8000kms (5000 miles!) That freaks me out, I'm used to 5000 kms intervals or 3 months. At least they recommend 5W30, which means oil changes don't have to be planned around the weather.

Can someone sell me on synthetic oil

It won't cause a leak, the leak is already there. It's best to fix it once you find it. New front seal takes about an hour and a half. Valve cover gasket takes 10 minutes....we're lucky.

Summer:

Rotella T 10w30, Supertech Synthetic 10w30

Winter:

Since you fear extended drains synthetics would be a waste of money. Supertech syn (Tech2000 in Canada) 5w30.


Now, you might wonder why I keep calling ST Synthetic a conventional oil. It's a group III hydrocracked oil. That means it's just a highly refined conventional oil that castrol threw a hissy fit over so it can be called synthetic....but it's not really.

A GREAT oil for $3 a quart. Not exactly on par with real synthetics (Mobil1, AMSOIL, Esso, Elf, RP, and Red Line), but just as good (if not better) than QS syn, Valvoline syn, Most of the Syntec line, etc for much less money.

[darkdan]

i second that notion

1-north mississippi-high 90s summer, rarely below freezing in the winter
2-extended drains?
3-im the only one in the world who doesnt know the diference between synthetic and non. whats the dif?
4-always do it myself
5-dont matter
6-one quart per month at the most....drips thru the valve seals when it sits cold.

what weight should i use? i plan on using auto-rx by the way as well next oil change. looks impressive
my mileage is a lot...should be in my signature
make this a sticky if you can respond to all of us!
if not thanks anyway

You have a similar situation as many people. 10w30 in the summer if it's a conventional oil, 5w30 in the winter. If you choose synthetic you can run 10w30 all year around since it flows better while cold. I did it once in Minnesota. I'm sure 10w30 wasn't the best choice, but I had no trouble starting my crown vic in the dead of winter....thanks AMSOIL.

Auto-rx should help the valve seals if they're just dirty. If they're damaged...sorry.

With auto-rx use the cheapest conventional oil you can find. It won't be in there long enough to matter. If you think one of your phases is going to last into the winter pick 5w30. Otherwise, enjoy the added protection that 10w30 will provide.

[studdyhalllooser]

thanks man.

[gomer]

Just thought I'd add my $0.02 here ...

Most store brand oils are made by major refiners , if the ratings are good it's a good oil (SG SH etc...) ,, the only time I've seen trash being sold is at convenience stores where they're selling non-detergent oil , grade SA ... even the "Pennsylvania" oils are parrafin free now so don't be too brand conscious.. WalMart at $0.86 a quart (or $1.19 for their version of 15/40 rotella) is GREAT.

You can almost always go 7500 miles on a high grade conventional oil ,,, Consumer reports did a test that went well over 100,000 miles on a NYC taxi fleet , started with new identical motors ,, talk about extended idling , high heat and extreme cold ... NO DIFFERENCE IN WEAR observed in the engine teardowns at the end of the test compared to 3000 mile drains...

Although it may not correlate directly to cars,, I'd like to throw out for consideration that Mobil Oil paid for about 15,000 new aircraft engines in the early 1990's ,, you see their full synthetic aircraft oil (and other brands of full synthetic aircraft oils) were terrible at carrying sludge and dirt in suspension ,, they allowed ring lands to get jammed up with dirt and lead (aircraft fuel is still heavily leaded and the air cooled engines are run very rich during a great deal of their run time) causing engine failure. In my opinion semi-synthetics give the best of all worlds at a reasonable cost ,, excellent protection and they carry dirt in suspension many times better than a full synthetic to your filter.. No-One makes a full synthetic aircraft oil at this time for piston motors.

It has been my experience that synthetic oils will definitely get past marginal seals where a conventional oil won't... If I had a tight leak free motor at any mileage I'd go semi or full synthetic ,, If you're worried about bad stem seals/crank seals or others I'd go conventional..

As for weights follow the manufacturers suggestions... almost everyone recommends a 5-30 or so for winter and a 10-30 or 10-40 for summer except for desert type environments where I'd go with a straight 30W or 40W so I wouldn't have to worry about viscosity modifiers going bad and leaving me with a too-thin oil...

[yamir_h]

thanks for all the info. thanks dan for the recommendations.

-Yamir

[darkdan]

gomer, please tell me you're not talking about that "study" that was done in 1993.

Taxi cabs are no wear near normal service. Hardest thing on an engine? Cold starts. Taxi cabs might idle all the time, but have a lot less cold starts.

Also, the reduction of wear in synthetics has been shown to be about 10% in most applications. So nothing major. Extended drains is the huge thing.

7500 miles on a conventional oil? Not likely unless the engine was designed for that. With API SM and GF-4 4k to 5k is easy for most, but 7500 would definetly require a larger sump.

If your car is capable of 7,500 mile drains on conventional oil then with synthetics triple that would be easy street and maybe even further.

Synthetics getting past seals? Maybe a little bit, but doubtful. That would have much more to do with viscosity. Since all brands make their viscosity different then you can't blame synthetics. For instance, Mobil1 likes to have about 10 cSt for their 30s. That's at the lower range. AMSOIL keeps theirs in the upper 11s to 12 cSt.

Many people experience increased consumption during their first OCI or two with synthetics. This is because the synthetics better additive package is leaking past seals as it cleans. But in a clean motor consumption should be lower with synthetic due to it's higher flash point and lower volatility.

As far as semi-synthetics carrying more dirt....that's too much of a blanket statement. That completely comes down to detergent/dispersant additive package of the oil. Plus, most semi-synthetics aren't a 50/50 mix, but rather as little as 10% of group III (hydrocracked) oil is added and it's labelled. For instance, Valvoline has been notorious as going as light on the detergents/dispersants for a long time now.

Obviously piston engined aircraft is the exception to the rule and not the rule. In turbine engines synthetics are wonderful!

Most 10w30s are decently shear stable. Especially synthetics which usually contain little to no polymer viscosity index improvers. Conventional 5w30s are not shear stable. Regardless of construction 10w40s are never shear stable. They are IMO the worst oils ever. I always recommend 15w40 or 5w40 even in motor cycles.

Most SAE 30 or SAE 40 do not contain a modern day additive package and are very cheaply constructed oils. If a good one is found then they're wonderful. The only down side is a slight reduction in gas mileage/power before the oil reaches operating temps.

[studdyhalllooser]

how do you people know about all this??? i was told on the auto rx forums that 10-30 castrol would be the best thing for my engine till it dies...true? and how do you tell on the bottle if its non detergent or detergent?

[HappyMom]

Dan, you are definitely the oil man of ff.com :thumbright:

There is just too much information and opinions out there...

My psychological oil change barrier is 6 months. With the pseudo-synthectic you recommended, could I change the oil at 5000 or 6000 miles on the Festy? I always end up doign 4 oil changes a year and 2 are mostly to change the oil grade. If I ignore the weather to cut the number of oil changes, and I have 10W30 in -30° weather, can I get away with just using the block heater for cold weather starts?

I mentionned the Corolla, because I thought that manufacutreres recommended 3mts/3k so they could make more money. And given the Corolla's sludge/gel problems on past generations, I'll be sticking with their 6mts/5k recommendations.

[darkdan]

Study, some people are really brand loyal and thus the Castrol (I'm guessing GTX) recommendation. I say auto-rx it a few times and see how it's running after that. These motors have proven to be durable.

Almost all oils are detergent oils. It's hard to find one that isn't and they're usually labelled "NON-DETERGENT" for use in special applications (air compressors, etc).

10w30 group III in neg 30 weather....I wouldn't do it. If you go to work and such you can't plug in the block heater. I'd definetly go 5w30.

In OHV engines having a lower viscosity oil for cold weather isn't nearly as important as in OHC. Splash lubrication is very important to our engines.

With a real synthetic anything under 7500 mile drain is a waste of money. With a more reasonably priced oil then 3k to 5k is just right.