10W-30 or 5W-30 and 'High Mileage' Oil?

[kjchernov]

Maybe Valvoline?

o_O Yeah, Valvoline is really good. I'm surprised you have Valvoline there. It's a expensive oil here, but my friends are using it and it really makes your engine work better.

I dont know if there are Liqui Moly in USA, but it's as good as Valvoline too.

[blkfordsedan]

To the OP, or anyone else interested, There is a pretty good and extensive explanation of motor oil viscosities, base stocks, etc., on Bobistheoilguy.com. Click on the link and start with "Motor Oil 101" at the bottom of the page. There are many, many pages and it gets pretty in depth. Take about about 30min. and read through it all.

I would caution about going to a full synthetic in an older high-mileage engine. Not that full Synthetic is bad, but the detergents will do their job and engines with years of sludge don't always take too well to being cleaned.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/cms/

[Twistiva]

Thanks I'm rarely talking with foreigners, so I can sometimes be not very polite, because I'm not sure what is considering as polite and what is not.

Hey kjchernov -

You're doing fine. Just don't ever say anything insulting about John Wayne or our flag :salute: and you'll be A-OK!

[Zanzer]

I've had good service out of Valvoline too. My list of favorites is Motorcraft, Havoline, Castrol, Valvoline, and Rotella.

I agree with blkfordsedan on the use of full synthetic in high mileage motors that have ran conventional oils. I've also heard they are more prone to leakage through aging seals if you swap. My rule of thumb is feel free to use a full synthetic on a fresh build but stick with a conventional oil on high mileage cars if that's what it's always had. Also, Bobistheoilguy is a great site. I did a lot of reading there before I made the change

As far as "high mileage" formulations. I've never used them because I haven't seen the need. A few of my vehicles are high mileage and even when I push the oil change to what they would consider the service limit of the high mileage stuff the oil I drain out isn't in hideous condition. Many of todays modern semi synthetic blends can run a good bit longer than the old 3000 mile limit 10W oils from back in the day.

[blkfordsedan]

o_O Yeah, Valvoline is really good. I'm surprised you have Valvoline there. It's a expensive oil here, but my friends are using it and it really makes your engine work better.

I dont know if there are Liqui Moly in USA, but it's as good as Valvoline too.

Valvoline is excellent, but it's a pretty common oil here, and one of the less expensive brands. Not to take anything away from the major companies, but we have a lot of small, specialized oil blenders here in the states. They buy the best base stock from the major oil companies, and then custom blend the additive packages to make the best oil they can. (Capitalism, competition and free market at it's finest!). The cost is usually the same or 1.5X to 2X more than what you would pay for the typical name brand oils like Quaker State, Pennzoil, Valvoline, Havoline, Conoco, Castrol, Shell, Mobil, Motorcraft, etc.. These specialized brands are ones like Redline, Royal Purple, Amzoil and a host of others. Liqui-Moly is a German version of this same type of custom blender.

[kjchernov]

About half-synthetic and full-synthetic oil: it's a really long topic to discuss.

I'm using fully synthetic oil in my engine. It's older than me, but still.

Here are the arguments:

- It's a myth that if you will use half-synthetic oil it wont leak as synthetic oil do. Maybe only if there are fractures in your engine. But I dont think that then any other oil wont leak. Here we're using synthetic oil in 90% of engines, even the old ones.
- Synthetic oil can keep your engine in better shape.
- Synthetic oil have better resistance to cold. It maybe not useful for you, but when it's -40C outside, you will like it

I dont know, what does 'synthetic oil' means in USA, but here it's just a quality of oil. It can have 30-50% of synthetic components, but mostly made with a hydrocracking procedure. There are no oil consisting of 100% of synthetic components.

[Zanzer]

I've never tested the theory that full synthetics can leak in high mile motors so it's good to know someone who has and disproved it I've never had an issue with it on 200k+ engines running a synthetic blend. Personally I don't use full synthetics mainly due to price and the number of vehicles I have. If I only had 1 or 2 cars I would probably go the full synthetic route.

Although I have been entertaining the idea of swapping the Festy over to Amsoil due to the 25000 mile oil change interval. I put a lot of miles on it and it would be nice to not have to service it so often

[sandspringsfestiva]

I use 5W20 since it is thinner and able to clean better.

My 1.3 runs like a sewing machine doing 75 MPH all day long!

[blkfordsedan]

About half-synthetic and full-synthetic oil: it's a really long topic to discuss.

I'm using fully synthetic oil in my engine. It's older than me, but still.

Here are the arguments:

- It's a myth that if you will use half-synthetic oil it wont leak as synthetic oil do. Maybe only if there are fractures in your engine. But I dont think that then any other oil wont leak. Here we're using synthetic oil in 90% of engines, even the old ones.
- Synthetic oil can keep your engine in better shape.
- Synthetic oil have better resistance to cold. It maybe not useful for you, but when it's -40C outside, you will like it

I dont know, what does 'synthetic oil' means in USA, but here it's just a quality of oil. It can have 30-50% of synthetic components, but mostly made with a hydrocracking procedure. There are no oil consisting of 100% of synthetic components.

Same here. Synthetic means they are using either a 100% synthetic base (like PAO) or a blend with mineral oil. Most all (even those labeled as "fully synthetic" use some mineral oil as a carrier for additives, since synthetic stocks are not very good carriers. The actual percentage of synthetic components can vary greatly. Whether it's 100% synthetic or not is really not as important as how the oil performs overall.