Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your experiences: synthetic motor oil and change periods

Like someone else said, Mobile 1 synthetic, oil change every 6,000 miles along with tire rotation.

For what it's worth...
The best thing to come along for engine and oil life was efi.

The excess fuel on starting was hell on cylinder walls and bad for the oil.
The carbon from the too rich mixture of a carb wasn't real friendly either.

Same with diesels.
Electronic controls instantly added huge life expectancies to trucks.
Still remember the adds from Detroit on the Roadway engine with 1,000,000
miles. Tore down for R&D inspection, it was still considered in spec and
useable. At a point a mechanical would have been deep into a rebuilds life.

That kind of life wouldn't come from my earlier posts about not changing oil.
It does serve a purpose.

I use Amzoil in everything newer than 1985.

The oil and filter gets changer at 10,000 in both my truck and the wife's caddy.

In my 2015 it has worked for over 100,000 mi in my truck and it still is going strong.

I had a 1992 Ford Mustang GT.

I ran Valvoline Synetheic (Go Mark Martin).

As the oil aged I’d see a 3-4 milage difference at 5000-6000 miles each change.

I drove from Newport News, VA to Diamond, WV about every other weekend.

Mobil 1 full synthetic and Mobil 1 filter once a year on all my vehicles, regardless of miles. I'm guessing 10 - 12K miles is the most any of them would have in a year.

G23

Great results with Amsoil myself. It is very hard to beat.

Keep reasonably clean oil in your motor and I can’t see it being an issue. Even the cheap Dino stuff has come a long way from the 70’s and 80’s. Changing every 3K or even 5k seems like a waste of time and money.

I change mine about once a year. Top it off when it’s low.

Most oils and fluids have the ability to run much longer than any market filters' ability to keep it clean.

In other words, most motor oil marketed today aren't limited, the filters quit long before oils do.

I can’t recall any vehicle I’ve owned that had sludge or burnt up oil.

Buddy back in high school had a 1979 Cougar with a 351 that was full of oil pudding. Schit was gross. His dad, who he got the car from, always swore by Quaker State. I might avoid that one just because. Lol.

Mobil one and filter at 6000

Way I heard it years ago was to avoid motor oil from the "Pennsylvania" land. Something along the lines of high paraffin content. Maybe one of our resident oil experts can let us know the validity of that. I started using Valvoline a long long long time ago because of that. Before I went to synthetic that is.

You’ll be fine and won’t experience any engine damage.

As all these posts show, run your fave but not incredibly, excessively, rediculously, long periods.

Also, filter changes are more important than oil brand.

I’m still stuck in my NASCAR days….Valvoline Synthetic 10W-35 for the 2005 Ford Ranger.

Mobil 1 0W-20 for the 2014 4Runner and Mobil 1 0W-16 for the 2018 Camry.

Sludge is formed when the oil oxides and forms asphalt compounds. It’s generally due to poor maintenance practices, a faulty PCV system, or just a poor quality oil. The additives absorb moisture, but once they hit their saturation point, the moisture starts to attack the metal causing damage. Sounds like the guy with the Cougar never changed his oil.

Mobil 1 high mileage & a Wix filter every 5,000 miles. Oil is cheap, engines ain't.

1977 wants their lube info back. 😋

Used to tear those engines down, I called em Quaker State motors

Valve train always looked like christmas pretzels double dipped on chocolate

Then, the Havoline motors, they were nice to tear down. Clean all the way down to the keepers.

Paul,

you've seen my 88 4Runner many times at our gatherings... I had it down by your place in March, for that gathering...

I bought it new with 2 minutes on it in Sept of 1987.


I've ran Mobil Diesel truck oil in it most of its life. Filter changes back in the 80s, 90s early 2000s was every 5k, nowadays I run Mobil 1 filters that are 'guaranteed' for 20K miles... I change them at 10K to 12K.

oil changes have been every 20,000 to 25,000 miles...

The truck has the original engine and Trans.... the engine bottom end was overhaul @ 430,000 miles, due to some shop trying to sabotage the engine, to get an engine job out of it...had it done at another shop, but what the first guy did is cut a gasket by the water pump to leak coolant into the oil pan and eat up the bearings...the original head was changed out at 537,000 miles, because it needed a valve job... with 20 to 25K oil changes, the head still had zero sludge on it...I put a New head with bigger valves and it was planed down 20 Thousandths to up the compression...

The truck is parked in the back of my place right now, earlier this week it rolled over 585,000 miles on it.. and the engine...

most of the oil ran in it has been Mobil 5W40 Delvac, or Shell Rotella 5x40...

analysis @ 25,000 miles still comes back that the oil is still good, recommending to run it another 3 or 4K and re submit it... I just keep it at the 25,000

I've had that Truck 33 years next month.

I'd guess, and that is all it is, that it was early PCV systems from the complacent 'big 3" more than most other factors you named. Plus, Quaker State was heavily advertised and super popular back in the day.

I had a truck in a study that the Arkansas Highway Dept. did several years ago, on oil life and change needs. They concluded that it was a variable that depended on how good a job that you air filter did. miles