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Old Mar 4, 2021 | 4:40 PM
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Montana Cowboy's Avatar
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Default Synthetic Oil

What has been your experience when switching to Synthetic oil ?
Reason I ask is because I have three cases of it that were for the wife's old car that was traded in when we got her new car . My 2001 Saturn has 130,000 miles on it and I want to use it in this car . Same viscosity 5W - 20 for both cars . The oil is Mobile 1 for high mileage ( 75,000 mile ) engines .
I changed oil on this car every 3,000 to no more than 4,000 miles max . The owners manual says that you can use Synthetic if your in an area where the temp falls below 20* as it will aid in starting a cold engine . Thanks MC
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Old Mar 4, 2021 | 6:47 PM
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use it. the switch will not cause any problems.
cold temps is the only reason i switched to syn oil. cold start flow is bad with thick oil; causes wear. s yn oil maintains viscosity so it will flow better at cold start up.
I do not extend my oil life for syn....some people do...I don't believe in it.
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Old Mar 4, 2021 | 6:50 PM
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Originally Posted by Montana Cowboy
What has been your experience when switching to Synthetic oil ?
Reason I ask is because I have three cases of it that were for the wife's old car that was traded in when we got her new car . My 2001 Saturn has 130,000 miles on it and I want to use it in this car . Same viscosity 5W - 20 for both cars . The oil is Mobile 1 for high mileage ( 75,000 mile ) engines .
I changed oil on this car every 3,000 to no more than 4,000 miles max . The owners manual says that you can use Synthetic if your in an area where the temp falls below 20* as it will aid in starting a cold engine . Thanks MC
I used to be in the business of selling and transporting petroleum lubricants. Back then, many moons ago, most customers opted for non-synthetic motor oils, as most of the oil was going into very large equipment, and they couldn't see paying extra for synthetic oils. I have no idea what they order these days and am glad I got out of that business.

I only use synthetics in everything myself, including my chainsaws, lawnmower, and leaf blower, all running on Royal Purple 2-stoke oil, or four-stroke synthetics.
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Old Mar 4, 2021 | 6:56 PM
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Originally Posted by tech2
use it. the switch will not cause any problems.
cold temps is the only reason i switched to syn oil. cold start flow is bad with thick oil; causes wear. s yn oil maintains viscosity so it will flow better at cold start up.
I do not extend my oil life for syn....some people do...I don't believe in it.
In my case, I won't ever purchase any Amsoil product. I don't like the idea of an MLM outfit, selling lubricants at such a high price. The oil they sell might be good, but no better than other synthetic oils.
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Old Mar 4, 2021 | 7:45 PM
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Thank you folks for your reply .
I have heard good things about synthetic oil . My car has been a very dependable car and I keep up with the maintenance on all of my vehicles . Having three cases ( bought it on sale ) of the stuff will last me a long time as I'm now retired and my driving has been reduced by 90% since I no longer drive 30 miles one way to work every day . This last year I drove only 4,000 miles as opposed to 30,000 a year when working . Again thanks for your input . MC
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Old Mar 6, 2021 | 10:20 PM
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Originally Posted by oilcanhenry
In my case, I won't ever purchase any Amsoil product. I don't like the idea of an MLM outfit, selling lubricants at such a high price. The oil they sell might be good, but no better than other synthetic oils.
so they buy oil from someone else and put there brand on it??
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Old Mar 9, 2021 | 10:46 PM
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Originally Posted by tech2
so they buy oil from someone else and put there brand on it??
I don't know tech2. I am sure it's made to their specifications somewhere in the world. I am looking into their Nano-thread oil filters, which look good and have a non-slip coating when installing or replacing the oil filter. I've never said that Amsoil wasn't a good product. In fact, if you look at their home page, they also sell Wix and Donaldson filters, like we did when I was in the biz. The Donaldson brand of filters are not as well known as Wix is, but both are top-of-the-line filters, bar none.

The fact is that changing the oil and filters, particularly on heavy-duty huge industrial equipment, like bulldozers, crawlers, and the like, matters not as much that it's synthetic oil, but that it's changed very often along with the air filter. We once had a customer that was having issues with these huge pieces of equipment and blamed it on the motor oil we sold. He was a "Shell Man", (We didn't sell Shell products) so he convinced the company he worked for, that Shell Motor oil would solve the problem.

Needless to say but it did not. After an oil analysis, it was found that his motors all had high concentrations of silica, which was slipping into the motors through leaky seals, the crankcase ventilation systems, and the air cleaners. The property that they were clearing out for the plantation of English Walnut trees, was right next to a major river, and this property had never been cleaned up since before the European's took over the land from Native Americans, and built a levee system to keep the water out of the land where it flooded into for many, many centuries.

The result was that the oil; the oil filters and the air-cleaners had to be changed more often, and since the seals on the air-cleaners had much to do with this, they had to use a substance to seal up the gaskets on the air cleaners, as well as modify the crank-case ventilation systems with fine mesh filters to keep the silica out.
Needless to say, but they started buying lubricants from our company once more, after we solved the issue, which really pissed-off the "Shell Man" supervisor.
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Old Mar 18, 2021 | 11:45 AM
  #8  
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Go ahead and change it, I've done it dozens of times that way. Just make sure you're using a properly rated synthetic oil for your car like me in wall work truck(in both viscosity and certification, ACEA B3 being one example). Your owner's manual will tell you what you need.
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Old Mar 29, 2021 | 2:05 PM
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you will have zero issues changing to synthetic op - i use synth and have been incredibly happy. many many many people switch to synth with no problems. just get a genuine trusted brand - thats basically it.
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