5000 miles on my 07 and scared to death

Okay, so WHY Mobil 1--especially if you're going to change it every 5K miles? What about Slick50 or something?

 

Mobil 1 is a good synthetic oil. It might keep your engine a bit cleaner than regular oil. You could extend the oil change interval a bit if you wanted too with M1.

Slick 50 will not help at all.

Unless you plan on keeping your vehicle many, many years/miles. Like well over 150k miles, synthetic will probably not help that much.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skguh @ Oct 11 2007, 12:40 PM) [snapback]524152[/snapback]</div>

Thanks, Winston--so it's more about using synthetics because of the "green factor?" I'm all for greenage--just wanted to clarify myself why I should be putting a longer lasting, more expensive MobilOne in an engine that gets less use and still maintain the same change rate.
Thank you.

 

When it comes to changing oil yourself, there is one good item of advice I can give:

After you have changed your oil, record in your maintenance book the oil used (e.g. Mobil 1 5W-30), the car mileage, oil filter changed, and then most critical: Sign and Date. This makes it a legal document (just like a Will).

If you change the oil the chances of something going wrong on a Prius engine are 0.001 %. However, having that legal document is very important if you are so unfortunate. Keep receipts and what others recommend, but your signature and date are trival to add.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skguh @ Oct 11 2007, 03:04 PM) [snapback]524222[/snapback]</div>

No, there is no "green" factor to synthetic oil unless you are extending the oil change interval. People put synthetic oil in their everyday passenger vehicles due to a combination of good marketing and paranoia.

Synthetic oil works great in race engines that get used at high rpms for long periods of time.
Synthetic oil is great for extended oil change intervals because it breaks down slower than conventional motor oil.
Synthetic oil is a waste of money if you are going to use it in a normal engine and change it on the same frequency as conventional oil.

Save a couple of bucks a quart and use a good conventional motor oil and change it one the schedule in the owners manual. (I use a diesel full synthetic in my TDI because it is required by the owners manual, the oil change interval is 10K miles, and it is good common sense for turbocharged engines. I use conventional Castrol 5w30 in my Prius because it meets the specification in the owners manual and I change it every 5K miles)

Shell Rotella T Full synthetic = $5.00 per quart
Castrol 5w30 = $1.59 per quart

That is a difference of about $500 over the life of the car (250K miles)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Oct 11 2007, 08:58 PM) [snapback]524337[/snapback]</div>

That isn't quite the entire story, though there is debate about it.

First, the synthetic oil "clings" a bit better than conventional oil, so on the Prius engine that starts and stops, the synthetic may give slightly better lubrication.

Second, the synthetic oil should not boil away as rapidly in the high heat, which may allow people to not add any oil between oil changes.

Third, the synthetic oil will give slightly better milage, the actual amount of course is also debated. But I will calculate based on 1%. So the "difference of about $500 over the life of the car (250K miles)" is strictly for the additional oil cost. (Note: I calculated a cost of $612 based on 50 oil changes and $3.50/qt more for synthetic) There would be a net savings of about $150 over the life of the car (250K miles) for each percentage increase in mpg, based on 50 mpg and $3/gal gasoline. So if it increases the mpg by just over 4% or more, you would come out with a net savings.

Fourth, I don't know if the engine would go for 250K miles without needing work on conventional oil. It may be possible, but it seems more probable with synthetic oil.

Fifth, all synthetic oil does not cost $5/quart. If you buy Mobil1 in the 5qt container it costs about $4.20/quart. Which brings the break-even point to an increase in mpg of 3%, to offset the $450 additional cost of oil.

 

The day you catch me puting Castrol oil in a car I own please shoot me.
I worked for a garage that used castrol oil and it did nasty things to engines. The deposits left in the sump would block the pickup they were that thick. It also jamed valves and springs and sludged up Hydralic lifters.
I also will never use Valvoline as it seems to create a lot of smoke and oil consumption. I come to this conclusion after we switched from Castrol to Valvoline then had a run of smoking engines to overhaul. Great for business but bad for the customers. We switched from Valvoline to Penzoil and all the smoking gunked up engines in our customer's car just dried up. I use and have almost exclusively used Mobil products in my personal cars but my second choice would be Penzoil.

Until recently I was using Mobil Agrioil 15w - 40 in all my cars. I have now switched to Mobil1 synthetic 5w - 30 after selling the Camry that had 288,000km on the clock now the highest mile car I have is the RAV4 at 177,000km so the 5w-30 will be fine for all of them.

I change oil at 10,000km or 6 months and I want my vehicles to last, isn't that why we always buy Toyota?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(patsparks @ Oct 12 2007, 02:53 AM) [snapback]524478[/snapback]</div>

I’ve never had a car that needed to have the oil topped of between oil changes. I’ve had:

1988 GMC S15 Jimmy
1991 Chevy Cavalier
1991 Ford Ranger
2000 Nissan Frontier
2003 VW Jetta TDI

In fact the only vehicle that I have own that requires topping off between oil changes is my BWM motorcycle that the dealer uses BMW brand (Mobil) synthetic oil.

I’ve stayed away from Pennzoil products due to my experience with the ’88 Jimmy. The previous owner had the oil changed at the local Pennzoil quick lube every 3K miles (he had all the receipts) but the engine had to come out at 105K miles due to a rear main seal failure. We pulled the valve covers just to see and there was so much sludge built up under the covers you could read the imprint of the logo from the valve cover. It was as if the cover was still there. Now whether this was an oil problem or an engine design problem I don’t know but we ended up doing a complete rebuild to clear out the sludge that was all through the engine. Of course that was 20 years ago too.

My father is a certified mechanic and uses Quaker State oil in his vehicles and the fleet of vehicles we had when my brother and I were still at home (We had 4 people w/ 11 cars at one time.) His current ‘91 Ford van has 235K miles and has only had Quaker State conventional oil changed on the manufacturers recommended intervals.

I’ve started using Castrol products after my experience with Yamaha FJ1200 motorcycles. I’ve had 3 of them. The FJ list had the same debate over Mobil 1 vs. conventional oil that is happening here. However most of the guys that had high-mileage bikes (over 100K) used conventional oil and the recommended brand was Castrol Syntec. The guys that spend more time washing their bikes than riding seemed to use Mobil 1 because their babies only got the best. I purchased a ’91 FJ in 2000 with 55K miles and put another 35K miles on it in 2 years before totaling it in a crash. It still pulled strong, used no oil, and didn’t smoke with 90K miles of routinely being run to its 10K RPM redline and in an air/oil cooled engine so the oil sees very high temperatures. (At least in the US, a motorcycle is considered “high mileage†when it has more than 10K miles, similar to the psychological 100K mile barrier for automobiles.)

 

Yes, I understand that's why people do it. What no one has been able to explain satisfactorily is *why they want* equal wear on all the tires. As you point out below, front and rear tires serve different purposes. And if uneven wear is occurring on different sides of the car, that indicates an alignment problem which needs correcting. Rotating the tires does not correct alignment, it only hides the problem.

Quite correct! This saves bother and time. I also end up buying only two tires at a time.

On the rear, because fishtailing is more dangerous than those other concerns. The car handles and brakes perfectly well even when the front tires are worn to the point of replacement.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Oct 11 2007, 08:58 PM) [snapback]524337[/snapback]</div>

There are, however, bio based oils available. This one seems to hold up under Used Oil Analysis.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Oct 11 2007, 07:58 PM) [snapback]524337[/snapback]</div>

That is true if one uses a heavy duty diesel motor oil, such as Esso XD-3 15W-40 or their newer XD-3 10W-30. Although a "conventional" motor oil, it must pass the far more stringent HD diesel motor test regime regarding sludge, soot, and wear. It's also made in Canada, so I can support Canadian jobs:

http://www.esso.ca/Canada-English/Files/Pr..._Xd-3_extra.pdf

At least here in Canada, Esso XD-3 is very competitively priced. I can get a 4 litre jug of Esso XD-3 15W-40 for around $10 at a local Wal-Mart. The full synthetic Esso XD-3 0W-40 is $20 a 4 litre jug. In contrast, Mobil 1 is usually $8.99 a litre

Due to the extreme climate here (-40 C in winter, +38 C in summer), a conventional 5W-30 will not perform well. If there is an extended cold snap of -40 for a week or two, there is always a rash of blown front seals when folks attempt to start their cars parked outside.

As the API/SAE dropped the requirement for aged oil cold weather viscosity increase, you really don't know what will happen to a conventional oil with a few thousand km's on it at -40. Test reports do show viscosity increase of several hundred percent though, hence the blown front seal.

A good synthetic, such as a 0W-30 or 0W-20, flows well at -40 and resists cold weather viscosity increase due to suspended dirt and soot. A HD diesel oil of the proper viscosity is also a good oil, summer and winter.

At least in Winnipeg, its easy to spot a car less than 5 years old already smoking on acceleration. City driving at temps of -20 C to -40 C just kills conventional motor oil.

 

One aspect of synthetic to consider is that if you have the oil drain out, then synthetic may make the difference between a damaged engine or not by the time you get the engine stopped. When I put the Celica Oil Filter in the '88 Camry (they interchange perfectly and I did not read the part number closely), I discovered this is not something to discount.

I also put synthetic in the '99 Camry since those engines (including mine) will sludge with conventional oil.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Doc Willie @ Oct 12 2007, 12:17 PM) [snapback]524700[/snapback]</div>

Bio-based oils are nice and all, but I see lubricants such as motor oil as one of the things we should be using oil for. Most motor oil gets recycled and used again. I'm not against the use of oil, just it's waste as a fuel.

The last company I worked for made hydrostatic transaxles. We used about 250K gallons of oil per year, mostly 10w30 automotive grade oil from Mobil. We did extensive testing on oil from various suppliers but found them all to perform the same and chemically test very similar. In the end we went will Mobil because the offered the best price.

We would also generated quite a bit of waste oil from our testing and manufacturing process. This was all collected and the local oil distribution company paid us $0.25 per gallon for it. He then sold it back to the oil company to be recycled into new motor oil and other petroleum products.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher @ Oct 12 2007, 12:51 PM) [snapback]524689[/snapback]</div>

Actually, you'd buy 2 tires, twice as often, as someone who rotates buys 4 tires.
And, I wouldn't want to drive with you in the rain, which we all must do. Those worn front tires that are so perfect in the dry can kill you when they hydroplane in the wet. Another consideration would be tire warranty requires it.

Here's some more food for thought when it comes to tire rotation,...
Rotation means you are changing where the individual tires are mounted on the vehicle. Let's assume you have a front-drive car with all four tires the same size. Each tire will carry a different load and be faced with different situations. The front tires will carry over 60 percent of the car's weight. They are also responsible for putting the power of the engine to the road, and for all the steering. Finally, they are responsible for about 80 percent of the braking.

It stands to reason, then, that the front tires will wear much more quickly than the rears. Not only that, but the right front tire might tend to wear out more quickly than the left front because the nature of American traffic means that left-hand turns (which load the right-front tire) tend to be taken at higher speeds, and under higher loads, than right-hand turns (which load the left-front tire). And, right-side tires are more likely to be faced with road hazards and hitting curbs. The result of all this is tires wearing out at different rates.

I know there are two schools of thought on this subject. Rotating the tires, which is recommended by all tire manufacturers, involves changing their position on the vehicle from one wheel location to another. This helps to even out tire wear between all the tires so the tires last longer and do not develop abnormal wear patterns.

On front-wheel drive cars and minivans, the front wheels tend to wear at a much faster rate than those on the rear. After 50,000 or 60,000 miles of driving, the front tires may be worn out while the ones on the back may still have half or more of their tread life remaining. By rotating the tires front to rear and side to side, differences in wear patterns between the wheel locations spreads the wear out and more or less wears the tires evenly -- or so the theory goes. Consequently, tires that would have lasted only 50,000 or 60,000 miles on the front of a front-wheel drive car may last 70,000 or 80,000 miles. But on the other hand, the tires on the rear that may well have gone 100,000 miles only last 70,000 or 80,000 miles.

My personal experience is that by rotating I greatly reduce the percieved degredation of ride, handling and road noise associated with leaving them where they are for the life of the tire.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(9G-man @ Oct 13 2007, 02:41 PM) [snapback]525191[/snapback]</div>

I would prefer to replace all 4 tires at once, but in a number of cars, one tire would get damaged and replacing it with one was not wise. Replacing with two (on the rear) was viable. However, after this point, rotating seemed to be a questionable idea. Rotating the worn tires to the rear is not recommended by the tire manufacturers I checked with due to fishtailing possibilities. I do agree that overworn tire on the front must be avoided..