Originally Posted by rje_nc
I have used Mobil-1 in all my cars for many years, and I had an Chevy Astro minivan that went to 250k on the original engine with 10k oil and filter changes from 30k on when I switched it to Mobil-1. I had to have the head gasket replaced at 150k and asked the mechanic to let me know what the cylinder head looked like. The engine was very clean and gave me no trouble, and I donated it when it got to 250k (the rest of the car was wearing out).
I now put all my cars on a 10k oil and filter change interval with Mobil-1 when they go out of warranty, and I have never had any oil issues at all. I plan to follow the FSS recommendation on the Crossfire. Personally, I think more frequent intervals for normal driving service cars is wasteful.
This is my first experience with Synthetic oil. So I do need to learn more about it.
I have never used Syn oil before because I have had pretty good luck with conventional oil. Change it about every 5K miles.
I have put 150K+ miles on four different vehicles with this approach and have never blown a head gasket or had any major work done on any of the motors. And to top it off 2 of these 4 were American made. (A Camaro and a Chevy Blazer).
My Camaro has almost 200K on it when I gave it to my brother. He got another 50K out of it before donating it to science.
I drive a lot!!!! So this is a topic near and dear to my heart.
My latest road warrior, A 2000 Nissan Maxima; has 234K miles on it. All on Plain Jane Pennzoil 10W30 conventional every 5K. Never had any issues with the motor. My most expensive issue so far was having to replace a Catalytic converter. Knock on wood the motor is still happy.
I will definitely read up on the Syn Oil a little more. I have always been told that it isn't necessary unless you have a high performance engine. That is what Syn oil was originally designed for as I understand it.
Maybe I need to rethink that and use Syn Oil for my next every day driving road warrior?
FWIW here is a good link on this topic on the 3K mile oil change myth. About half way down is a discussion about Synthetic oil.
http://www.nordicgroup.us/oil.htm#Introduction
Here is an interesting article from consumer reports. They tested 20+ different motor oils in NYC taxi cabs. After 60K miles on over 20 cabs they tore down the engines and did comparisons.
http://www.xs11.com/stories/croil96.htm
Three interesting paragraphs from the article:
"To determine whether frequent oil changes really help, we changed the oil in three cabs every 3,000 miles, using Pennzoil 10W-30. After 60,000 miles, we compared those engines with the engines from our base tests of the same oil, changed every 6,000 miles. We saw no meaningful differences. When Mobil 1 synthetic oil came out, Mobil presented it as an oil that, while expensive, could go 25,000 miles between changes. That claim is no longer being made. But Mobil 1 is still on the market, selling at a premium (along with pricey synthetic competitors from several other companies). And synthetic oil's residual reputation as a long-lasting product may still prompt some people to stretch their oil changes longer than the automaker recommends.
Determining whether synthetic oils last longer than conventional ones would require a separate test protect. To try to get some indication, we put Mobil 1 synthetic into three cabs and changed their oil every 12,000 miles.
We intended to compare the results of these tests with those from the three taxicabs whose Mobil 1 was changed at our normal interval, every 6,000 miles. Unfortunately, two of the three engines using the 12,000-mile interval developed problems. (We couldn't attribute those problems to the oil.) The third engine fared no worse than the three whose oil had been changed at 6,000-mile intervals."