What Oil do you use?

[SigEpCutlass]

Amsoil Series 2000 Synthetic 0W-30 Motor Oil

 

Hands down the best!

 

[dakiln]

Since GM uses Mobil from the factory I have tended toward it. I have found that mine eats less Mobil than anything else in city driving. Though Penn is good stuff as well. I have a buddy that swears by shell except in his Shelby GLHS, and it gets nothing but Mobil full Syn.

 

5W-30

[birdman]

valvoline maxlife 10-30 with maxlife filter. what can i say, im cheap

[chadz34]

Quaker State High Revving Full Synthetic Blend 5W30.

[Supreme Cutlass]

valvoline maxlife 10-30 with maxlife filter. what can i say, im cheap

 

I use the same oil except with a Mobil one high flow filter.

[ToroToro]

Quaker State High Revving Full Synthetic Blend 5W30.

 

How could it be a full synthetic...blend?

[Supreme Cutlass]

good point

[joey b]

Mobil 1 Full syn 5W30 about every 4000-5000 miles.

[chadz34]

It says fully synthetic on it. I through ''blend'' on the end of my sentence to replace oil. :oops:

[pitzel]

Mobil 1 Full syn 5W30 about every 4000-5000 miles.

 

Mind saving your 'old' oil for me? I can't think of a bigger waste of money and time than only using Mobil-1 for 4000-5000 miles. In fact, the manual recommends 7500 mile oil change using mid 1980s-spec dino oil. A top-notch synth like Mobil-1 can easily run twice that. Mobil even guarantees M1 for 15k miles now.

[JakeMetz63]

After breaking the brand new engine in with Kendall, I put in Mobil 1. I havnt had to change it yet because Ive only driven it about 3k miles since then... but Im sure ill use mobil 1 again

[Ned Flanders]

My 79 Malibu used to leak oil and I'd have to dump in quarts of Cheron brand 10w-40. It didn't seem to leak as much.

 

In the Regal I use Castrol 5W-30 and whatever filter I can find. I usually take it to Wally World for this but I've heard so many bad things about Fram filters I think I'm going to just use the Napa ones from now on.

 

I also throw in a little (1/2 bottle) of the Max Life oil additive with about 1500 to go before the next change.

[GOT2B GM]

Mobil 1 5W30 with ACD PF 52 filter.

[19Cutlass94]

Anybody else notice that mobile seems to be on the pricey side? Atleast where I work its atleast a buck more expensive.

 

 

I dont care how long these companies say you can run oil without changing it, even the synthetic oils, I still change mine 3,000miles.

[Supreme Cutlass]

At least it seems to be worth it, jusdging by quality control and the materials.

[badassoldspower]

Valvoline Maxlife 5w30, It seems to do well

[JMo60]

im not trying to open a can of worms, but as an automotive engineering major, using synthetic oil for long periods of time is not a good idea... yes the oil will take longer to "break down" but oil changes also remove the small metal in the oil and fresh oil will not "gum up" like old oil tends to do... As the son of a GM A-tech, and college student in automotive engineering, it is shown better to use use regular oil and change it more often, than to use synthetic and go long periods on synthetic...

 

 

BTW, Most GM dealerships use valvoline. I use valvoline 5w-30

[slick]

I use full synthetic on this 20,000 mile engine, and still change it every 3,000-4,000 miles.

[JMo60]

slick94prix, thats not a bad idea either.

[manitcor]

im not trying to open a can of worms, but as an automotive engineering major, using synthetic oil for long periods of time is not a good idea... yes the oil will take longer to "break down" but oil changes also remove the small metal in the oil and fresh oil will not "gum up" like old oil tends to do... As the son of a GM A-tech, and college student in automotive engineering, it is shown better to use use regular oil and change it more often, than to use synthetic and go long periods on synthetic...

 

 

BTW, Most GM dealerships use valvoline. I use valvoline 5w-30

 

 

You would actually be surprised to see how good the high end synthetics do not gum up over high miles. Granted when running oil for 10k or more you should change your filter every 5 or 6k and top off the oil. This ensures that you are filtering out any particles that are flowing through the system effectively. Plus adding a fresh quart or so gives the oil a boost as far as the addtives that are desgined to fight acid build up and gumming up.

 

With AMSOil I run it to about 15k and change the filter every 5k. I established my oil change cycle using the same method used in many industrial applications for engines. For the first few changes you have the oil analyzed and determine the specific wear and break down pattern for your application (this varies greatly based on enviorment, average engine load, rpm, etc). Once you have established your break down pattern you can pretty much stick to that.

 

After about a year of testing my oil every 5k I used the collect analysis reports to figure out my interval. I actually took the oil all the way to 20k and the TBN and metal readings were still low enough to take it further however that was enough information for me. After 20k miles acid build up was near 0 and when i drained all the oil it was still a nice dark amber color.

 

About 10k miles later I rebuilt the topend (made some changes to the valve train for some more power). There was virtually no oil build up and any portion of the topend. From my basic inspection of the cylinder walls everything looked very nice, no scoring or scratching of the cylinder walls. I havent disassembled the bottom end yet but will prob be doing so on my next round of major mods which should prove quite interesting since by then I will have over 80k miles using my "improvised" interval.

 

There is much disagreement in the automotive world over oil change intervals even among various "experts". Its this back and forth that prompted me to simply gather information for myself and make my own decsion based on hard data rather than what some one tells me.

 

I encourage anyone who is truly intrsted in this todo the same, what your dad, mechaninc, teacher, or manual says may not neccassarily be as accurate as you think.

[TeeJay3800]

I used to use Valvoline DuraBlend. Now I'm using Valvoline Max Life with a can of Restore. I run 10W-30 in the summer, and 5W-30 in the winter.

 

Always with an AC Delco PF-52 filter.

[bartonmd]

im not trying to open a can of worms, but as an automotive engineering major, using synthetic oil for long periods of time is not a good idea... yes the oil will take longer to "break down" but oil changes also remove the small metal in the oil and fresh oil will not "gum up" like old oil tends to do... As the son of a GM A-tech, and college student in automotive engineering, it is shown better to use use regular oil and change it more often, than to use synthetic and go long periods on synthetic...

 

 

BTW, Most GM dealerships use valvoline. I use valvoline 5w-30

 

 

You would actually be surprised to see how good the high end synthetics do not gum up over high miles. Granted when running oil for 10k or more you should change your filter every 5 or 6k and top off the oil. This ensures that you are filtering out any particles that are flowing through the system effectively. Plus adding a fresh quart or so gives the oil a boost as far as the addtives that are desgined to fight acid build up and gumming up.

 

With AMSOil I run it to about 15k and change the filter every 5k. I established my oil change cycle using the same method used in many industrial applications for engines. For the first few changes you have the oil analyzed and determine the specific wear and break down pattern for your application (this varies greatly based on enviorment, average engine load, rpm, etc). Once you have established your break down pattern you can pretty much stick to that.

 

After about a year of testing my oil every 5k I used the collect analysis reports to figure out my interval. I actually took the oil all the way to 20k and the TBN and metal readings were still low enough to take it further however that was enough information for me. After 20k miles acid build up was near 0 and when i drained all the oil it was still a nice dark amber color.

 

About 10k miles later I rebuilt the topend (made some changes to the valve train for some more power). There was virtually no oil build up and any portion of the topend. From my basic inspection of the cylinder walls everything looked very nice, no scoring or scratching of the cylinder walls. I havent disassembled the bottom end yet but will prob be doing so on my next round of major mods which should prove quite interesting since by then I will have over 80k miles using my "improvised" interval.

 

There is much disagreement in the automotive world over oil change intervals even among various "experts". Its this back and forth that prompted me to simply gather information for myself and make my own decsion based on hard data rather than what some one tells me.

 

I encourage anyone who is truly intrsted in this todo the same, what your dad, mechaninc, teacher, or manual says may not neccassarily be as accurate as you think.

 

+1 !!!

 

Of course, I ran M-1 in mine for 13k miles and as it turned out, I shouldn't have, because I was losing coolant into the oil... The TBN was still at 2.5 (or 2, don't remember), so the oil was good for more usage, and hadn't slugded or anything, but the intake gasket got the best of me... I have since changed the gasket and will do a couple shorter intervals (4k miles probably) and then start going longer in stages and doing oil analysis along the way...

 

So the real story is... You can do whatever you want, or whatever makes you feel good, or even what someone tells you, but the "hard stop" so to speak, on this subject is your individual engine, and oil analysis is all that will tell you for sure... If you're running "standard" drain intervals though, go ahead and run synthetic if it makes you feel good, but you don't need to do so...

 

Mike

[GnatGoSplat]

Wal-mart SuperTech oil in the blue Mobil bottles (made by Mobil) - although I used to use the Warren oil in the square gray bottles with no problems either.

No problems, and 2 of them are over 200,000 now with the rest over 100,000.

[bartonmd]

I just got back my UOI on my wife's Neon... Ran the 10W-30 M-1 for 10,500 miles with a filter change halfway (Pure-1 filters)... They said wear metals and everything are good, along with the oil being in good shape other than a small amount of fuel in it (caused by idling and city driving), but the fuel is nothing to lose sleep over... It just depends on the individual vehicle...

 

Mike

[Chaos]

Amsoil Series 5000 10w-30