I agree with you 100%. Perhaps many of you guys haven't previously owned Japanese cars, but I can speak from experience. Here's a list of my vehicles since 1989, all of which were purchased new:

1989 Subaru Justy (college car). 150K miles, no trouble
1995 Nissan Maxima. 138K miles, no trouble
2001 Nissan Maxima. 70K miles, no trouble. Still own, driven by wife.
2005 G35. 9,000 miles, no trouble. Still own.

Synthetic Oil may indeed be statistically better than dino oil. With that said, if you use Castrol 5w-30 in a Nissan (or Honda/Toyota) engine and change it every 3750 miles your car will EASILY go 200K miles. Will there be exceptions? Of course there will be. It's a machine.

The point of this post isn't to downplay the significance of synthetic oil. I'm sure it's good stuff. I'm just a believer that (quality) Japanese engines ain't your Daddy's Ford's or Chevy's. Take care of them and they will last a Hell of a lot longer than 100K miles.

 

I swore I wasn't going to get involved,again, with the umpteenth syn. oil debate here. But, jeeeezus..... Are you saying that because my beloved ***. made G35X engine is so refined and made so much better, that it doesn't/can't benefit from the lower flash point, better flow rating, better bearing tests, lower additive breakdown, and etc? After all...."it's a machine".....right? Your finest high horse HP/performance (Amer/Euro) "machinery" is comming right from the factory w/Mobil1... no? Why...(marketing? lol) Oh well,...to it's credit, Dino is cheaper , more cost effective, and generally does a good job ..........Flip a coin and to each his own.

 

Ditto! The phrase above is exactly what these, and any, oil discusiions come down too.

 

Flipping a coin isn't a bad way to decide, frankly. Another thing to ask yourself is how long do you "really" plan on keeping your car? Most of the people who obsess on threads like this end up getting rid of their cars at or before 100K miles. In that case, motor oil is motor oil.

 

man just use normal ones instead of mobil1 syn.
big deal! jesus;

 

You guys get way too worked up over oil. I'm sure 99% of you won't keep your cars long enough to where it even matters? Russ, hell you don't even keep your cars long enough to change oil (j/p).

I found 25 qts of redline 5w-30 for $4/qt so I just bought a crapload of that. I had been running AMSOIL and had been happy, but I was happy when I ran M1 as well.

 

It doesn't make a siht WHAT kind if oil you change it with. As long as you change it! (FI cars excluded) You can use the cheapest Wal-mart crap there is and it will run just fine as long as you change it regularly. I use M1 and I change it every 5000 miles. That is just about 2-3 months, just right.

 

I`ve used Mobil 1 ever since I found out it is the exclusive jet turbine oil used by the USAF back when I was a young sergeant in the USAF in the early 80`s, if it`s good enough for F15,F16 ,A10 and B52`s etc it`s good enough for my car.I have never exspirienced any problems.

 

good goodly moogly.. you've gotten to page 3 without any VQ oil reports? there's an *** load of data on the VQ out there, running all types of oils and ODIs. Who cares how a Camaro wears!?? There's nothing academic about it. Several of us have trended our usage ON THE VQ.

here's mine on M1.. 'nuff said!
http://www.timware.org/pics/g/gc_oil3.jpg

 

btw, thats 95% short trip city driving. I would hardly call my driving *gentle* on the VQ. Yes, I'm wasting money with the 3K interval (not really because my flashpoint gets too high by 3750-4000 with syn or dino, again all city driving). But I'm getting the results I want.

 

Could you give me a quick rundown on how you go about having your oil analyzed? Cost? Do you have the contact info for Blackstone?

Thanks

 

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/
kit is free
a few bucks to ship
$20 to test.

got my last results in 3 business days.

Btw, my pathfinder shows high ring wear because my wife doesnt let it warm up before tearing-a** out of the driveway. I only test once a year on the PF. But we were able to identify that bad habit and she's trying much harder to keep it in check. So far so good. Thats the only instance where testing really helped for me. My brother was able to identify *bad* main bearing wear on his SHO. He was able to replace them easily, probably saving an otherwise tight engine. I generally dont buy used cars, but my family does and its saved them from buying a few turds on wheels (when a compression test wasnt available).

 

Mobile 1 wear tests, blah, blah, blah, was laid to rest a while ago. Let's not bring it back to life.

 

I had a '76 280Z for 14 years ('91 to a month ago), ran Pennzoil 10W40 (sometimes 20-50)... When I recently sold it engine ran STRONG! No leaks, no problems.

I'm not saying this as a vote against synthetic at all. Just that I'm convinced if you care for the motor and service it properly, the oil isn't much of an issue (for me anyway).

With that being said, I run whatever the dealer puts in it. After all they are who will be dealing with warranty issues if they arise.