So I got off the phone with the service dude at the dealership to ask him the differences between synthetic oil and regular oil. His thoughts were that the regular oil is just as good for your car. The benefit from the synthetic oil is for those who do seriously HARD driving. But if you're like me and you drive at most 15 miles a day, its probably not worth switching the synthetic oil.

What is everyone's thoughts on synthetic oil? Do you think it really helps that much more for the cost?

If you ask me, I think its proportionally the same. Synthetical oil typically costs twice as much. But you can change your oil every 7500 miles where as with regular oil, you should change it every 3750 miles.

 

Synthetic oil costs 4 times as much or more. It protects the engine better, but if you change the oil every 3750 miles, it's more of a religious debate as to which you should use. Some synthetics allow you to go as high as 35,000miles (or up to 1 year) between oil changes. Good for commercial equipment, impractical for consumer vehicles.

If you want lots of discussion on the subject, try www.bobistheoilguy.com.

2003.5 G35 Sedan Desert Platinum/Graphite Premium/Sport/Aero/Nav/Winter

 

I run synthetic in all my new cars. Makes me feel I am not abusing the engine when I drive them hard, which I do often..even my truck. And althought I still change it between 4 and 5000 miles, I feel ok about streching it if I don't have the time to change it. I recently donated an 87 Maxima with 200,000 plus miles that I purchased new. Motor ran flawlessly for all 15 years and I never had to add between oil changes. Its a little in the mind but I think worth it. Only thing I won't do is switch to synthetic from conventional. You need to start out with synthetic. My 70 car is old technology, so I used old tech oil.

2003.5 G35 6MT Black/Graphite
1987 GN Intercooled SFI Turbo
1970 GS 455 Stage 1 4-Speed

 

I pray to Synthesis...the Mobil1 God... no, just kidding.

Do whatever you feel comfortable with... it took me a while and lots of reading at bob's site, to get comfortable with a 7500 mile oil change regimen with Mobil1. I've had one oil analysis to date that showed the oil was still in good shape after 7500 miles, and I'll probably do just one more at my second synth oil change to solidify my comfort level.

BTW, I use the synth to reduce the number of oil changes I do on my cars... in all, 8 oil changes/yr vs. the 16 changes I'd have to perform with dino.

Neither way hurts.... dino (with regular changes) will easily get any Nissan engine past 200K miles. Synth will also get you there, but with less elbow grease, and higher costs.



<font color=red>chinee</font color=red>
2003.5 G35s

 

I use mobil 1 and go for 5k miles - but i drive to train station 5 mins away every day - to save the G for better stuff. I figure short dist driving is hard on it so i change before 7500 for my own peace of mind...also figure that short 5 mins is better than an hour of stop and go.

 

OK - so I will open a bit more of the can of worms and say that it also depends on your weather and whether you drive your car everyday.

Dino does not stick or bond to metal as do some of the components of Synth. Therefore, upon startup, your engine has more goo to cover its bits.

I'll go with synth over dino because I enjoy eating top ramen every night and babying my G.


'03 Sedan 5a: Silver/Graphite, Premium, Aero/Body, Sport, Nav
SolarGard Quant. Tint 19% r, 28% fr, & just a tad more than 4" of 50% on the windshield

 

I believe that most of the "information" available to the layman on the Net about oil is second hand or speculation. That is, there are no lubrication chemists or engineers publishing hard data or results on the Net. The best information concerning conventional vs, synthetic I've received was by spending 45 minutes face-to-face with one of the motor lubes specialists where I work. This person mentioned that his company has tested their conventional motor oil in taxi fleets with 7,500 to 10,000 mile change intervals. The engines showed nominal wear after 100,000 miles. With this level of performance for a conventional oil it is hard to justify the 5 to 10 times cost differential for synthetics.

<font color=blue>Dan</font color=blue>

 

7,500 to 10,000 miles change intervals for conventional oil? Yeah that sounds like what the service person at the Infiniti dealership told me. He basically said that he hasn't noticed any significant reason to want to use synthetic oil unless you were racing your car on a track all the time.

I think to the common driver, the only benefit synthetic oil gives us is maybe a psychological massage that we're giving our cars a treat.

But if the Costco here sells conventional oil at $18 for 36 quarts.. its kind of hard to refuse that deal .

 

$.50 per quart at Costco is a good deal. My Costco sells Chevron Supreme for $.75/quart.

<font color=blue>Dan</font color=blue>

 

Dan,

What company does your friend work for? I'd like to know which conventional oil was used in severe duty like taxi fleets experience and still offered protection to 7,500/10,000 miles. If that's the case, I'll use that brand from now on!

There are chemists, engineers, mechanics and all sorts of technical folks that frequent bobistheoilguy. Oil analyses are commonly done, and the best dino oils normally do not last past 5000 or 6000 miles, in non-severe conditions.

If a dino can protect to 7500 miles, I certainly would rather not pay the premium for synthetics!

<font color=red>chinee</font color=red>
2003.5 G35s

 

chinee, my contact is out-of-town until next week. I'll let you know the brand of oil then.

<font color=blue>Dan</font color=blue>

 

Synethics are ptob overkill guys - i use it to feel better about cold starting that is it. The longevity debate was over for me when my mom leased a tuarass for 30k miles and never changed or even added oil. It didn't even run that bad. ANd she is not a granny either.

 

How often you crack up the motor is a big factor. My 87 Grand National with it's turbo can sit months without my starting it. The synthetic sticks to the metal better and does not stess the moving parts upon start up. If is also better for the turbo.

2003.5 G35 6MT Black/Graphite Prem/Aero/Winter
1987 GN Intercooled SFI Turbo
1970 GS 455 Stage 1 4-Speed

 

GN should get the best of everything. My buds runs 12's stock or something. Why isn't GM building this kind of car now?