Which oil? - Synthetic vs mineral...

[matty193]

I'm due for an oil change about now and have been using Valvoline XLD Premium 20W50 with no dramas.

Just wondering whether it would be worth upgrading to something like a semi-synthetic or synthetic like Penrite HPR 15 or Mobil Super S 15W50???

The only thing is I've heard: "synthetic oils are for new modern overhead cam engines with tight tolerances. As such synthetic oil is not as sticky as the mineral oils, so it doesnt stick to the cam lobes very well causing premature lobe wear. Holdens loves to chew cams at the best of time, synthetic oil makes it worse." Any truth to the matter here.....

:bang:

 

[genIIIbandit]

synthetic is man made in a lab, mineral is taken from the ground, do i need to say more

 

[shamden22]

synthetic is obviously a better oil but you should stick with what you have been using. changing oils on engines with moderate kms on them can cause the motor to use oil.especially if there are no dramas with what your using

 

[hako]

Consider how long you are going to keep your car....maybe a year or two then you're throwing your money away using expensive synthetic oil. Keeping the car till it dies (10yrs?) then maybe use synthetics but make sure you extend your oil change periods to take full advantage of the synthetic. By the way, synthetic is made from mineral oil base...its just 'altered'.

 

[Haze]

man this thread came up at the right time cause tomorro i plan on buying some oil for an oil change and havent decided on what to use.
i want to go full synthetic but not sure which one

 

[Scooter79]

Consider how long you are going to keep your car....maybe a year or two then you're throwing your money away using expensive synthetic oil. Keeping the car till it dies (10yrs?) then maybe use synthetics but make sure you extend your oil change periods to take full advantage of the synthetic. By the way, synthetic is made from mineral oil base...its just 'altered'.

Another thread about engine oils... One of my fav topics:thumbsup: There's this idea going around that if you use synthetic oil you can extend the length between oil changes... Total bollocks! You should still change the oil by the book which is maximum of every 10,000k's. Many people change their oil every 5000k's and tend to get many more years out of their engine, myself included. Also synthetic might be made from a mineral base, but all those particles that remain in a mineral oil are refined so I think it a little more than just "altered".

I owned a VS exec until this February and I'd racked up 384,000k's. Apart from a whinning diff, the engine and auto transmission we're totally original in near perfect condition (apart from the engine using a fair bit of oil but it ran smooth as). It has always had Castrol GTX2 (full mineral oil) changed about every 5 or 7000'k. At 5000k's the oil had turned pretty thick and black. Now with my S/C VS calais I'm running Mobil 1 10w/30 and nearly 5000k's since I bought it and serviced it the oil is still looking good and the car is running great. You might not want to use such a thin oil as I do but I have no regrets switching to full synthetic. On my old exec under the oil cap, there was a build up of hardened burned oil deposits. Obviously that same build or deposits would be in the engine too. But you won't tend to get those harmful deposits with synthetic.

One other thing is if you do decide to switch to synthetic is to change the oil, run it for about a week and then change it again. That way you'll be sure to get as much of the old crap out. I did that with the Calais when I got it and even the 2nd time I changed it after a week there was still a lot of black crap that came out with the new oil. That way the engine has been fully flushed. The first time you may want to use a cheap oil. Some people have their own ways of doing it but thats mine. Do a search on 'synthetic' oil on this forum and you'll find a few threads on it.

 

[Haze]

i've been considering the Mobil 1 10w/30 and by the looks of it thats the way im going being that its only get get colder from here on.
i wanted to rechange it again after about a week or two aswell but not sure if i want to spend so much money for two doses of oil lol
But yes was thinking about a full synthetic but no one seems to have mentioned the Mobil1 until now n u have no complaints so that seems to be the way to go

 

[Scooter79]

It's funny that most oil company websites have a lubricant guide to recommend an oil for your particular car, and most recommed for a V6 ecotec around the 10w/30 to 15w/40. Look at Castrol and they recommend 'Edge' (full synthetic) 5w/30. But yet most people are too scared to run something thinner than 50. I wrote a long thread about this a couple of months ago saying that when the Ecotec's first came out the best thing for them was 20w/50, but that was when oil had an API of SG or SH. Probably the only place you'll find an oil nowadays with an API (American Petrolium Index I think it is) is the home brand at Woolworths or the $12 bottle of Valvoline. Since then we've had SJ, SL and now SM. Each one providing better protection than the last. If your engine has high mileage or has seen better days you might want to go thicker but for my situation (VS with only 104000K's) it works perfectly.

 

[NeilB]

I recently had a crack at Full Synthetis in the name of Shell Ultra, My VS has 134,000 on it and since I bought it I have had the handbook services done and changed the Oil at 5,000. Usually the motor is used for a mix of Highway and town driving and I normally don't use much oil between changes. With the Shell Ultra I used 2.8 litres after 1,200 KLMs of Highway driving. I now have Penrite HPR 30 in it and after 4,000 hasn't used a drop and the motor is quitier running.
Me I'll stick with the Penrite HPR 30 for a while I think.

 

[Scooter79]

Is Penrite a Full mineral, Semi synthetic or full synthetic?