Oil Change, Basic Question for Mechanics

[jblackburn]

Stay away from Frams.

NAPA Gold, Mobil-1, and Mann are all good filters to use.

[dbm123]

I use the "Service Pro" brand Dexos1 5W-30 full synthetic in my 1999 V70 (and my wife's 2001 V70XC). The common wisdom seems to be that the turbo engines are better off with synthetic and I change my oil more frequently than most... It definitely sounds like you were getting hit with a sales pitch from the guy telling you that Castrol was somehow dangerous for your car. My local Midas store has a manager like that... guess where I don't go anymore?

[viper69]

I use the "Service Pro" brand Dexos1 5W-30 full synthetic in my 1999 V70 (and my wife's 2001 V70XC). The common wisdom seems to be that the turbo engines are better off with synthetic and I change my oil more frequently than most... It definitely sounds like you were getting hit with a sales pitch from the buy telling you that Castrol was somehow dangerous for your car. My local Midas store has a manager like that... guess where I don't go anymore?

I completely agree, total service pitch. I've never had a problem with CastrolGTX in decades. I change every 3,000 miles.

[FlyingVolvo]

Anyone who says "X Oil is garbage use this oil instead" is full of it. With the exception of non-detergent oils, there is almost no oil in any auto store that can't be run in your car with good results. Some oils will be better tailored for YOUR application, but none will "sludge" your engine like some old mechanics might like to say. Oils like Pennzoil used to have problems many decades ago, but that was many decades ago... Today they have some of the most advanced oils on the market. Any API SL/SM/SN oil will be work perfectly.

The 3000 mile oil change myth has been long debunked. Anyone who runs oil that short of interval, even on "dino" or conventional oil is wasting their money. Again, it depends on YOUR application, but many people run modern dino oils for 5000-7500 miles with 0 issues. Synthetic can easily go 10,000 miles if you aren't racing your car at every opportunity. People really underestimate the advances in motor oil technology. I cringe when I get auto store advertisements that have in bold letters "Change oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles!". What a load of crap.

I'm leaving for Alaska in a couple weeks; I estimate my total mileage round-trip will be nearly 10,000 miles. I'm going to run Mobil 1 10W-40 HM for the whole trip.

[viper69]

5-7k on standard oil, non synthetic, doing so regularly. Now that is something I haven't known of. The synthetics are marketed at that target mileage, or at least were. However they were twice the price, and so the cost was the same. I haven't moved to a synthetic because I haven't had any problems with what I've been using. Then again my car has always been on 1 type of oil, Castrol GTX

I called my local stealership, and a filter/oil change for Castrol GTX, is $72-75. WOW! 5 years ago it used to be $25.00. I always like to see how much they charge. They used to be the same cost as NTB and Express Oil Change. Now they are almost double the price!


Good info. thanks!

[jblackburn]

I usually stick to 5-6K intervals on M-1 synthetic, just because by that time, it needs another quart or so of oil anyway.

I still have yet to run the high mileage oil in my car. I have leaky cam seals on the timing belt side, but they will be taken care of here in a few months with the belt change coming up.

[FlyingVolvo]

I called my local stealership, and a filter/oil change for Castrol GTX, is $72-75. WOW! 5 years ago it used to be $25.00.

5 quarts of GTX is under $20 at Wally World. If you get a case of the OEM filters, you could be doing your own changes for under $30!

[dbm123]

I am sure that I probably could be stretching a lot farther on mileage between oil changes. So, I'm guilty of babying the car - but my V70 had a pretty hard life before I got it... so maybe I'm just trying to make up for a lack of TLC....