As someone who has run
BOTH Syn and Conventional in the
SAME engines and HAS run UOAs for both oils, I am running conventional due to a better (lower) wear metals and cost per mile.
Since I've had many engines make 200k with ease (and now 1 over 300k) with yesterdays oils, I see no need to spend $4, $5, and up per quart for oil when I can do the whole oil change for $5 incl filter.
Todays SL/SM conventional oils get just as good MPG and keep deposits low as syn does. I see Syn for people who have to run syn (per the MFG) or for long OCis. But they pay more for it.
Just change the oil and all is good!
I've spent hundreds of $$ for UOAs to post
FACTS here and prove my point. My last UOA had a TBN of 4.4 after almost 6k miles running through the coldest time of the year (when you get the most wear for startups which SYN is spose to be the best for) in a timing chain 4 cyl motor.
If Conventional oil has so much wear for start ups over syn, where are the high metals in the UOA?
There are people here who have
NEVER ran a UOA. But they are getting the "best" oil using xx brand.
How do they know?
They don't.
I buy syn oil for diffs and manual transmissions since the oil sits in there for a long time. But, as I found out on my last OCI with Mobil 1 gear oil, some syns are ALOT better than others.
Take care, bill
PS: Bryan, I agree 1000%. I'm sick of this too.... But it seems that very few care..