Synthetic Oil: Havoline, Pennzoil or Valvoline?

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ShiningArcanine

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I have a Toyota Avalon that is currently in the shop for repairs due to leaks. The leaks occurred after I had the bright idea of running Mobil 1 in the engine without considering the possibility of cracked seals from carbon deposits that built up in the engine from using regular oil, so I figure that after the leaks are fixed, the engine should be good to run synthetic after I do a couple of Auto-RX treatments. I was originally planning to buy AMSOil XL oil as it seemed to be the cheapest that I could get, but there is an Advanced Auto Parts about 30 to 35 miles away and Advanced Auto Parts is having a half off sale, so it would be cheaper for me to buy one of the synthetic oils they are selling on sale instead of the AMSOil. The Camry loaner the Toyota Dealership gave me gets better fuel economy than the Avalon that is in the shop so it would be a good idea for me to run by Advanced Auto Parts to pick the oil before I get the Avalon back on Tuesday. I plan to go tomorrow.

The Havoline appears to sold out according to their website, but if they have it when I go, it will be an option. I am hoping to get extended oil change intervals with the synthetic oil and I plan to do a few oil analysises after the second oil change interval after I switch. Of the choices, which ones are good and what are the pros and cons of each one?

By the way, since this will pretty much be a pilot to see how the new oil runs in the Avalon, I will only be picking up enough oil for two oil changes. Will it e safe to expect another sale like this in the near future?
 
HMMM. How old is your Avalon? But as far as oils go. Whatever is the cheapest. Then I would do an initial run at 6K after your Auto-Rx. Then confirm with an UOA that will determend your OCI. There are oil sales all of the time. Also there are plenty of good Amsoil dealers on here. I am sure one will let you know how you can get an perfered customer discount. If you wish to go that route.
 
Dave, it is 12 years old.

By the way, I just found out that when I searched for oils on Advance Auto Parts' website, the search returned mixed results between synthetics and regular oils. Here are my actual synthetic oil options:

Pennzoil Oil Platinum
Quaker State Torque
Valvoline OIL MAXLIFE
Valvoline OIL DURABLEND

I am excluding the Castrol synthetic oils that Advanced Auto Parts has listed because I have not seen their synthetic oils mentioned much on here.
 
Use Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic if your avalon is 12 years old. It's a pretty good oil considering what it can do for your car.

Other than that, you can also consider some dino high milage oils.
 
Right now Advanced Auto Parts has PP on special buy one get one free and their was no limit that I saw. I got 8 quarts of PP 5W30 and two cans of upolstry cleaner for $26 out the door. next time me or my wife gets paid I am going back for more. I know I said I would never use PP but at that price I can not say no. Not to mention Terry Dyson seems to think it is ok so what do I have to lose!!! So long as the 5W30 has an HTHS some place between 3.1 and 3.5 I am happy camper!
 
Quote:

Use Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic if your avalon is 12 years old. It's a pretty good oil considering what it can do for your car.

Other than that, you can also consider some dino high milage oils.

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Exactly what can it do for the car? I read on here that it is particularly good for the valves but I do not exactly know why. I also do not know why other oils do not do the same thing and if it differs from other oils in any favorable or unfavorable ways apart from the valves.

Quote:

Right now Advanced Auto Parts has PP on special buy one get one free and their was no limit that I saw. I got 8 quarts of PP 5W30 and two cans of upolstry cleaner for $26 out the door. next time me or my wife gets paid I am going back for more. I know I said I would never use PP but at that price I can not say no. Not to mention Terry Dyson seems to think it is ok so what do I have to lose!!! So long as the 5W30 has an HTHS some place between 3.1 and 3.5 I am happy camper!

Click to expand...


I am planning to get 5w-20 since the bearing clearances can handle it and the seals will no longer be an issue. Is the High Temperature High Shear good on that too?
 
I would go with Rotella T Synthetic 5w-40 as I use it in my 1985 Volvo with 361,000 miles on it. It is the best oil for the money and good for any climate other the arctic but go with what makes you happy. Best of luck.
 
The main thing about high milage oils is that it's suppose to be good for the seals and valves. That is my opinion, and they might have other benefits/disadvantages I don't know about.
 
[quote I am planning to get 5w-20


I really would not go with the 5W-20. Statistically you really won't see any milage increase and you can't be sure that the bearing wear won't significantly go up. I went with a 50/50 mixture in my 01 Sentra and gas milage actually went down.
 
I would stick with 5W-30.

You can get PP or Maxlife synthetic at WalMart for around $4 per qt. The PP is around $18 for the 5 qt. jugs.
 
I realize that the 5W-20 would have only a fairly small effect on fuel economy which would probably be unmeasurable, but I understand that engines running it are slightly quieter and I have very sensitive ears, so any improvement in my car's acoustical properties will be a welcome one.
 
I doubt that thin oil will be quieter than thicker oil like the 5-30 or 5-40 recommeded to you. Depending where you live PP is $1 after rebate from CSK stores so I'd start with that.
 
My car makes more engine noise with 5W-20. No difference in FE either, compared to 5W-30.
 
Some engines cant use 5w20 due to oil pump design..
not enough flow.
If you get the engine very hot the oil thins so much the
pump cant produce enough flow/pressure
the 4.0sohc ford ranger/explorer engine was one of these.


Disclaimer:
This is my paraphrase of the ford dealer letter.
It might be slightly off in the wording.
no nitpicking please
smile.gif
 
I thought the 95 Avalon called for 5W30 on both the oil cap and on the manual. I think using 5W20 is a bad idea and also is not recommended. I owned a 96 Avalon with 137K on it and at one point I was thinking about using 5W20 on it as well but finally decided again it due to the older engine design.
 
I have so much PP now I wont have to look for another sale for a few years..lol.
 
Quote:

I thought the 95 Avalon called for 5W30 on both the oil cap and on the manual. I think using 5W20 is a bad idea and also is not recommended. I owned a 96 Avalon with 137K on it and at one point I was thinking about using 5W20 on it as well but finally decided again it due to the older engine design.

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There is a Toyota Service Bulletin that lists several engines series that Toyota has authorized to use 5W-20. It first mentions that it is for 2006 vehicles, it then lists the engines and says that they do not recommend putting it into engines other than the ones listed because the oils "maintain lubrication effectiveness in engines with older designs and could result in smoke emissions from the tailpipe and/or unusual engine noise." In the section involving 0W-20 with Toyota's engines, it specifies that usage of 0W-20 oils begins with mid-year 2006 vehicles, while the section involving 5W-20 with Toyota's engines has no such starting date. The 2006 Toyota Camry uses the same 1MZ-FE engine that is in my Toyota Avalon and the 2006 Toyota Camry's owner manual also makes the same oil recommendations (5W-30 in the winter with 10W-30 in the summer) in my 1995 Avalon's oil manual, so unless Toyota modified the engine's oil system for the 2006 Camry, it is likely that the reason Toyota did not specifically say that all older vehicles could use the lower weight oil is that running the lower weight oil through an engine with carbon deposits from years of operation with less than ideal oil change intervals could remove them, exposing cracked seals. At the same time a 2006 Camry with an extended warranty could go several years without using the lower weight oil, switch to it and then Toyota would have to pay for the repairs because they authorized it; Toyota would have considered this possibility before releasing the service bulletin, so in principle putting the 5W-20 into my Avalon would be similar to putting it into a 2006 Camry several years from now. Given that there was a class action lawsuit against Toyota because of engine sludge buildup in 1MZ-FE engines at the time of this service bulletin, I doubt they would issue a service bulletin that they knew would cause another class action lawsuit. I concluded from this logic and a few other things that using the 5W-20 in my Avalon should be safe.

My conclusion could be incorrect, but either way, while I wanted to put in 5W-20, I went by Walmart today and all they had were 5W-30 and heavier grade oils. Since 5W-30 is the lightest grade that I can find, I will probably give up on find it and put 5W-30 into my Avalon as it is not worth my time to drive all over New York looking for 5W-20 motor oil.

Walmart has the 5W-30 Valvoline Max-Life Full Synthetic Oil in stock but they only had the one liter containers instead of the five liter containers so I opted to wait until after I got my Avalon back from the shop. I assume that is the oil that the general consensus says is best to use my car. I will not be using synthetic oil for about two months because of the Auto-RX treatments and I will probably have to do an oil change to use the Auto-RX because of the dye Toyota added to the oil, so the only rush is that running my errands with loaner car while I have it would be less expensive than it would be with my Avalon.

I guess that I will wait for a sale, as while I could run to Walmart tomorrow, for some reason I doubt that they will have the oil in stock and driving there any other day would cost the same as it would two months from now because I get my car back on Tuesday. Are there any seasonal sales that I could look forward to seeing in the next two months?
 
Here is an url to a site with a scan of the service bulletin:

http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2058532&postcount=33

There is a huge thread there where people discussed it. Apparently many of them had already been running it in Lexus vehicles with 1MZ-FE engines so I had assumed from that, the logic in the above post and some other stuff that it was safe. Reading over the actual Toyota Service Bulletin again, it seems that they are not authorizing it on 2006 vehicles that originally used 5W-30 motor oil and only on the ones that they shipped with 5W-20 motor oil. Given that I misread it, I am probably wrong about being able to use 5W-20 in my Avalon's engine. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
 
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