synthetic or dino

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MPANELLI

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At the risk of opening a can of worms...My question is not which is better, but which is better for my situation.

I have a 2006 Honda Accord 4cyl auto. I live in So. California and drive approx 140 miles a day. The morning commute is an easy drive 70mph plus. The drive home is more like 1/2 city driving and 1/2 freeway due to traffic.
I currently use Mobil 1 5w-20 every 5000 miles with a filter change. I just don't feel comfortable going with a longer OCI.
My question is:
Given that I don't want to go with a longer OCI am I better off changing to dino and an OCI of 2500-3000 miles?
 
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I mean with the kind of miles you put on your car, you could do 5,000 mile oil changes using a good dino oil. No reason to do 3,000 mile oil changes just because you start using a dino oil.
 
+1, A quality conventional oil like Pennzoil, etc. would be a great choice for 5k intervals. If I lived in your climate I'd be using conventional year round, but I go to synthetic in winter.
 
Originally Posted By: MPANELLI
At the risk of opening a can of worms...My question is not which is better, but which is better for my situation.

I have a 2006 Honda Accord 4cyl auto. I live in So. California and drive approx 140 miles a day. The morning commute is an easy drive 70mph plus. The drive home is more like 1/2 city driving and 1/2 freeway due to traffic.
I currently use Mobil 1 5w-20 every 5000 miles with a filter change. I just don't feel comfortable going with a longer OCI.
My question is:
Given that I don't want to go with a longer OCI am I better off changing to dino and an OCI of 2500-3000 miles?



Why don't you feel more comfortable with a longer OCI than 5K miles? Do you have any tangible reason? You're engine isn't that hard on oils.

If I was you, I'd do the following:

1) Do a UOA at 5K miles. Get results back and decide how much more you can go on the oil.

2) Try a 0w-20 and do a UOA at 5K miles. Get results back and decide how much more you can on the oil.

Which ever oil appears to be better given just 1 UOA, stick with it and the OCI based on the UOA.

You're in Southern California so you're not subject to extreme cold. Driving on the highway is very easy on oil. Even though on the return commute you're 1/2 city and 1/2 highway, your oil can't be beaten up that badly.

Just as an example. There have been guys on an Acura RL forum which had the MID tell them to change their oil in as little as 5K miles and as high as 9K miles, if not more. That's a big difference. Mind you, the Acura doesn't check what oil you use, just uses an algorithm and the consensus is that Acura assumes you use dino. So in theory, most likely you could go longer with synthetic.

Save yourself some money and time. Do the UOA's and use raw data to help you figure out your OCI.

My 2 cents..
 
Unlike eveyone, I like to use synthetic with a short 5-6k mile OCI. So my answer to your Q, I would not change a thing, except(in my case) the brand of synthetic.
 
I really don't know anything about oils so, Why try a 0w-20? The recommended oil is 5w-20. Will the 0w-20 provide the same protection?
 
Not much benefit in your climate. Use a brand name 5w-20 dino every 5K and your Honda will still be running 200k from now.
 
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Given your daily commuting routine, you could go closer to 10K on the M1 you are currently running, or stay at 5K intervals and use a brand name dino. Honda 2.4s are REALLY easy on oil. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to be wasting M1 buy pulling it out of the sump at 5K. Not given your driving conditions. If you did a UOA at 5K, you'd be shocked at how much life the oil still has.

Given that you don't want to streach you OCIs, I'd definatley stop wasting money on synthetics and use a dino 5W-20 for 5K. You aren't driving a vehicle that needs it, nor are you opertaing in an environment that dictates it.
 
I'll chime in with the dino crowd here. What I would strongly recommend is abandoning your mileage standard for OCI's and graduate to a time span method. Right now ..you're not even at 2 months (5600 if you only do your commute).

You have a career in oil changing going on that I didn't match doing 65k a year.
 
Doesn't 2006 Honda Accord come with OLM (Oil Life Monitor) ?

If it does, then use brand name Dino 5W20 and change oil whenever OLM goes down to 5-15%.

If it does not have OLM then follow recommended OCI in manual, it should be around 10k miles for dino. Since you do not like long OCI's, 5-6k miles with brand name dino and oil filter at every other oil change.

If you want too, take a sample at 5k miles to do analysis while you still have that oil in engine. When the result comes back and the oil is in good shape then continue use it until 8-10k miles. If the oil is depleted, change the oil at that time.
 
Originally Posted By: MPANELLI
I really don't know anything about oils so, Why try a 0w-20? The recommended oil is 5w-20. Will the 0w-20 provide the same protection?



The 0w-20 should give your engine the same, if not better protection.

I'd like to modify my statement. If you're under warranty you're really wasting money and time by going 5K miles with synthetic or 3K miles with dino.

If you're still in warranty, follow the MID. That's what I'm doing. As soon as I'm out of warranty, I'm doing my OCI based on facts, not a computer program.

Do the oil analysis as I and others have suggested and I suspect you'll be surprised by how much life you have left in your oil.
 
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Originally Posted By: MPANELLI

My question is:
Given that I don't want to go with a longer OCI am I better off changing to dino and an OCI of 2500-3000 miles?


your kidding right???

switch to dino and 5K intervals with the type of driving you do, highway miles are the best for oil/motor

if you do decide to do 3000 mile intervals please send me your used oil, i can put another 3K on it and save serious money
 
At 140 miles per day I would certainly look for a rational way of doing fewer oil changes. As stated by others, your usage profile sounds great for extending OCI. Warranty is probably an issue so consult user manual as a baseline for weight and OCI.

What I do is follow the manufacture's OCI but use discounted synth to get extra margin. 10K miles in a Accord with synth sounds like reasonable plan.

Accord ! You can probably abuse it and get 200-300K+ miles out of it so I see no reason to be too conservative.
 
If it was me I'd run 5k with PP in the Honda - which is exactly what I do. Of course, my driving is more short trip/stop and go than yours. If you want to switch to Dino, I'd do yellow bottle and a PureOne. There should be no appreciable difference in engine wear/lifespan either way. You might try running a good filter for 10k and look at it afterward to see whether you think that's a good idea. My feeling is that using YB 5W-20 and a M1/PO/KN filter every other change will do you fine.
 
Just keep doing what your doing, with what your running, and you'll be happy in the long run.
 
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