Originally Posted By: wemay
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Back in the day, those of us who are old enough to have been there used conventional oils in everything for all temperatures.
Synthetics were rare and costly while conventionals could be had on sale for a little bit of nothing.
We thought nothing of cold weather use and our engines lasted well.
Today, outside of boards like this one, conventional motor oil continues to be the choice of most owners, although this is a choice that most owners never make since they have no idea what any given service outlet puts in and it rarely occurs to them to ask. I'd even suspect that most engines for which 0W-20 is recommended probably get conventional 5W-20 as the service fill.
All of this seems to do no harm.
Nothing wrong with conventional motor oil and if I didn't have a large stash of cheaply bought syn, I'd likely be using it myself.
We have collectively brainwashed ourselves into believing that synthetic is ever so much better than conventional, but I'm convinced that there is little to choose between the two for most applications.
The OP's experience illustrates this well.
Excellent post. Most folks just read synthetic or conventional on the labels and make assumptions. The avg joe has no concept of MRV.
I would agree that we are splitting hairs here. I started Opel Vectra 2.0 16V on -42c in Bosnian mountains using 15W40 conventional oil and it survived and [censored], drove next 150k
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Back in the day, those of us who are old enough to have been there used conventional oils in everything for all temperatures.
Synthetics were rare and costly while conventionals could be had on sale for a little bit of nothing.
We thought nothing of cold weather use and our engines lasted well.
Today, outside of boards like this one, conventional motor oil continues to be the choice of most owners, although this is a choice that most owners never make since they have no idea what any given service outlet puts in and it rarely occurs to them to ask. I'd even suspect that most engines for which 0W-20 is recommended probably get conventional 5W-20 as the service fill.
All of this seems to do no harm.
Nothing wrong with conventional motor oil and if I didn't have a large stash of cheaply bought syn, I'd likely be using it myself.
We have collectively brainwashed ourselves into believing that synthetic is ever so much better than conventional, but I'm convinced that there is little to choose between the two for most applications.
The OP's experience illustrates this well.
Excellent post. Most folks just read synthetic or conventional on the labels and make assumptions. The avg joe has no concept of MRV.
I would agree that we are splitting hairs here. I started Opel Vectra 2.0 16V on -42c in Bosnian mountains using 15W40 conventional oil and it survived and [censored], drove next 150k
