My BIL (22 yrs. old) drives a '98 LeSabre with 210K on the clock. I've been doing his oil changes since last fall, running 4K OCI with MaxLife 10w30, using a quart every 1,500 mi. or less. As much as I've tried to persuade him to keep an eye on it, he refuses to change his ways and continues to crank it up and immediately mash the gas down, and little else. Every change, I find it at least a quart low. He's going to Maine at the first of September until next May and taking the car with him. We'd planned for me to pull the engine and do a complete re-seal before he left but that's not going to happen - I hope I'll get to at least do the valve cover gaskets. The whole bottom half of the engine stays wet, but not gushing yet. Because I doubt he'd listen to me, anyway, I'm looking at what oil I can put in the car before he leaves to best withstand a long OCI (basically tell him "don't worry about it until you get back" - otherwise he's likely to take it to a quick-change place for a conventional oil change and it'll go back to using a quart every 800 mi.) and reduce consumption as much as possible until it's back under my care, that he can get readily at Wal-Mart if he does decide to keep an eye on it. I have great confidence in Maxlife, but will a HD-HM oil fare better in this case? I have a jug of Rotella T6 - is that likely to hold up/stay in better than Maxlife?
Just to be clear, I'm never not frustrated by people that are 100% apathetic about pulling the hood release BEFORE there's a problem.
Just to be clear, I'm never not frustrated by people that are 100% apathetic about pulling the hood release BEFORE there's a problem.
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A 5w40 probably isn't a bad idea - being in Maine over the winter makes me wary of 15w40. Oh, I'd put a couple quarts in the trunk for sure. He's going to a church leadership school so I'm not sure he'll put on a ton of miles outside of the drives up there and back.
