What oil's can help you reach a million miles?

[ziggy]

I had read the article here, about a guy with his SABB, that reached 1 million miles. Another guy, using Pennzoil dino, reched 800,000 miles. Ive chated with others, in car forums online, and found many using mobil 1, have gone over 600,000 miles and still going strong! What about other oils, like Havoline, or redline, they have very robust additive packages... think those can also achieve the same as listed above?

 

[427Z06]

It's not the oil, it's how a car/truck is made, driven, and maintained that will determine how many miles you get out of a vehicle.

 

[dave1251]

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In both cases you mentioned, it wasn't the oil, it was how the car/truck was made, driven, and maintained.

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Agreed. The owner/manufacture will determine how long a vehicle will last.

 

[sw99]

The engine will play into this factor as well. There are some engines out there that would never be able to do this. It's several factors, not just how it's treated...

 

[Patman]

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It's not the oil, it's how a car/truck is made, driven, and maintained that will determine how many miles you get out of a vehicle.

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I somewhat agree with this statement. What I mean is that I do truly believe the 2nd biggest factor in an engine's longevity is how gentle you drive it when the engine is still warming up. (the biggest factor, IMO, is the engine design itself) But I do also believe that if you're going to keep a car for a very long time and truly see how long the engine lasts, that your choice in oils can play a factor there too. I know we nitpick over 2 or 3 ppm of wear metals in the UOAs, but if you do find an oil which consistently does show lower wear, that might be the difference between your engine going 500,000 miles without a rebuild or 600,000 miles. With that being said, this means 99.9% of the people out there may never reach that point in their engine's life. So for most of us here, choosing a different oil is only going to affect how good we feel when we get our UOAs and see that 2 or 3 ppm of difference.

 

[ziggy]

I see... here;s where my topic came from....
Its about 20 degrees outside right now. I am using shell formula 5w 30 oil. 1995 plymouth neon, 82,000 miles. in start up, the enigne revs a little, from the cold, and i cna hear some metal contact in the ngine, for a few seconds. When ive used mobil 1 5w 30 in the winter, INSTANT startup!! no metal sounding contact,e ct. So, it made me think, maybe those oils, mobil 1, pennzoil ect can help you keep your engine for a long long time!

 

[hominid7]

The high mileage cars that come to mind, and the oil that was used in them are:

Chevrolet Pickup, 1 million miles, Pennzoil dino

Volvo 1800S, 2.4 million and counting, Castrol GTX

Saab 900, 1 million, unknown synthetic oil used

I drove my old VW Jetta 225,000 miles with zero engine problems. I'm confident it could have easily gone twice that far (or further) without need of rebuild. I used Valvoline dino, but the car very rarely ever saw 3000 mile oil changes, by that i mean it was usually changed at 1500-2000 mile intervals.

So lets review:

Pennzoil causes sludge
Castrol GTX casues varnish
Valvoline has a weak add pack

 

[AndyH]

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Saab 900, 1 million, unknown synthetic oil used

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I'm 99% sure that Saab owner used Mobil 1 synthetic.

 

[Thatwouldbegreat]

I think almost any modern oil could help a vehicle reach a million miles....as long as it was the right oil for the engine and changed at the right interval.

I think it is the engine and the driver and the maintenance and driving habits which determine the lifespan....and luck!

 

[glenncof]

ANY. It's economics...any brand will do.

 

[glenncof]

Any engine without manufacturing defects probably could go 200-300K on 1000 mile OCI with right grade. So what ? How much is an engine worth at that point ? Not much. How much is an engine worth with 1000K miles ? Even less.

Don't bother to spend more money on oil changes than the engine is worth. Ideally you pick the OCI combination that minimizes cost while achieving long life.

 

[427Z06]

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I know we nitpick over 2 or 3 ppm of wear metals in the UOAs, but if you do find an oil which consistently does show lower wear, that might be the difference between your engine going 500,000 miles without a rebuild or 600,000 miles.

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On average, ~90% of the wear comes from cold starts, so given a perfect selection of oil versus a substandard one, the most you could possibly affect the life of the engine through oil selection, is 10%, assuming one at least follows manufacturer recommended maintenance intervals.

Now if one is a maintenance moron and changes the oil and filter every 30K-40K miles, although the OEM recommendation is 7.5K miles, then a quality long drain synthetic oil and filter may substantially extend the life of the engine.

How's that?

 

[bond007]

we are not all able to

buy cars every 5yrs like some people, my family believes run the car till it DIES!!!!!

 

[Patman]

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On average, ~90% of the wear comes from cold starts, so given a perfect selection of oil versus a substandard one, the most you could possibly affect the life of the engine through oil selection, is 10%, assuming one at least follows manufacturer recommended maintenance intervals.

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Another factor that I think both of us might be forgetting is the fact that a lot of engines eventually die because the oil wasn't keeping things quite as clean inside as it could have. So your choice in oils plays a big role there too. This is of course keeping with the subject of this thread, and that would be shooting for a million miles since I still believe that most people do not keep their cars long enough that it makes much difference what oil they choose (so long as they aren't pushing that oil too long given their driving habits/climate, etc.) But as I've mentioned before, it's nice to have good UOAs so I can sleep better at night.

 

[Rob Taggs]

The high mile Volvo did not get there on Castrol GTX. I saw a program about this car and when asked by the interviewer what oil he used, the man said Mobil. Castrol is just trying to use this man's fame for advertizing reasons and to get you to by Castrol Motor Oil. Thats one dirty trick Castrol is doing by using this man.

 

[daemonite]

it's all in the driver and the car...not the oil.

Some cars just aren't reliable enough, others are but driver abuse can quickly ruin them.

Oil helps, but not much...other things will fail before you have an oil related failure.

 

[hominid7]

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The high mile Volvo did not get there on Castrol GTX. I saw a program about this car and when asked by the interviewer what oil he used, the man said Mobil. Castrol is just trying to use this man's fame for advertizing reasons and to get you to by Castrol Motor Oil. Thats one dirty trick Castrol is doing by using this man.

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Maybe i'll email Irv and ask him to settle this

My information comes from a story on Irv and his volvo. A copy of the story can be read here:

http://www.v1800reg.org/pages/A drive with IrV.pdf

Regardless of his using castrol or mobil, due to the vintage of his car i would be very surprised to find he used synthetic.

 

[Lonnie]

I drove a Toyota pickup to 575k miles on Castrol 10w-30 in Southern California. Here is my answer. Any modern vehicle, and API cert oil of the right viscosity, good weather and good driving habits, driven often and with most trips long enought to get the oil up to temp. The choice of Castrol had no effect on the outcome. Any other oil would have done the trick. To give you an idea of how I drove, when I sold the Toyota it was on only it's third clutch.

 

[nascarnation]

By its very nature, 1 million miles implies a LOT of extended highway driving. Even at 50,000 miles/yr, that's a 20 year period. Most people would consider 25,000 miles/year to be well above the norm: 40 years to get to 1 million. That type of operation is generally kind to the powertrain (thus the typical high mileage used car ad referring to "highway miles").
How many 20 yr old cars have enough value remaining in the other vehicle systems to worry about the engine condition?
Just a thought.......

 

[AndyH]

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The high mile Volvo did not get there on Castrol GTX. I saw a program about this car and when asked by the interviewer what oil he used, the man said Mobil. Castrol is just trying to use this man's fame for advertizing reasons and to get you to by Castrol Motor Oil. Thats one dirty trick Castrol is doing by using this man.

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Maybe i'll email Irv and ask him to settle this

My information comes from a story on Irv and his volvo. A copy of the story can be read here:

http://www.v1800reg.org/pages/A drive with IrV.pdf

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A direct quote from the article:
"Irv favors Bridgestone tires, uses only Castrol GTX 20-50 motor oil (changed every 2,000 to 4,000 miles, depending on what kind of driving he's doing). He puts 80-90 weight gear oil in the transmission/overdrive rather than the specified straight 30-weight."