Any idea why Infiniti recommends mineral based oil

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skylinegtr

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This is what it says in the owners manual:

INFINITI recommends mineral based oils.
These oils must however, meet the API
quality and SAE viscosity ratings specified
for your vehicle.

Is this Infiniti's way of getting you into a new car after your old engine has died? lol
 
It means use an API sm rated mineral oil of the correct viscosity and you are covered.. Your engine will last a long time.
A word of advice use what they say believe it or not they know..
 
Honda recommends changing the filter every other OCI, so for my car 15~20,000 miles.

I think it's their way of reining in dealers and creating value for their customers. I imagine most Infinity dealers upsell synthetic.
 
Originally Posted By: skylinegtr
I think they are referring to dino oil as mineral based oils.


That's ARCO's point. PP is made from crude oil, so technically it is "mineral" based (see the thread on why slack-wax derived oils can be considered synthetic).

The whole recommendation is silly. Of course API certified Group II oil of the correct grade will be fine, but there's NO reason that a Group III petroleum-derived synthetic product (like PP) or a III+ synthetic (like RTS) or a Group IV product would be worse for ANY engine.
 
Perhaps what they are saying is use mineral based oils, stay away from esters. Since PAOs are made from light base stocks of hydrocarbons aren't they mineral based oils too?
 
Doesn't it all come from crude except maybe the vegetable oil derived fatty acids in Redline esters? Some much more highly processed than others? Maybe NPG and TMP comes from natural gas?
 
Originally Posted By: skylinegtr
This is what it says in the owners manual:

INFINITI recommends mineral based oils.
These oils must however, meet the API
quality and SAE viscosity ratings specified
for your vehicle.

Is this Infiniti's way of getting you into a new car after your old engine has died? lol
It says the same thing in my 2005 Altima manual.
 
Originally Posted By: labman
Doesn't it all come from crude except maybe the vegetable oil derived fatty acids in Redline esters? Some much more highly processed than others? Maybe NPG and TMP comes from natural gas?


PAOs (Group IV) are mostly made using natural gas as a feedstock. There is one process that produces them from crude oil, but it accounts for a fairly small percentage of the PAOs sold.
 
Car mfrs. throw these oil recommendation ringers sometimes.
Who really knows what they meant ?
The bottom line is if the rating meets what is for your car, it is OK whether it is a dino or synth. [like SM]
 
Originally Posted By: skylinegtr
This is what it says in the owners manual:

INFINITI recommends mineral based oils.
These oils must however, meet the API
quality and SAE viscosity ratings specified
for your vehicle.

Is this Infiniti's way of getting you into a new car after your old engine has died? lol


Why? I have no idea. However i do know that my friends Infiniti J30 went 300,000+ miles using nothing but Penzoil 10w30 yellow bottle. Still ran great when it was sold and even had the orig transmission that had no other work done but regular fluid exchanges at Jiffy Lube. It did have lots of highway miles due to frequent trips between Dallas and Houston on the I-45 autobahn.
 
As an Infiniti owner since 1993, I can tell you I ran my brand new G20 on Mobil 1 for over 150,000 miles and it operated like brand new when I traded it in on my Q45 which I ran Mobil 1 for the first 100,000 miles and Redline from 100,000 to today at 243,000 and the engine operates like new, never any mechanical issues and looks clean inside. I would never run dino oil in your Infiniti if I were you.
 
It's OK to run a car on a synthetic that DOESNT meet its API cert reqmnt but NOT OK to run a car on a mineral oil that does meet API cert? wow - name brand credito via and vox populi beats prima facie evidence everytime!
 
Last edited:
I think they chose the word "Recomends" for a reason! A lot of European cars that Infinity competes with have more oil specifications then Jimmy Carter has liver pills. I think it is their way of saying anything with proper API and SAE rating will work.

THeir are some old timers that make a huge deal about an engine "reguiring" some fancy smancy 90210.7,AB rated engine oil etc......

I have never in my life followed OEM viscosity or API recomendations. I have always chosen to exceed those and I havenever had a problem.In this day and age a lot of stuff from marketing,liscensing fee's to ban aids to cover designs flaws oh I almost forgot about CAFE Standars oil has become a source for many fix's. The same can be said for a lot of older ransmissions.


Nissians heavy industrial truck line used a lot in Africa and the middle east had all kinds of issues with synthetic oil for about 15 years. If you ran synthetic in them the seals would fail early runing the bearing etc.......A lot of the mining companies in these harsh environments like to use synthetic fluids to reduce down time. FInaly an after market company steped up to the plate with good after market seals but most places still use the OEM bears. After the seal material change no more issues.

A lot of things go into OEM recomendations and what is best for the customer is oftenthe last item to be taken into account.

Also I once worked in a Chrysler building and Iused to pass all these hot girls that where right out of High School. It was their job to cut and paste info from one manual into the next for each model years owners manuals. THey got paid $9 and if they failed to ask about something guess what????It would be copied from the one manual to the next.

I saw something simalar going on at GM but I only say the people involved in proofing and oking for printing not all the hottie's doing the cut and paste routine!LOL

So the above could be a hold over from days long gone as well!
 
Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: labman
Doesn't it all come from crude except maybe the vegetable oil derived fatty acids in Redline esters? Some much more highly processed than others? Maybe NPG and TMP comes from natural gas?


PAOs (Group IV) are mostly made using natural gas as a feedstock. There is one process that produces them from crude oil, but it accounts for a fairly small percentage of the PAOs sold.




I`ve always wondered how a natural gas can be turned into a liquid lubricant. I bet it`s a facinating process!
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning

Also I once worked in a Chrysler building and Iused to pass all these hot girls that where right out of High School. It was their job to cut and paste info from one manual into the next for each model years owners manuals. THey got paid $9 and if they failed to ask about something guess what????It would be copied from the one manual to the next.



sounds like how my camry manual is written down here...
21.gif
 
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