Well I might as well chime in on this one. While I don't post very much, I have watched this forum for a long time. I posted on the Bob's original board and have been on this one from the beginning.
What I have learned from all of the great posts and UOA's is:
1. There is no longer a need to have a OCI of 3K for dino oil anymore. Patman and Bob have posted many threads discussing this and the 3K OCI was started back in the 60's and no longer applies to the oil made today. In fact, I have a '01 burb that specifies dino oil and has a OCI computer that triggers the OCI based on miles, #starts, temps, etc, and it never goes off until 5-6K. So, when looking at cost savings over synthetics, most people put 12-14K Mi on their car a year. At 5-6K per change thats 3 OC's per year not 4-5.
Most syn users don't really take their oil to its limits. 5-7K maybe it for dino, but a good syn should be able to go 7.5-10K. I think most syns users don't feel comfortable doing it because the 3K OCI is so engrained that 7.5K seems a long time in comparison.
2. With the new SL's and GF4's set to come out soon, the current oils have much better bases and additive packages than the 3K OCI oils of yesteryear. Hence, further support for longer OCI's for dino.
3. Syn has its place and I have used both syn and dino in my cars. I had a 87 Cougar XR7 (302 cu-in) and used penn from my local Jiffy lube with 5-6K OCI's on it and had 155K on it when I traded it in and still did not use any oil.
Since '93 when I got an Explorer, I have used M1 and now have 130K and have gone 5-6K between OC's and it just started using a small amount of oil since I switched to the new M1. Don't know if it is because of the thinner nature of M1 or not.
But, syn's have their place. If you live in the tundra with Patman, then syn's are great and recommended. If you do alot of hard driving or have a toyota sludde machine then the extra protection of syn's are great.
3. However, if you are an average driver and run a good dino or blend and change your oil regularly at 5-7K, with the dino oils made today, I believe that your engine will last longer than the rest of it will.
4. UOA's are great but over used. I think that UOA's are great when going through the process of determining how long one can go between OC's. I have watched a syn oil study at
http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/oil-life.html
and Patman has actually paid for a few of the UOA's for the study. I believe that in this case it is warranted.
But, if you are going to change your syn oil at 7.5K and then pay $20-25 for a UOA and are trying to see if you could have gone 1-2K more, then you are wasting your money, unless you are just addicted to oil. I admit, I have paid for several before realizing that for the money I was spending on the UOA, I could have bought another round of oil and filter.
In summary, I love this website and have learned a lot. However, with everything in life a little common sense must be applied and both dino and syn have their place and both will work very well for the majority of the drivers.
I am in the process of thinking about switching off of M1 and going back to a good blend or dino due to Wallyworld raising their price on the 5 qt jugs from $17.88 ($3.57/qt) per jug to $22.88 ($4.57/qt) per jug.
Has this happened at other Walmarts?
