Oil question

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edgil1985

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I work at a place that bottles motor oil and me and a friend were talking the other day and he asked me what oil I use in my car and I told him that I used full synthetic. He then asked if that's what I always used in the car and I told him that we just got the Tahoe and I wasn't sure what they used, probably the cheap shit, but I was going to use the full synthetic. He told me that it was better to use the stuff they put in and not to change up blends. I don't see what it would matter but I figured it can't hurt anything. Does anyone know anything about this?
 

Sasquatch

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Some people say that when they switched to full synthetic oil it caused leaks.

I switched to all my vehicles over to royal purple and in the ten or more years since i haven`t had any leaks start after swapping.
 

sumo

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there is so much debate about oil and brands, weight, syn vs dino. I say try them for your self and see where you liie. Persoanly, i use what i get from work and thats the free stuff lol. I am seriously thinking about seeing how the ol 10w 30 works in my truck. I will tell you this, working On Hondas, they are now mostly running 0w-20. Its thin and pours like water. Personally i think its too thin and get burned up easliy. I did a test on my moms oddysey. Tried 0w-20 one oil change and by the time an oil change was due, there was hardly any oil on the stick. Switched it to a thicker 5w-30 and its still full. This is my experience.
 

BRUTUS_T_HOG

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It won't hurt it. After a few oil changes there will be less and less traces of the old stuff.

I use full synthetic so that I know the oil is performing its job to the fullest from the time it is poured in to the time its drained out
 

Wake

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Some people say that when they switched to full synthetic oil it caused leaks.

I switched to all my vehicles over to royal purple and in the ten or more years since i haven`t had any leaks start after swapping.

My 116K mile baby Northstar (Olds Aurora) started leaking a bit when I switched to synthetic, prior to that it was only a seep that never formed drops. I've read that's pretty common.

My Escalade has some oil drops on the pan as well.

---------- Post added at 01:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 AM ----------

I was sold on synthetic oil about 15 years ago when I pulled the intake and heads on my 88 IROC and found absolutely no sludge in a 120K mile engine. I had never seen clean internals on a high mileage engine before. Not one speck of sludge, not one flake of baked oil on a high mile, severely overheated engine.

Synthetics hold up much better to the sustained high temps the engines experience in prolonged idling and stop and go traffic.

The synthetics hold up so well to high temps (around 100F hotter if I remember correctly), that GM switched the Corvette to synthetic in 1992 on the LT1 engine so they could get rid of the external engine oil cooler of the previous L98 cars. They touted it as high tech engineering in the Corvette but it was really about cost savings of the oil cooler they had to use on previous models.

I think one reason that switching to synthetics causes oil leaks is because the sludge that might be present in your used vehicle might be what's keeping the oil from leaking out. Once that disappears there isn't anything to stop the oil from leaking out of where it was intending to.

I don't use anything but synthetics anymore, even on my winter beater. On that vehicle I will use the Walmart branded synthetic (it's made by Kendall) as its only about $1 a quart more than the Walmart branded conventional oil (also made by Kendall if I remember correctly), and about the same price as any recognized brand name conventional oil.
 

Stein2088

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I work at a place that bottles motor oil and me and a friend were talking the other day and he asked me what oil I use in my car and I told him that I used full synthetic. He then asked if that's what I always used in the car and I told him that we just got the Tahoe and I wasn't sure what they used, probably the cheap shit, but I was going to use the full synthetic. He told me that it was better to use the stuff they put in and not to change up blends. I don't see what it would matter but I figured it can't hurt anything. Does anyone know anything about this?

When I worked at a GM dealership I always asked what the best oil was from guys who raced (Drag, dirt, etc.) I always got the answer "Brown and Slippery" but keep in mind that if you have an Oil life monitoring system it is assuming you are running a blend and for NEW GM vehicles "Dexos" wich you cna buy in numerous brands. I once did a complete lube change on my 02 Camaro and swapped all fluids out for Royal Purple. Biggest issue I had was Oil going "Missing" (I never had this issue before with synthetic or Std. After some research and a lot of talking to different people I found that the oil molicules are smaller with RP oil so some can be absorbed into the engine block. For the price of RP oil I would go with what ever is on sale that is at least a Blend or full synthetic. As far as switching brands... "BROWN AND SLIPPERY"
 

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