1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Nothing's 'wrong' with dino oil. It's been around since before Hitler was a corporal. OTOH, there are some applications where it's mandatory if not a solution for bad design or engineering (hats off to the Mercruiser marine ZL-1 corvette guys who couldn't get a DOHC design correct w/o synthetic oil..don't ask). Not to mention M3 BMWs that require 10W-60 synthetic and/or the Audi RS-6 that requires something like 5W-60 or some other dealer-only potion. At least the stuff is furnished by the dealer since under an ancient US law (Magnuson-Moss I believe) the mfr can't specify a name-brand lubricant or part necessary to maintain the warranty without supplying it!
IF you have ever had spectroscopic oil analysis done on any engine you've ever owned and compared 3K oil change results with even 10K synthetic, the difference in wear metal ppm is almost an order of magnitude if not two. The argument has always been that dumping dino oil in 3K (not to mention that 40 years ago or maybe more it was 1K oil changes?) is sufficient to remove the contaminants and refresh the additives package not to mention a new oil filter. Well, yes and no. Depends on usage (do you run 100miles at a time before shutting off the engine? Or maybe 10 miles to work and home...engine oil barely gets warm much less hot, yada yada yada) and load, but in general dino oil simply won't do it.
Yes...the guy in the 1966 volvo with 2M miles probably changes his oil every other weekend at 3K oil changes....means the engine is running maybe 8 hours a day at cruise. I remember the original volvo P1800 guy who got a new volvo from Volvo when he hit 1M on his 1972 P1800....seems he cracked off 1200 miles on his new volvo the first weekend he got the car (he's a teacher and probably divorced once or twice by now...who's gonna put up wit dat?).
One compelling argument...as I understand it virtually all new European cars are now running synthetic oil from the factory.
Another...Mercedes just lost a 30M or so lawsuit over their oil life sensing system in their upper end cars that only works with the factory-spec synthetic oil...MB never told their US organization that the synthetic was necessary and so MBNA merrily went on their way and allowed dealers to put whatever mousemilk they wanted in the cars...result was engine wearouts and failures and decreased market value for used MB cars. Sure MB is appealing it, but there are 30M reasons for you what's wrong with dino oil.
posted by 140.185.2...
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