At 01:18 PM 2/24/98 , you wrote:
> In this same vein, I just recalled something that I read regarding
>synthetic vs. dino oil. Somebody had an old, high mileage car which
>had been run with dino oil all its life. They switched to synthetic
>and got a bunch of oil leaks. Apparently, the car had several leaks
>which were plugged up by the dino oil; the synthetic cleaned it out
>*too* well, unplugging all the leaks.
>
> I dunno if this is true or just one of them "urban legend" things,
>but I thought I would pass it along, just in case.
I doubt very seriously whether this is an "urban legend" type thing since I
have heard similar stories on several occasions. I also have personal
experience with this. The first time I put synthetic oil in my wife's van
(93 Ply. Voyager) it already had 48K miles on it. Oil and filter had been
changed every 3K miles using dyno oil with no problems. About a week after
changing over to synthetic the engine developed an oil leak that turned out
to be coming from a valve cover gasket (thank goodness it was still in
warranty). Now I suppose this _could_ be nothing more than a coincidence.
We will never know if the leak would have developed had I used dyno oil.
But given the timing along with the stories I've heard about this, I have
to believe that changing to synthetic oil uncovered a problem. At least it
made a believer out of me.
-- Mike Crumley mcrumley@airmail.net 97 Dakota Regular Cab Short Bed 3.9L V6 3.55 Auto DDBC Bug Shield Mud Flaps
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