Here's an interesting post from the MML in response to a question about
oil color and frequency of oil changes. I thought I'd pass along. Take it
for what it's worth; if you disagree, that's fine. If you like it, fine
also.
Richard in San Antonio
-
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 15:32:15 -0500
From: "James
Subject: Re: oil color ?????
>>How often do you change your oil ... ?
I have seen oil very dark but the lab (will explain in a minute) still
said
it was going strong....
1000 should not make a big difference (unless your changing it every 1500
miles in which
case that's half again longer)... We change conventional oils (which we
rarely use anymore)
at 4000 miles, Semi-Synthetics (Castroil Syntec Blend or Valvoline
Durablend) at 5000
and Synthetic (Castroil Syntec is what we primarily use) at 6000 miles.
I used to work in a place where we didn't change the oil until the lab
told
us to, we took
samples of our fleets oil every 2 months or 2000 miles whichever came
first
and they
analyzed it and then told us when it needed changing (and they had strong
requirements
for cleanness, particle parts per million, how good it continues to work,
etc) and I learned
something working there....
They decided to a program of using different oils once a couple of years
back and see
what oils were best... we found something out...
Most GOOD grade regular oils (Castroil GTX, Pennzoil, Valvoline) lasted
over
6500 miles.
Most STANDARD grade regular oils (Quaker State and most of the Generic
Brands) lasted
about 5000 miles.
Most Semi-Synthetic oils Lasted about 8000 miles.
Mobil 1 and Ames-Oil (Ames-Oil told us there's was good for 10,000 miles)
Synthetics, and Castroil Syntec-Blend Semi-Synthetic lasted about
8500-9000
miles.
(seems Ames-oil was a little short)
All of the above lost there life due to both particle emulsion and oil
lost
its viscosity and lubricating
life all about the same time.
Castroil Syntec lasted nearly 11,000 miles and the funny thing was the
report said it'd finally reached the end of its life because of engine
particle emulsion, Not because the oil had lost its viscosity
or lubricating life, they said it still showed to have a long useful life
left and suggested trying one
of the new ultra-fine oil filters and repeating the test.
We did change oil filters to the new ultra-fine filtering kind and redone
all of them (we ran the
test for months and months actually, so all test were repeated several
times
in several types
of engines to confirm the results). And the new filters made a
difference
in particle-emulsion
percentages in all of the oils, though most all the oils only went up
about
500 miles on life due
to the viscosity and lubricating life factors. The Syntec jumped to 12500
on
life and still finally
was pulled due to particle emulsion, on everything else it was still
going
strong...
Note that most companies, including Castroil (and Ames-oil despite there
10,000 mile claim) still recommends changing the oil at least every 4000
on
regular oils and 6000 miles on Synthetics, even
though the oils may be good for much longer. (and on cars in Warranty
they
all recommend going
with the manufactures recommendations so you wont void your warranty).
Shortly after this I switched all my cars to Syntec and Syntec-Blend
(depending on how much
I could afford at the time and how much I loved and/or drove the vehicle
in
question) and since
starting Mopars and Musclecars and using it in our vehicles and in all
the
cars we build.
We change all of them every 4500 miles on Syntec-Blend, and 6000 on
Syntec
and so far we
have loved it. Every engine we pull apart to upgrade or whatever, even
after 100,000 miles
still looks practically new inside, we have run several vehicles to
200,00
and 300,00 miles
and still going strong (and i'm talking gas-burners AND diesels) ... I
have
personally put
210,000 miles on one 1985 Jeep Cherokee 2.8 V-6 I drive (the red 2 door
on
our web-pages) and
my current 1992 Jeep Cherokee 4.0HO I-6 has 285,000 miles and still going
strong. We have
one '92 Dakota Sport with a 4 cyl. we use as a runabout that has 421,500
miles on it the last
time I was in it a few days ago and the only thing it's had done other
than
timing change
was a valve job at 305,000 miles. Another thing we've noticed too, our
vehicles that we switch
to Syntec, jump in gas mileage by 1-3 mpg like clockwork.
_____________________________________
- James
Mopars and Musclecars!
Classic-Mopars
http://home.att.net/~Classic-Mopars
___________________________________________________________________
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