Mobil 1?

[NASTY]

or how bouut a TRD oil filter??

i just got an oil change with mobil 1 (i couldnt resist their ads, so catchy) i really feel that .5 hp! no, not at all, but if its better for the engine why not.

[Chris A]

I worked Quality control for Connoco Oil for a few years and learned a lot about oil. Lowdown on oils: Dino Oil pulled out of the ground. Sent to refinery as nasty dirty oil. Refinery seperates thick from thin and tries to remove impurities. Detergents and other additives are added to to keep the sulfur in the oil from attacking the metal in your motor. Dino Oil has small and large Molicules (sp) After a short time the small ones break up and get burned up. Over time all the smaller ones get used up and your oil gets thicker. The additives also start to break down letting the sulfur turn into Sulfuric Acid. Smell your Oil it is there...

Synthetic: None or very little Sulfur. Molicules are pretty much all the same size. If you could keep it super clean it would last for years. Combustion gasses will contaminate it though over time in cars.

Bottom line: If you change your oil every 3 to 5,000 most oils are more then fine for the job. The additives do not work as good over time that is why they say every 6 months or 5,000 on the bottles of Dino Oils. We have machines at work that use Mobil gear SCH 320 and are filtered down to 5 microns. They are tested every 6 months and some have ran over 25,000 hours on the same oil with no breakdown of the oil.

I hope this helps a little. I am no expert but know a little about oils from my years of working with them.

[ericatdallas]

I ran my protege for 2 years or about 27k miles before I made an oil change. I used this oil filter and 5 qts. of oil that I got from Autozone on sale, for $5.

About the last 3k of those miles I had to top it with synthetic oil and it started leaking through the gaskets. I made an oil change with reg. and it didn't leak through the gasket anymore...

I again ran that for about 12k miles and then successive oil changes I made every 5-8k miles and ran that thing for another 20k miles with that car. The engine was working great but the tranny failed and I got rid of the car.

My point is, there are stories on both side.

I asked my Automotive Tech teacher (20+ years of experience) and he says, the thing he notices about synthetic is they leak, but he's not sure if it's still true on today's newer synthetics. He does think they are better, but not quite necessary for the average car. If your car hits the temperatures needed to break down synthetic then your engine is dead anyway. If you live in Alaska or canada then it's good to have that oil.. It's less likely to sludge. He's ran his truck for 12 years on dino with 3k oil changes and it's at 170k miles now. He's never had to take his engine apart or rebuild it. He's not sure if he would be better off with synthetic, but if it died tomorrow he would be satisified with the way the car ran. He drives a Chevrolet.

So it's your call what oil you use. Today's cars are all really well built and todays automotive products are pretty well manufactured.

[ericatdallas]

Here is a link in support of using Synthetic, particularly AMSOIL and Mobil 1

http://mokansynthetics.com/Dealer_Site/ ... obil1.html

These are the top two synthetics on the market with AMSOIL beating Mobil 1 significantly in wear testing.

The next link compares properties of the top brands. It doesn't show as drastic of a different but it does show the superiority of synthetics.

http://www.vtr.org/maintain/oil-overview.html

But again, synthetic might be better but is it an overkill for your car?

And remember, you have to follow Toyota recommended oil changes to keep that warranty.