alright i bought my S a few weeks ago and i am gonna change the oil today...then it dawned on me ..what type of oil is in this car... its a MY00 with 49000 miles on it and i have no clue if it was synthetic oil or a blend or conventional.. are there any ways to tell? what should i use since i have no clue? thanks in advance

 

There isn't really a cheap/easy way to tell if synthetic is currently in the car. You can use a conventional oil, synthetic, or blend. You may want to contact the former owner or look for the maintenance records. To find out what oil has been used.

A oil laboratory may be able to ID a sample as synthetic.

 

what i need to find out is if it will hurt it if i switch to synthetic , and or conventional?????

 

You can switch between the 2. Usually with pretty high milage engines switching to synthetic can cause oil leaks, due to the sythetic's deteregents breaking down the sludge in the engine.

49k isn't exactly high milage. I'd have a look under the oil cap for sludge, to see if the oil has been changed regularly.

 

it seems that it has been changed religiously... no build up and the oil is still healthy looking.. thanks i hink i am gonna use conventional mobil 1 to just be safe. thanks for the help. and quick response's

 

You may also want to read this about higher mileage S2000 engines.

http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=189870


"Valvoline's MaxLife is a very sophisticated lubricant, and a killer deal when bought on sale. It is a very good choice for higher mileage cars of any manufacturer, but certainly for S2000's with 50K or more."

 

Conventional and synthetic motor oils are totaly compatable.


Conventional motor oil has detergent in it as well

I agree with your statement of 49k miles not being a whole lot of miles.

That is all the more reason to switch to synthetic motor oil. It sounds as if your car was well taken care of.

I bought a MY94 Del Sol VTEC in 1998 with 54k miles on the ticker. The oil was changed every 3k miles. The lady gave me all of the service records to prove it. Anyhow, I switched to synthetic right away. The car never drank that much oil. The oil consumption was dictated by my driving style It pretty much ran the way a DOHC VTEC motor was supposed to run.

I reved that thing to 8k rpm's all day long for 4 straight FUN filled years. That thing was fast for a stock n/a 1.6 four cyl engine. That thing ran like a thoroughbred racehorse up till the day I traded it in for my S2000

The moral of the story is, 49k miles is not too late to make the switch to synthetic motor oil. I did it at 54k and hammered her for 75k miles and it ran just beautifully

 

Check out Road Rage's comment on switching to synthetic on high milage engines:

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=272021

Conventional oils do have detergents, synthetics usually have much more.

 

This one time I took my car to a service station and provided them synthetic oil and they replaced my oil -- no problems. Then I went directly to Jiffy Lube for them to do a TRANSMISSION oil service. They got a little too excited or confused and ended up dumping my brand new synthetic fluid. I caught them, but it was too late. Anyway, the service guy in the bay below the car was able to distinguish the synthetic oil. They ended up refilling the car with more synthetic free of charge.

Moral of the story: If you're trying to determine whether there's synoil or minoil in your car today, experienced techs at some service stations would be able to tell you.

 

Synthetic has a better taste and is less filling than regular mineral oil.