. lol yea, I would say your in the very lucky category if it burns none. I tracked my 02 s2k for a few years and that thing would burn about 2-3 quarts of oil in 3k before I sold it.

 

My 02 with 22K miles burns no discernible amount of oil between changes. I'm a little skeptical about this business of healthy ap1 engines burning oil more than any other engines.

I switched to Amsoil recently. The claim by Amsoil is a 25K mile oil change interval. I am planning to do an UOA every 5K for a while and I am anxious to see how it holds up. I drive on back roads almost every day in good weather and I tend to keep the revs up around 4-6K most of the the time. I might get in the VTEC range once or twice during a drive. I am doing only street driving. We shall see.

 

i'll prove it to you. let's trade engines.

 

Conventional oil is fine. Your plan and your reasonings are sound.

Keep in mind that most oils sold in the USA and labeled Full Synthetic are in fact not really full synthetic. Most are made from organic Group III bases, which have been modified to qualify as synthetic under US law. These oils could not legally be sold as Full Synthetic in most European countries.

To my knowledge, all USA Mobil 1 oils, with the exception of their 0W-40 European Car Formula, are NOT made from 'real' Full Synthetic bases.

USA Castrol 0W-30 and 0W-40 European Formula oils are also real Full Synthetics.

There are probably others that are real, but these are the only ones I'm aware of.

Mobil 1 USA 'synthetic' oil has a well known proclivity for excessive consumption in our engines. As suggested, trying another full synthetic may yield better consumption results.

 

^
i don't think mobil 1 0w-40 european is fully real synthetic, i believe it is group 3 mix with group 4.

same with usa castrol.

to try to get a group 4 oil, i go with motul x-cess 5w-40, which i'm not even sure if it's fully real synthetic either, or i think liqui moly leichtlauf 5w-40 is also based on their NOACK volatility being 9%.

 

I considered your offer and decided against it.

 

Oil is oil. Synthetics are proven to be better in the respect they flow properly at all temperatures and don't break down as quickly as conventional oils. The conventional oils provide more than adequate lubrication. The scheduled maintenance oil change remains 7500 miles regardless of the oil used. 12 month oil changes becoming common on late model cars using synthetic oil and there's nothing magic in the engines. I've concluded it's just better oil making this possible. Subaru wants oil changes in my wife's 3.5R engine at 3700 miles if using conventional oil. 7500 miles (the nearly universal schedule) if using synthetic.

There's enough evidence here to indicate Mobile 1 is consumed rapidly in our cars, especially the AP1 2.0 engines. Anecdotal evidence for sure but enough of it to be creditable. As far as individual experience I buy 6 quarts of Royal Purple 10W30 (or 5W30) and use 5.2 quarts when I change the oil and filter. The remaining is used to occasionally bring the oil level to the top of the dipstick between changes. Never approaches the bottom mark. So, yeah, I use some oil too. I change the oil when the Maintenance Minder indicates it's dropped below 10% oil life remaining. Whenever I get around to it at that point. This is typically in the 6500 - 7000 mile range. Engine oil analysis indicates the oil is still fine when I change it but oil is cheap in the grand scheme of automotive things.

-- Chuck

 

You state "oil is oil", but then contradict that with the rest of your post.

 

MY00. owned and tracked fairly heavily for 11 years. 88K miles.

Have use 0W30 or 10W30 Castrol syntec, Mobil1, Pennzoil, and also Castrol GTX.

Any guesses on how much oil it burned last weekend at the track? I am using 0W30 currently.

OP:
Its fine. The S2000 doesn't require synthetic. Its just better for start up and shear protection.

 

Oil burn depends on the car, I guess. Mine has 163k on it, driven hard / tracked and it will burn a quart every 1k.