Goodbye synthetic oil... we hardly knew ye
 

Check out THIS THREAD on the Xterra Owner's Club forums. I hope TJ is wrong... but I suspect that he is not (he's shown himself on the forums to be very knowledgable and helpful... this isn't coming from some rumor-spreading punk).

:eek: :eek:

I think it's time to switch to Amsoil.

ETA: Summary: If this info is correct, market competition (Castrol = jerks) has driven everyone to stop making higher grade synthetics - they're now giving us slightly improved dino oil and still slapping that Mobil 1 full synthetic label on it.

I thought everyone knew this, as it is 7-year-old news. Here is one of the best overviews of motor oils I've ever read, even though it is from a motorcycle perspective.

http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/Oils1.html

Wow - great link.... sorry for the old news ;)

Thanks!

Well, I still use Mobil 1 and suprisingly my engine hasn't blown up?!? Who would of thunk it? :)

I ran sustained near 300F oil temperatures at TWS and MSR with my old C5 running Mobil 1 and never had an issue. Must not be that crappy of an oil.

I use Mobil 1 in all my vehicles as I feel it is good enough. I concede it isn't a true synthetic and doesn

It's funny the Xterra owners are worried that M1 isn't good enough. haha. Like the V6 or older 4 bangers in the Xterras are subjected to race-track levels of abuse. Unlikely.

I use the good ole castrol dino juice for the RX8. 5 quart jug at 8 bucks and the car drinks it happily. I'm enjoying the 15 dollar oil changes after the M3 used 8-8.5 quarts of Mobil 1 at a time.

I'm in the Mobil 1 boat as well!

^^^ Same here

Good point about it not mattering much in an underpowered X.... I actually run Valvoline syn in mine for no particular reason...

From reading the article that TypeSH posted, it is clear that the type 3's like Mobil are sufficient - but I have two problems:

1) It's deceitful to lessen the quality of your product without being open and honest about it - even if it is still "good enough". Mobil started out as the good guy in this saga by sueing Castrol - but by caving and changing their product on the sly they became just as bad. Integrity matters a lot to me and I just lost faith in that company.

2) I wanted to put absolutely the best thing available in my S because it revs so high... I thought from what I've seen that Mobil 1, Amsoil, Redline etc were all on the same level in terms of quality - turns out that is not true and both Amsoil and Redline are better than Mobil 1.

Yeah, but rotary engines are an entirely different ballgame. You don

I put Mobil 1 in everything!!! In fact it's the first thing i do when i buy a car be it new or used.

It's worked very well in every car i've had for the street and every car i have seriously autocrossed from an E36 M3 to a Porsche GT3.

I do know of one case where the C4 vette i used to autocross with mobil 1 in it, was sold and the guy started using Royal Purple and lost an engine!

That was good enough for me!

[QUOTE=altiain,Nov 28 2006, 04:03 PM] Yeah, but rotary engines are an entirely different ballgame. You don

Ah yes.... the always-reliable anecdotal evidence...

Personally, I'll stick with the science.

Your most likely going the smarter route...i'm just a sucker for proof.

I never was good with all those numbers and sciences. :shrug:

Amsoil is a better oil, period. The problem is that it's not widely available. I deal it but rarely sell it because it's not in high demand. Why spend more money? You can get a 5 quart jug of M1 at Wal-Mart for ~ $4/qt.

Per quikag's comments... you could have run Valvoline or Castrol conventional and been OK. Given the engine and the oil technology (even conventional) there's no reason the engine wouldn't last just fine. What does matter is the change interval (conventional won't last as long) and microscopic wear- the type that only really builds up over 100's of thousands of miles... assuming you follow reasonable change intervals.

I just put Mobil 1 in my '97 Prelude for the first time in the 140k miles or so that are on the motor. The inside of the motor is stained a dark brown from all the conventional that's been run in it. The motor does burn some oil but runs fantastic. Finally fixed all the leaks, too. :)

One of Amsoil's distribution warehouses is over by Six Flags in Arlington. I run over there about once a year and pick up a case of oil. Save me the shipping costs and it's only marginally more expensive than Mobil 1.

Ryan

How much is a case? Is it a retail store or just a distribution center that happens to sell to the public?

Hmmm...I can't remember how much per case it is. You can check on their website, though. Picking it up saves you this shipping cost. You can buy it there, but I usually order over the phone (to ensure it's in stock) then just tell them I'll pick it up.

http://www.amsoil.com/

Ryan

Where do you find the Group III or whatever on the oil can?

I bought some "synthetic" 0-40 Mobil 1 for my new generator (that's what they specified) and I have looked all over the bottle with no Group anything showing. I could have sworn that used to be on the label.

They don't (and won't) tell you. A couple folks on the Xterra board emailed Valvoline and Mobil and both of them responded with long meaningless answers about special secret formulas and designer molecules.

You would think that would be label item.

Oil is largely a marketing product- there is plenty of technology that goes into it but the people answering emails have nothing to do with the design or mfr of the product. They do what they have to do to get by the EPA (like remove nice things that drop friction but piss off the greenies) & then limit as much as possible any technical items that might show them in a negative light.

For instance- try to get some comparative test data out of them. What are the results of their API/ASTM tests? Amsoil is the only one I've seen that will advertise this, and their data is WAY out of date and IIRC only for their Motorcycle oil. Add to that, these guys are changing formulas VERY often... I would like to see routine test data, but NONE of these guys will publish anything like that.

Amsoil makes a decent product but their sales/distribution model is MLM like Amway. The product is better than their shit distribution network would indicate, but even with a dist center in Arlington and me only a few miles away, it much more inconvenient than Wally World.