Chris_Lum

I have the feeling that most of you guys use synthetic, but for sake of this thread, post up what you use and how many miles you usually change your oil at.

I have been using Amsoil 5w30. So for oil only, 1 oil change is about $50-60. I change oil around 4k mi and do about 15k mi/yr so it's roughly 4 oil changes per year. I know the bottle says you can run it past 5k mi but the car already feels sluggish approaching 4k mi, the oil is pretty dark and gas mileage is suffering as well.

Thinking about ways to save money, i'm probably going to switch to good old conventional oil like Castrol GTX. Figuring at doing oil changes every 3k mi with conventional, i'd save a good ~$130/yr with only 1 extra oil change worth of hassle (over the previous 4 oil changes per year w/ amsoil) + cost of 1 extra filter, which is negligible.

This is all daily driving btw, no track time. I know synthetic is supposed to protect better, but initially, i also thought the extended range between changes would help to offset the higher cost--however i'm not getting as many miles out of synthetic as i had hoped, so i'm thinking conventional is the way to go. What do you guys think? I think the $$$ savings outweighs the benefits of using synthetic in this case--as long as i change it at around 3k.

chimps

do u want to stay synthetic?

i mean, you can always chose a non-boutique brand of oil and go w/ a more widely sold synthetic oil like castrol syntec (which is cheaper if you wait for the sales at kragen and such)

Squirtle

Try switching oils? I run German Castrol ow-30 in all of my S2000.

Intervals with no track time are 10K. Just change the filter at 5 since they don't last as long. The oil only gets dirty with 5k miles of use and ~3 track days. Even then it maintains its clean goldish hue.

I don't think its necessary to change oil as frequently as a lot of people here do, and I don't think you should switch to conventional to save ~130 over the year personally.

Gatsbee13

i would stay with syntethic.. just better for the engine.. i change my oil every 5-6k.. thats right around the time i hear a rattling noise from the engine (when the oil is low) been using castrol edge for quite a while now..

gen2gsr

I use valvoline maxlife synthetic blend. Used to be $13.50 at walmart for the 5qt jug some months ago, nowadays its $16.
https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/189...voline+maxlife
Also has an engine warranty program if you're willing to change every 4,000 mi.

chuhsi

i use the cheapest synthetic when i need to change. That's either mobil 1 from costco for about $25 or Pennzoil platinum for $22 from costco. Plus an oem filter for about $9. i use synthetic just because i track the car.

I change every 5k miles because it's a round number and i don't drive much in a year outside of the track. I'm amazed that you can tell the difference in car performance after changing oil. I recommend a blackstone oil analysis to see how much life is actually left in your oil. you may be changing way too early. you can easily go 7,500 with synthetic.

if you daily drive on LA freeways, i would go with conventional and change at either the recommended 3750 or 7500. if you change often enough, i doubt your engine will be able to tell the difference between conventional and synthetic. the filter would be a more important factor.

05TurboS2k

"feels sluggish"

I think your butt-dyno may be affecting your judgement.

Synthetic is far superior but PERHAPS unnecessary for your usage. If you track it, I'd run synthetic. Change it every 7k if you're just daily driving or consider a track day to be about 2k miles worth.

Also you shouldn't switch oils from synthetic back to conventional, generally this is bad for seals.

05TurboS2k

Mobil 1 and those other cheap synthetics are technically not synthetics..... but that's another story.

psychoazn

Do you have any evidence to prove you're not getting the miles? I use Motul 300V, and used oil analysis would support a decision to run the oil for 10k miles WITH track time. The last sample I sent in had about half of the TBN of fresh 300V, but the sample had 5 track days on it, on top of the usual daily driving, and a bit over 4500 miles.

If you're truely curious, spend the $30, and it'll let you know exactly how long you can run your oil.

Chris_Lum

yeah i was looking at castrol syntec/edge and just did a quick price search online and it came up with similar pricing to amsoil. i'll keep an eye out at kragen.

wow 10K! where do you purchase your german castrol from?

ew rattling?! i wonder how much the oil has broken down by this time. why not just top it off a bit more?

hmm didn't even consider the cheap synthetics. maybe i'll look at some reviews. If i'm considering conventional, might as well consider the cheaper synthetics i guess!

you guys seriously can't feel the difference when you change your oil? it's like noticing the difference when changing your diff fluid, pretty apparent to me. Not saying that i'm not changing it out too early though, there's a good chance i am, i just like to err on the positive side as getting a couple thousand more miles out of an oil change wasn't worth it to me to *possibly* increase wear on the engine. That was when i was less frugal about oil change costs, now i'm trying to pinch pennies which is one of the reasons why i'm thinking about the switch.

My understanding is that it was bad to switch to synthetic from using conventional if the seals were worn, like on a high mileage engine. Example, Castrol high mileage is a higher viscosity than normal. I think switching from synthetic to conventional should be fine, and my engine is only 57k mi old, so i don't see any problem.