Ralleh

If Mobil 1 causes a noisier engine and more burning why do people use it?

zeroptzero

because it is a high quailty group 4/5 true synthetic readily available at most retail etablishments. A noisier engine that burns a bit of oil is not necessarily adversely affected, it just appears to be worse. Mobil1 does a good job of protecting engines that stay exceptionally clean for many miles, at a reasonable cost. Is it the "best" oil ? - perhaps not, is it a great oil ?, I say yes. A lot of top notch manufacturers trust the oil in their vehicles, and it isn't all about marketing. For an OTC oil it works quite well overall on many fronts.

spets

I believe Mobil 1 uses Group 3 oils in the US, that's why a lot of people switched from Mobil 1 to a diff brand.

zeroptzero

I personally don't believe that, lots of rumours floating around the internet about such stuff. It was actually Castrol that ruined it when it comes to group 3 oils being legally labelled as synthetic with their Syntec line, that has encouraged others to follow suit as it is so much more profitable. Even Amsoil has a group three oil that is labelled as synthetic, never thought I'd see the day that would happen. Mobil has some group 3 products but I don't think Mobil1 is group 3. My fav. oil right now is Amsoil (their group 4/5 100% synthetic formulas) , but I don't have anything bad to say about Mobil1 as they have some really good formulas like 0w-40, and the EP line etc...

jelanier

I just purchased Castrol 0-30 (German). I am going to give it a try.

I just replaced my TCT this week and I have been using Mobil 1 since I bought the car new in 2004. I now have 168000 miles. The TCT noise has been there for a long time. I just didn't know what it was. Other than the TCT failure, my engine has held up well. My mechanic says it is still silver under the valve cover.

Maybe the German Castrol is even better. I'll find out.

zeroptzero

I'd say Mobil1 worked pretty well for you if you went that long prior to TCT failure. Mobil1 is great keeping engines clean, I would say even better than Castrol syntec based on what I've seen of it over the years. Any engine I ran on Mobil1 always looks spotless when torn apart. My S2000 had some varnishing on the top end after being run on Syntec for many years by the previous owner.

Bror Jace

OK, my take after following oil and oil-related issues for the past decade and a half:

1) "Regular" Mobil 1 tends to be formulated on the thin side. I like to think of their 5W-30 as a 5W-25 ... but it's not really that thin ... just on the thin side of most. Engines that burn a little oil tend to guzzle "regular" Mobil 1.

2) "Regular" Mobil 1 tends to be formulated with lower amounts of metallic additives. If you have a component that tends to fail from neglect (tensioner, etc ...) it tends to fail or fail earlier using Mobil 1 ... and not just S2000s.

3) German Castrol (GC) 0W-30 is on the heavy side of 30 weight ... so the engine should sound quieter when switching from Mobil 1 to CG ... but this might not be terribly significant.

4) Red Line Oil uses a LOT of soluble moly in their oils that tends to deaden noise. Again, this may or may not reduce wear as Red Line Oil UOAs tend to show high wear metals (scavenging?)

5) I believe Castrol was the first to market Group III base oils as "synthetics" in North America but in the lawsuit 10+ years ago, they pointed out that Mobil had done the same in Europe.

I use Pennzoil products, mostly, and am happy with them. I will also use other brands, depending, depending, etc .... If you want to continue to use Mobil 1, I STRONGLY suggest you step up to their EP or High-Mileage varieties which are formulated a bit thicker in each grade and have a stronger additive package.

Robert O

I'm not clear whether the noise heard at cold startup is the TCT or the chain itself chattering on the sprockets because of differing cushion effect between oils. I would think that while many oils would serve to lubricate rod and main bearings that they may have varying effect on how well they allow quiet operation of the chain and its sprockets.I find it difficult to imagine how different oils could effect the tension of the timing chain but rather the running clearances of the links and sprocket teeth.