My local oil change place has started recommending that I use Maxlife 1030 in my car because it has high mileage (175,000 for anyone who cares). They claim it “reconditions seals, and keeps conditioning the seals, to prevent leaks.” It also costs $10 more when I use this oil. Is it worth it? Is Maxlife really any better for my car than a cheaper brand? I’ve never had problems with oil leaks, so I can’t use that to guage it’s effectiveness…
What do ya’ll think?
What, exactly, is Maxlife? Is it a synthetic or synthetic blend, or something else?
prediction: Dopers will not support this, since the consensus is to change the oil as per required interval (give or take) and skip the fancy stuff, the extras and the scare tactics.
I know nothing about Maxlife, except what the place told me. I didn’t think to ask if it was synthetic, or what.
I figured most Dopers would not support it, but I was interested in specific reasons why.
why: general lack of convincing (operative word alert…convincing) evidence that it does anything more than good regular oil/filter changes would accomplish.
The thing that will make your engine last longer is how much you push it. If you baby it, and make sure that it has enough oil in it to remain lubricated, then it will last quite a while. If you stomp on the gas a lot, or let the oil level get so low that it doesn’t lubricate properly, it will die an early death. The auto shop can’t sell you good driving and maintenance techniques, so they sell you what they can.
Personally, I’ve never believed that anything other than the cheap oil is necessary, and I think you can go quite a bit over the recommended changing interval and not do much harm at all to your engine. Click and Clack seem to agree with me, and one of them (I forget which) is refusing to change the oil at all in a car just to see what will happen. I think they are going on 2 years now and the car still runs. Haven’t heard a recent update.
Additionally, the profit margin on additives and ‘special oils’ is way higher than a basic oil change, so they shove it down your throat.
Well I can tell you from personal experience, that if you do that with a turbo charged engine with a 5,000 miles service interval after about 11,000 miles the turbo is toast. I have seen this twice, and both times the clueless owner was most upset that it was not covered under the warrenty. (warrenty contingent on oil changes being done)
Let’s do the math 2 skipped oil changes @ $29.95 = 59.90.
against
1 turbo charger replacement @ $1000.00
::: Rick shrugs:::
Pay me now, or pay me later, makes no difference to me.
Assuming that “maxlife” is some sort of synthetic oil (which are superiour, incidentally), then the answer is “usually not”. As Philster said- I recommend you change you oil regulary & often- it’s cheap, and they sometimes spot other problems.
However, if you had a very special car, or if you were normally lax about changing your oil- AND the extra money was no big deal for you- why not?
Actually, I would assuming that this crap just has some sort of additive that swells nitrile rubber (what most engine seals in automobiles are made of) so it seals “better”.
Unless your car is leaking oil, I would pass.
If your car is under warranty, change the oil when it says to change the oil and use the type recommended.
If past the warranty stage, check with your local X-brand car service department to find out if synthetic oil is recommended for your engine.
I say its not worth it for the reasons Philster has already stated.
A Gay Bishop? Can’t beat that!
Valvoline MaxLife is not synthetic. It’s a conventional oil with a slightly different additive package.
Pennzoil, Quaker State, and Castrol also have “higher-mileage” conventional oils, as well. All of them give 75,000 miles as their definition of “high”, which these days is kind of questionable to me.
I believe that these high-mileage oils generally are on the higher end of their viscosity grade, as well. None of the high-mileage oils that I’ve looked at carry the API sunburst on the front, and the “donut” on the back lacks the “Energy Conserving” verbiage. I think these two are related, and that they’re caused by the slightly higher viscosity causing them to fail whatever test is required.
The times I’ve priced them, they’ve been a bit higher than the standard conventional, but lower in price than synthetic blends (and, of course, much lower than full synthetics).
This is what scares me. The idea is that an old, hard, shrunken seal that has lost its ability to seal will be made soft and swell up so that it seals again. The problem is, the seals can continue to get softer and more swollen, to the point where they leak worse than they did before.
If you already have leakage from a rubber seal (and not all oil leaks are), then a leak-stop product can buy some time, but eventually put you in a position where you must fix the leak. If you don’t have such leakage, it basically buys trouble.