Synthetic oils also have fewer additive incompatability issues than “dino oil”. Better compatability with the active additives means you get better performance from your synthetic oil. This is probably not a difference you would see over the short term.
Not going to necro that thread, but I may as well comment on this:
It’s the additive package (of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I?). Base oils available help with, but do not satisfy, all of the certification requirements. And some times the oil supplier changes their base oil stock, and we need to reformulate the additives so the certification is maintained.
We do formulate with Group I oils – mostly for low-cost products in Asia and the Middle East.
If money is no object and you have a few $MM for a development and engine test program, I’d bet that someone could formulate something close to that requirement using Group I. It would probably be mostly additives (instead of < 5-10% additives as most motor oils are).
Of course, I don’t know anyone who’d’ve actually wasted rig time on testing a Group I for that certification, so this is all hypothetical hand-waving on my part.
We don’t get -40 degree F (or -40 degree C for that matter ) here very often.
But two weeks ago it was -20 degrees F here. (I live in Minnesota.)
I decided to put synthetic oil in my '95 Honda Prelude last fall primarily because I have only a 7-8 minute commute to and from work, and that’s way too short for the engine to get really warmed up during our typical winter weather.
With 85K miles on the engine, I decided to give it synthetic oil to ease the strain on my engine as it starts up from sub-zero temperatures.
Now, I’ll have to decide how long to wait before changing the oil. I’ve pretty much adhered to the 3,000 mile interval with dino oils, but now I’ll try to at least double that.
Incidentally, I’m holding off putting synthetic oil in my 2005 model year motorcycle (only has 800 miles on it now) because I’ve heard that synthetic oil slows down the engine break-in period.
So, I think I’ll hold off on putting synthetic oil in my dear Thumper* until about 10K miles. Which will be a LONG time from now, what with just a 7-8 commute (and the bike only gets used in the summer, natch).
A generic name given to any one-cylinder motorcycle.
I’m kind of curious to hear what the experts think of something else that hasn’t been mentioned so far, fuel saturation. I realize that most newer computerized cars aren’t going to run rich with properly functioning sensors. Still, I think it would be a problem with most cars in cold climates during the winter. I know that if you accidentally manage to flood a car, it’s time to change the oil change.
This kind of leads to why I don’t use synthetic in my street car. Sure the synthetic holds up better to heat, but I can’t see it helping much with the contaminents. I would rather change the dino-oil at 4-5K than hold off to 10K on synthetic to try to make up for the expense.
In regards to the OP, I would just read the owners manual and use what it recommends. Someone mentioned it takes 5w-20. I would keep an eye on what they use at the oil change place. I know the quick lubes around here don’t have that on tap. I would guess bigger cities may be different, but if they’re pumping it in, I would make sure it’s not just 10w-30 or 5w-30.
If you’re interested in how much synthetics and/or lower viscosity oils can help increase your gas mileage, you can go here [1] [PDF] and inspect pages 8-11.
By extension, if it’s saving you gas, it’s letting you baby your engine by hitting it with that much less power to get the same speed.
The vast majority of Americans with the vast majority of cars and situations can go 6000 miles with no trouble, even on conventional. You should be okay, but your application might wind up with persistent condensation in the oil.
I hope you have a once a fortnight trip to granny’s an hour away or somesuch to let you periodically burn off water contamination in the oil.
Even with mild abuse, most Honda engines will last longer than their bodies, transmission or owner’s desire to keep driving the same car.
Regarding the “break-in” period issue on your motorbike, to the extent that you have a modern engine manufactured with the same kind of processes that most carmakers use, it probably doesn’t matter.
To the extent that the engine was built in a shop with processes unchanged since the early 1960s, a break-in period may matter. Disclaimer: read your manual.
I just went through every single used oil analysis on the Internet for my car’s engine, the 3L Ford Duratec 24V V6. That is 10. (I didn’t search. I keep a spreadsheet, but I’ll probably move my data set to an Access DB before too long.)
One sample showed 1.3% gasoline contamination in the oil.
One sample showed 0.5% gasoline contamination.
The other eight samples showed “below detection threshold” in the nomenclature of the various labs doing the testing, while the labs tend to have a consensus that fuel levels below 2.0% are acceptable.
The four Mazdas with the same engine block showed up “below threshold” as well.
Mr. Slant I suspect that most if not all case of severe fuel contamination do not get analyzed. I mean why bother? The crankcase is reading maybe 1 qt high, and the dipstick smells like the high test pump. You would just be spending money to find out what was already obvious.
Getting back to your question RogueRacer, I’m out in Sunny California where we keep the snow up in the mountains. We visit it when we want to, we don’t live in it. But with that said I have done lots of new car get ready inspections where the oil was fuel saturated. This was due to it being winter over in Europe, and the cars have been started and stopped lord knows how many times between the end of the assembly line and my stall. Most of these engine starts lasted maybe 30 seconds tops.
So how did we treat these engines? Start them up, let them go at a high idle (1500ish) and do the inspection. By the time we finished our inspection he oil would be hot, the gas and condensed water would be burned off, and the engines ran fine. So unless you drive all very short trips and never warm up your engine, I don’t see this as a problem.
Of course if you have a sensor go bad that floods the crankcase with gas, that is a different story.
) here very often.