After a 7 month absence from Canada I am coming back to my poor car next week . Hopefully it was started and driven every two weeks as promised . Anyway I am switching to synthetic oil from regular, my question is is there any special requirements when doing this or is it just a straight oil change? Additionally is there any specific oil that is recommended, or are they all basically the same?
fwiw I run 10-30w full synth of whatever brand has best price at the time - usually Mobil1 or Castrol. My '95 MX-3 RS had 101K miles when I got it. Previous owner did regular oil changes and sometimes ran it with full synth, sometimes with dino oil. Had dino when I bought it. Like for any oil change, I topped it (w/dino), ran the motor to full operating temp, drained old oil and replaced the filter and put in 10-30w full synth. No problems at all and have been running full synth ever since. I did notice at first that the full synth got dirty pretty fast so my first few oil changes were at shortened intervals. Last year I added an aux Amsoil filter system that also "fine-filters" ~10-20% of the oil with each circulation. No probs before or since.
In my experience you should be ok making the switch, even on a high mileage engine, if the engine has had sustained regular oil changes over it's life, regardless of whether dino or synth was previously used. If that is not the case, the switch to synth can cause some oil loss in a worn engine. My .02. g/l
Yea I tried the full synthic castrol in my mx when I first got it 83,000 miles ran 20w-50 and it seemed to burn it faster than the conventional highmilage 20w-50.Also I have pretty much in the past 2-3yrs. ran 20-50 mainly cause of what I've understood that the thicker the oil the better protection you get is this a fact or just a therory???
I used 20w50 (Royal Purple) because someone said it would help the tick. It got louder. I used the car to run between Houston & Austin, in the summer HEAT. I'm going to go back to recommended.
I too used to be of the premise that a 20W50 was a better oil for an engine especially if you intend to do some spirited driving (high revs). Since then I've changed my way of thinking thanks to theis BB. Fowljesse has touched on part of it in that the HLA's are unable to pass the thicker based oil through it's gallery and therefore generate excessive "tick". Using a 10W30 (summer) and 5W30 (winter) synthetic is a great course of action. Following neutral's process should reveal successfull results, PROVIDED the engine's rings/valves have not reached a stage of wear or are clapped out where this switch would be counter-productive. Motul, Mobil 1, Redline, Royal Purple are some good choices IMO.
Paylrider, it may be worthwhile to look at changing the tranny fluid and the coolant too. (Perhaps the claims people may buy into it ....hehehehe) I think Dan and Mike at Mazda (parts and service respectively) could make a recommending statement supporting your intent. All on the up and up - of course.
Amsoil 10w-30w here all year round. My truck gets 15w-40w Delo 400.
Tunes67
Last edited by Tunes67 on September 20th, 2006, 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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read the page seems more like a sales pitch page to get you to use ammsoil. I change it at every 3000 weither i'm useing conventional or synthetic.Mainly cuz I drive really hard from time to time.
fowljesse wrote:I used 20w50 (Royal Purple) because someone said it would help the tick. It got louder. I used the car to run between Houston & Austin, in the summer HEAT. I'm going to go back to recommended.
thats too thick for our engines
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also if you are switching over... I would recommend getting some 0w oil first to do a flush... then drain that and then put in the sythetic oil. Either a 5w30 or a 10w30..
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There are only a few TRUE FULL synthetics. Such as motol v300 or 8100.
Also ELF has full synthetic in europe.
in fact there are 5 groups of oils and for you here they are tabulated and slightly explained. The full synthetics have been known to free up to 10whp in a cars engine.
Group I: Solvent frozen mineral oil. This is the least processed of all oils on the market today and is typically used in nonautomotive applications, though some of it may find its way into low-cost motor oils.
Group II: Hydro-processed and refined mineral oil. This is the most common of all petroleum oils and is the standard component of most petroleum-based automotive and motorcycle engine oils.
Group III (now called synthetic): The oils start as standard Group I oils and are processed to remove impurities, resulting in a more heat-stable compound than possible as a standard Group I or II oil. Some examples are Castrol Syntec automotive oil and Motorex Top Speed. These are the lowest cost synthetics to produce, and generally do not perform as well as Group IV or V oils.
Group IV: Polyalphaolefin, commonly called PAOs. These are the most common of the full synthetic oils, and usually offer big improvements in heat and overall stability when compared to Group III oils. They are produced in mass quantities and are reasonably inexpensive for full-synthetic oils. Since they are wax-free they offer high viscosity indexes (low temperature pour point) and often require little or no viscosity modifiers. Examples include Amsoil and Motorex Power Synt.
Group V: Esters. These oils start their life as plant or animal bases called fatty acids. They are then converted via a chemical reaction into esters or diesters which are then used as base stocks. Esters are polar, which means they act like a magnet and actually cling to metals. This supposedly offers much better protection on metal-to-metal surfaces than conventional PAOs, which do not have this polar effect. These base stock oils also act as a good solvent inside the engine, translating into cleaner operation. Esters are the most expensive to produce, and oils manufactured with them usually cost much more. Due to this higher cost, many companies only fortify their oils with esters. Some examples are Bel-Ray EXS, Torco MPZ Synthetic and Maxum 4 Extra. Motul 300V, however, uses 100 percent ester as its base oil, and is one of the more expensive oils.
and therefore your not using true synthetics.
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. Hopefully it was started and driven every two weeks as promised 
. Anyway I am switching to synthetic oil from regular, my question is is there any special requirements when doing this or is it just a straight oil change? Additionally is there any specific oil that is recommended, or are they all basically the same?
-Jim
