Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

[Swede]

The owners manual says 10W-30 or 5W-30 oil but should it be mineral or semi-synthetic in a 96 V6?

If it should be semi-synthetic, can I put that in if I don't know if someone have used mineral oil in the enging before? I have heard horror stories where synthetic oil have made old dirt particles free that have get stuck in oil channels and damaged the engine.

What make of oil was used from the factory?

Magnus

[landj]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

Conventional. You can switch from conventional to synthetic, but you would have wanted to have done that within the first 30 thousand miles or so. Conventional has larger molecules mixed in with shorter ones, allowing the larger particles to plug up seals and what not. When you switch to synthetic, the molecules are roughly all the same size, meaning smaller, and the engine will begin to leak more and blow more oil past seals. I've never heard of someone harming their engine with synthetic, but if you don't keep up on the oil level, you'll run it low and destroy the engine that way. This is just from my own experience in trying to switch to synthetic in a previous car at high mileage, after noticing more oil loss, I switched back.

I'd stick with conventional unless you just rebuilt your engine or had really low miles on it.

[ssms5411]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

You shouldn't have any problems running synthetic unless you have leaks already, I run synthetic in the engine, tranny, differential and brake fluid. No problems. If you have a leak just fix it, I like the idea of extra protection synthetic provides.

[tkoforpresident]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

You shouldn't have any problems running synthetic unless you have leaks already, I run synthetic in the engine, tranny, differential and brake fluid. No problems. If you have a leak just fix it, I like the idea of extra protection synthetic provides.

you don't know if u have a leak til u put synthetic in cause it "reveals" where your leaks are.

Also, they did a study in NYC, they put all different kinds of oil, mineral, synthetic and different kinds of each in a bunch of nyc taxi cabs. They didn't change the oil for something like 6 months or a year and then they did tore down the engines and found none worked better than the others, they all did an admirable job. Meaning thus: all oil today that has the "stamp" on it, means it has to meet a certain adhearance to quality specifics. As long as you buy oil with that seal on it, it doesn't really matter what kind of oil you get, in fact, get the cheapest stuff on sale with that seal!

[Swede]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

Thanks for the help.

I think I will go with the synthetic then, I have used conventional oil (called mineral oil on swedish :slap: ) in all my cars to this day and they have worked fine but I'm curious about the synthetic so I think it's worth a shot.

Thanks for your input.

Magnus

[landj]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

As long as you buy oil with that seal on it, it doesn't really matter what kind of oil you get, in fact, get the cheapest stuff on sale with that seal!

Store-brand conventional all the way baby! When I get my LS9 I'll spring for the store-brand synthetic. ;-)

Swede:
"Mineral oil" here is like the stuff in the drug store that you drink ("intestinal lubricant"), and the stuff that they make the snake-oil engine additives out of ("Z-Max" comes to mind). Just a real light petroleum oil. But I got what you meant.

[Swede]

Re: Question about oil, mineral or synthetic?

Swede:
"Mineral oil" here is like the stuff in the drug store that you drink ("intestinal lubricant"), and the stuff that they make the snake-oil engine additives out of ("Z-Max" comes to mind). Just a real light petroleum oil. But I got what you meant.

Oh, I guess that would be a pretty ugly experiance to put that in a engine.

Magnus