Motor Oil, Again

[brwn234]

When the heck did Mobil1 start to cost almost $9 a quart. Last time I bought some it was pushing $5 and that wasnt that long ago.

I've been using Mobil1 10w-30 since I bought the boat used. I dont know what was used in it before. I'm thinking about using conventional oil and switching to a thicker oil that most poeple use like a 20w-50.

I guess I have two questions:
1. I've heard that once you used synthetic you have to stay with it. Is this true?
2. What brand and weight of conventional oil should I use?

It's a stock 7.4MPI, I probably put 25 hours on it a year and rarely ever hit WOT. So I'm not hard on it but I do understand theres a difference in driving down the road at 1500rpm and cruising on the water at 3500rpm.

[mjw930]

When the heck did Mobil1 start to cost almost $9 a quart. Last time I bought some it was pushing $5 and that wasnt that long ago.

I've been using Mobil1 10w-30 since I bought the boat used. I dont know what was used in it before. I'm thinking about using conventional oil and switching to a thicker oil that most poeple use like a 20w-50.

I guess I have two questions:
1. I've heard that once you used synthetic you have to stay with it. Is this true?
2. What brand and weight of conventional oil should I use?

It's a stock 7.4MPI, I probably put 25 hours on it a year and rarely ever hit WOT. So I'm not hard on it but I do understand theres a difference in driving down the road at 1500rpm and cruising on the water at 3500rpm.

To answer your questions based on my knowledge.

1. Synthetic and "regular" oil are interchangeable at this point so you can go back and forth or even mix them if you need to.
2. I use 15W-50 Mobil 1.

You can get a 5 quart jug from Wally Mart for $26, that's about $5.20 / quart.

[BigGrizzly]

Well here is the tape rewind from a guy who has done more oil test on real equipment then the who board combined. It is not a good idea to mix both as for draining and refilling be my guest. As for the superiority of Mobil1 over dino oil in this application, :popcorn:, It is a waist of $$$. I do NOT use it in my boats or cars. I would rather change it more often. I do however use Amsoil in my air cooled race bike, Race synthetics. Of course others will chime in with Redline Spectro and Bills special blend:nilly:. I have done test on engines as small as 1.5Hp and as large as 850 HP. The boat won't run any hotter or cooler and I will guarantee not any faster or slower. Of all the synthetics I have tested it doesn't fair that well against the big boys like Amsoil and Red line, these are the best of the lot. The price went up when some manufactures recommended it. Trust me, money crossed hands for the endorsement.

[BUIZILLA]

the latest price increase was due to the direct hit from storms last fall in the gulf area... Mobil's synthetic processing plant took a direct hit and was shutdown for weeks, they may still not be back up to 100% until March-April.... this info was direct from a press release I got from Mobil. The first week of November I bought the last 72 cases of 15W50 for an island customer that existed in Fla, until after Thanksgiving. It cost me a little over $12k for that load.

BMW is heavy on Castrol Syntec promoting.... in fact, the filler cap calls for it...

I really like the Amsoil Harley oil...:kingme: my bike runs about 20*-22* cooler with it over dino oil.. GREAT stuff..

[Air 22]

AMSOIL.....:yes:

http://www.amsoil.com/testimonials/Teague/index.aspx


http://www.amsoil.com/performancetests.aspx

[fogducker III]

Royal Purple............:orcawhale:

[CHACHI]

To answer your questions based on my knowledge.

1. Synthetic and "regular" oil are interchangeable at this point so you can go back and forth or even mix them if you need to.
2. I use 15W-50 Mobil 1.

You can get a 5 quart jug from Wally Mart for $26, that's about $5.20 / quart.

Point 1, true

Point 2, or Mobil V-twin 20w50

Ken

[gold-n-rod]

Point 2, or Mobil V-twin 20w50

My oil of choice.

[mjw930]

To answer your questions based on my knowledge.
1. Synthetic and "regular" oil are interchangeable at this point so you can go back and forth or even mix them if you need to.
2. I use 15W-50 Mobil 1.
You can get a 5 quart jug from Wally Mart for $26, that's about $5.20 / quart.

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting mixing the oils for regular use, just that with the current blends you can switch back and forth without a problem meaning if you go to Mobile 1 then decide the next time to use conventional motor oil it's not a problem. It's also not a problem if you need to add oil in a pinch and don't have access to the same stuff you put in at the last change.

As for Amsoil, It's great stuff, I use it in my motorcycles and did see some minor improvements over Mobil 1 V-Twin but the big change came when I went from conventional oil (or that crap blend Harley calls Syn3) to full synthetic. In that application there was a significant temperature drop and improvement in shifting. None of which has any bearing on the motor oil used in my boat.......

As for comparisons, I believe each motor builder is going to have their own opinion. Mine has tested the major players and found that among the top tier, in his book, Mobile, Amsoil, Redline, Synergyn and Royal Purple are interchangeable. Across the board he sees no issues with any of these. He uses Synergyn in most of his big motors but instructs his customers that if that product isn't available then any of the group listed is an appropriate substitute. I'm not aware of any oil related failures in his motors over the last decade using these recommendations. He has, however, seen oil related failures with conventional oil but most can be attributed to lack of proper maintenance (too long a change interval), not the oil itself which lends itself to Randy's comments that proper oil changes are more important than the actual oil being used.

Personally, I use the bulk packaged Mobile 1 from Wally Mart. At a net price of $5.20 / quart my savings going to a conventional oil is roughly $20, certainly not worth it in my book considering that I change the oil annually or at 40 hours, whichever comes first.

[The Hedgehog]

Well here is the tape rewind from a guy who has done more oil test on real equipment then the who board combined. It is not a good idea to mix both as for draining and refilling be my guest. As for the superiority of Mobil1 over dino oil in this application, :popcorn:, It is a waist of $$$. I do NOT use it in my boats or cars. I would rather change it more often. I do however use Amsoil in my air cooled race bike, Race synthetics. Of course others will chime in with Redline Spectro and Bills special blend:nilly:. I have done test on engines as small as 1.5Hp and as large as 850 HP. The boat won't run any hotter or cooler and I will guarantee not any faster or slower. Of all the synthetics I have tested it doesn't fair that well against the big boys like Amsoil and Red line, these are the best of the lot. The price went up when some manufactures recommended it. Trust me, money crossed hands for the endorsement.

Word! There is a reason that Teague is bullish on Amsoil. It happens to be associated with the name on the side of their boat.

I think that the synthetic products are nice and do have a place somewhere. They certainly will not hurt. If you change your oil an acceptable intervale I doubt you will see any difference. If you run a blown engine you definately will not see any difference.

[CHACHI]

Scott, thanks and I would have to agree with you.
Either way, the point was made.

Ken

[The Hedgehog]

Ken,
nice letter, but I think the publisher missed your point :) :)
Hedge, I can tell you from experience with our fleet Amsoil rocks. We can prove it with maintenance records, service records, and reman engine records.That said, I run Dino oil in the boats, I change it way to often to run syn.. Heidi's truck, the Mini, the scooters, all run on Amsoil though...

I don't disagree. I think that they are good products.

I was more referring to the marine environment where you change the oil at 25 hours for NA and 10 hours for blown.

[MOP]

Thankfully we have some great oil people up here and the threads are short and sweet unlike the 2-3 year OSO thread LOL!

[BigGrizzly]

It is advertising all you non testers, talking about mixing the dino oil and synthetics. Back in 1977 I was contracted by Castrol to test their synthetics, long before it was on the market. then their semi synthetics. Minxguy if you want to mix, be my guest, but your not going to mix in my boats, cars, or motorcycles. I spent 6 months of my life testing for a real auto, marine and motorcycle manufactures. All we were trying to do was get a good oil to give us better EPA ratings. It ended up being a fight with sales on endorsement and kick backs. The truth is the Honest guys won and P.Oed the money guys. First time that money lost to truth. Good EPA got what they wanted, we got what we wanted and two sales guys got the boot(what I wanted). That company still does testing but it rotates from division to division(to keep it honest). I will not endorse any particular type. But I will say NEVER use 10w 40 no matter who makes it!!!!! in testing the best 10w 40 was much worse then the worst 10w 30. under all conditions. INFO Only in my race bike my temp reduction concurs with BUIZ's.
There are many oil posts look them up. In one of them I gave more information then I should have go look if you want. If your at an event and I am not doing the prop thing ask a question and I will give you an answer from testing not from sales or advertising. BTW no Nascar team or F1 team has EVER had a failure do to oil breaking down. Usually something causes the failure, bad pump wrong fit of a bearing, but never the oil by itself. We asked the questions. The reason is that they replace oil often.1

[CHACHI]

It is advertising all you non testers, talking about mixing the dino oil and synthetics. Back in 1977 I was contracted by Castrol to test their synthetics, long before it was on the market. then their semi synthetics. Minxguy if you want to mix, be my guest, but your not going to mix in my boats, cars, or motorcycles. I spent 6 months of my life testing for a real auto, marine and motorcycle manufactures. All we were trying to do was get a good oil to give us better EPA ratings. It ended up being a fight with sales on endorsement and kick backs. The truth is the Honest guys won and P.Oed the money guys. First time that money lost to truth. Good EPA got what they wanted, we got what we wanted and two sales guys got the boot(what I wanted). That company still does testing but it rotates from division to division(to keep it honest). I will not endorse any particular type. But I will say NEVER use 10w 40 no matter who makes it!!!!! in testing the best 10w 40 was much worse then the worst 10w 30. under all conditions. INFO Only in my race bike my temp reduction concurs with BUIZ's.
There are many oil posts look them up. In one of them I gave more information then I should have go look if you want. If your at an event and I am not doing the prop thing ask a question and I will give you an answer from testing not from sales or advertising. BTW no Nascar team or F1 team has EVER had a failure do to oil breaking down. Usually something causes the failure, bad pump wrong fit of a bearing, but never the oil by itself. We asked the questions. The reason is that they replace oil often.1

Randy, please re-read mjw930's post. He said "interchangeable" and "mixed when you have to".
He is correct on both points.

If I needed to add a quart of oil to my car or boat and couldn't use the exact oil that was in the engine, I would use a quality oil to top off. Any oil is better than no oil.
Chemistries in modern day oils are very compatible and both synthetic and petroleum basestocks are completely miscible. The days of 4 stroke engine oils with polyglycol basestocks are long gone.

Please don't worry about mixing synthetic and petroleum oils, the oil company is doing it for you. The additive that is added by the oil compounder has been solubilised in a petrolem basestock, which is then added to the finished lubricant in the specfied percentage, so yes even your full/100% synthetic isn't. It has some petroleum oil it as the carrier for the add pack. The basestock that is in the oil is the full/100% synthetic part.

Ken

[BigGrizzly]

Minxguy. I did read it, now read mine. Again,you can But I won't. I am not going to debate the oil thing. You can do whatever you want. It probably won't make any difference anyway. There is not boat on the Registry that will benefit one way or the other regardless of what oil they use. None will break either. So at this point it boils down to live testing Vs. the printed word.

[CHACHI]

Minxguy. I did read it, now read mine. Again,you can But I won't. I am not going to debate the oil thing. You can do whatever you want. It probably won't make any difference anyway. There is not boat on the Registry that will benefit one way or the other regardless of what oil they use. None will break either. So at this point it boils down to live testing Vs. the printed word.
You are absolutly correct.

Ken

[mjw930]

Minxguy. I did read it, now read mine. Again,you can But I won't. I am not going to debate the oil thing. You can do whatever you want. It probably won't make any difference anyway. There is not boat on the Registry that will benefit one way or the other regardless of what oil they use. None will break either. So at this point it boils down to live testing Vs. the printed word.

Agreed!

[DC18]

Royal Purple............:orcawhale:
Use it myself.

[brwn234]

I dont think there is any other topic that people have such strong opinions on. Any forum you go to weather its boats, cars, trucks etc theres a oil thread that goes back and forth. Well I decided to stick with synthetic and go to a heavier weight, 15w-50. Thanks for everyones input.