[Biturbos4] Re: Switching from dino to synth - lifter prob?

[Brett Dikeman]

At 5:53 PM -0800 1/15/04, Single Malt wrote:
>I decided to take my 01 S4 to an indy before my factory warranty expires (1k
>left!) to check things out ...
>
>As they were dumping oil from my boost tubes, I asked if they could tell if it
>was dino or synth oil (since I had just switched to synth a thousand miles
>ago).

Nearly impossible; especially used they look pretty much the same, 
smell about the same...if you handed me two cups, one with dino and 
one with synth, I could probably tell you which was which on 
smell...but certainly not used.

>  Both the service advisor and the mechanic said to switch back to dino
>immediately.  They were quite clear that I *would* have lifter problems (their
>words: "every time").

Sounds to me like they have a good profit margin on dino, but a lousy 
one on synth.  Well...or their customers come back at 5k instead of 
3k for changes...or they might get fewer oil-related problems on 
synth cars...take your pick.

>
>Does any one have any information about this??

Considering synthetic now comes from the factory in many cars- I 
don't really believe it.  Some people's brains(mostly dealers/service 
people) just can't handle the fact that synthetic IS better in almost 
every regard. As long as you pick the proper grade, you'll be fine. 
The owner's manual covers appropriate oil grades rather nicely.

I've been running my 200q20v on synthetic for, oh, probably 5-6 years 
now?  Only recently have I noticed lifter noise(and it comes+goes at 
random).  The noise probably has to do more with 185,000-ish miles, 
and less with the oil itself.  In general lifters seem to last about 
this long before they start tapping occasionally; I think the 5000 
started tapping earlier(and it certainly was much worse), but was run 
on dino oil for most of its life until I got my hands on it.

Brett
-- 
----
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/