Re: Synth blends [Was: Re: Warming up engine]

[Avi <Avi@cosmoslink.net>]

Your father USED to be correct, certain kind of synthetic oil (ester based)
used  to do what he describes, sludge.
As for your wanting to switch to synthetic or smi synthetic, stick to std.
oil as recommended by your owners manual, unless you are going to the North
Paul (I used to live there, WI MN.........) where the temperature drops
below 0F on a regular bassis.
Avi 
synthetic oil has an excessive leak down rate and poor adhesion (runs down
too quick), your oil pressure will run lower and you might have your oil
pressure light flickering at times, especial at idle. 

 



At 06:23 PM 12/17/97 -0500, you wrote:
>This talk of oil and warming up the engine brought up a question I had. 
>My car has been dealer serviced all its life, but now that the free
>service has expired I'm going to go ahead and do some stuff myself, such
>as changing the oil.  Now being a poor college student I can't really
>afford synthetic oil, but I wanted to try some synthetic blend.  Less
>expensive than full synthetic, but (at least I think) at least a little
>better than regular dino oil in the cold.  The thing that prompted me to
>even think about this was the *horrible* valve racket the V6 makes when
>it's 20F or so outside and I start it.
>So anyway, I get the stuff, and my dad sees it (oops) and says "are you
>kidding?  Take this stuff back, it will ruin your engine!"  I had never
>heard this before, and on more prompting he said that if the synthetic
>oil mixes with the dino oil left in the crankcase, it will turn to
>sludge and ruin my engine.  I'd never heard that before, and politely
>(so I thought) pointed out to him that synthetic *blend* implies that
>it's already mixed with dino oil, but to no avail.  The compromise was
>that I'd ask someone knowledgeable about it and make sure that it
>wouldn't screw anything up.
>
>So who is more knowledgeable than you guys?
>
>Anyway, all I need is for someone to say "no this won't screw up your
>engine" so I can change my rapidly darkening oil.
>
>I hope that this doesn't start another aweful thread about the relative
>merits of different oils!  All I need is "this will hurt" or "this will
>not hurt."
>
>TIA!
>
>Elliott
>
>"Et in Arcadia sum?"
>
>