myth???

[93 saturn sl2 10+ year member]

Is switching different types of oil in your engine bad? Like getting regular oil put in at an oil change place then since my car burns a little oil refilling it with synthetic.

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[negativezeroz 5,000+ posts]

10W-30 I presume...

how many miles are on the car? and what vehicle? (I realize ur name is 93 saturn sl2 but u could drive lika 97 ford ranger or something..)

 

[tRiGgEr 5,000+ posts]

You can not pour synthetic in to the engine while you still have regular oil in. You need to completely flush it out and run synthetic through it untill it is clean. Then cap off and fill.

 

[93 saturn sl2 10+ year member]

its 5w-30 I believe cant remember off the top of my head. there is about 98000 miles on it, but the engine is in great shape for it. It only burns oil because the design of the engine. All Saturns do it. It is a 93 SL2

 

[duece212 5,000+ posts]

In my Z34 I ran synthetic, and topped it off with regular oil at times, no problems. Car was at 130k miles before I traded it off so I don't think it hurt it mixing the oils like that.

 

[The LX]

I switch between synthetic and non-synthetic all the time. There are also durablend oils on the market that are both synthetic and non-sythetic mixed together.

 

[93 saturn sl2 10+ year member]

I think that I will get Durablend at the oil change place and top it off with fully synthetic.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

I switch between grades of oils for summer and winter...and have run half syn, half regular before with no adverse affects. I like to run full synthetic when I can, seems to help especially considering the way I drive (could go for weeks with little or no use, and then 400 miles in the course of a weekend up and down mountains).

 

[Dozerboy 10+ year member]

The difference in the molecules from dino to synthetic lets it find leaks and burn easier. So and leaks or oil you burn will increase with synthetics.

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

i tried to run synthetic in my car, but the oil light stayed on untill i got rid of it. i was told synthetic was thinner, and was not building pressure, because it could leak through smaller places.

 

[Darth Audio 10+ year member]

The switching oils thing is left over from the 60's when they made oils that had detergent and those that didn't. It was bad to switch between the two. That is not the case anymore because it's all the same. However you should NOT mix synthetic and non-synthetic oil. You can switch between the two at oil changes however.

 

[bikejunkie223 10+ year member]

Synthetic oil is a joke for 90% of cars on the road. The only real difference is that on the molecular level all the oil molecules are the same size, and it has some additional detergents. The marketing hype has caused people to believe it's better. We just had a Mobil 1 rep pitch us to sell his stuff saying it makes an engine last longer, but we have a lot of Hondas that come into our shop with over 250,000 miles on them and running perfect, is synthetic gonna improve that? He didn't have an answer because there isn't one. For extremely high performance engines (race cars- not your CRX with a fart pipe) or extremely demanding climates where you need ultra-low viscocity or a special blend (75w-90) synthetic is a waste of money. It won't hurt anything, but it won't help either- it's just oil. The same goes for premium fuel. Unless your engine has high compression, or a turbo or something, premium is a waste of money- your car will not "run better" with it. All octane is is a resistance to detonation (pinging) so if your car doesn't ping on regular than don't waste your cash on premium. I had a gas station attendant tell me it "makes the VTEC work better" Given that I am a Master Honda Tech, I am reasonably sure fuel has NOTHING to do with a computer controlling a solenoid to allow oil pressure to shift pins to put the cam into a higher profile. Marketing hype has your brains! Wake up and smell the hype! Sorry for that rant, this stuff gets me jacked up.

 

[r1dermon 10+ year member]

switching between non-synthetic, or more technically "castor" oils, is no problem at all...there's no reason not to switch between them, its not going to hurt your car, synthetic oils tend to maintain a constant viscosity, meaning better flow, which also means less lug on your engine, which means more mpg. i've seen cases of 2-3mpg gained just by switching motor oils. and i've also seen gains of 10hp, and this is RWHP by switching gear oils in manual tranny's and also differential gear oil changes. synthetic oils have a higher evaporation point as well, meaning that they wont disappear due to oil burnoff as quickly from a hot engine, however, if you hve a leak around a piston skirt or ring, then it's going to burn faster, its just one of those things. overall, synthetic is better, but who needs it? nobody, unless you're super crazy on your ride. if you redline everytime you take off from a stop light, then you could make a case i guess....but its 3-4 times more expensive, and i say not worth it unless you're in lemans.