Oil Change

I agree with the others–changing to another brand won’t make a difference. In fact, I think that the same refinery may bottle its oil and put it out under several brand names. Consumer Reports did a study some time back on motor oils and found that the same brand of oil had a different formulation depending on what part of the country the oil was purchased.

My Dad purchased a 1954 Buick in 1955. His mechanic recommended that he use MacMillan oil in the car. About the time the car had 75,000 miles the mechanic retired and no one else carried the MacMillan oil. We put Quaker State in the car of the same weight and it worked just the same–no oil consumption. At 150,000 miles, we sold the car and it had never had a wrench on the engine. The car was still on the streets several years later. Many years later, I had a Ford Maverick and I traded with a Sunoco station. The car used a quart of oil about every 1200 miles. When the station closed and I went back to doing my own work, it wss too expensive to buy the Sunoco oil. I found Valvoline on sale for 29 cents a quart. I decided at that price if it used a little more oil, I was still money ahead. The Maverick used only a quart after every 1500 miles with the Valvoline. I have a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass that I have owned since it was a new car. It has had about every brand of oil in the crankcase and after 240,000 miles it still doesn’t use oil.

I think this myth about staying with the same brand of oil was hatched when we had real service stations handling different petroleum products and were in competition with each other. I saw Citgo 5W-30 on sale at a farm store chain the day for 79 cents a quart. Use the correct weight of oil that you can get at the best price–your Ford won’t care.