A few years ago I had a guy who would have to ride his bike to work if he wanted to change the oil in his car. See, at closing time he would put his car on the hoist, pull the drain plug and filter, and let it sit overnight. Then he would come in half hour early to finish the oil change. He used only Motul brand oil.
He said that was the secret to getting 569,000 miles out of a Passat Diesel without ever opening up the engine. I’m not going to argue anything that helps to get 569K out of an engine.
Just making a guess. My point, he’s saying the secret was getting an additional 5 ounces of oil out, not the routine oil changes. But no reasoning with some folks.
on an oil change, I will pull the drainplug and then do everything else. rotate tires, check other fluids & filters, change the wipers, check all the lights, look everything over, etc. Replacing the oil plug and refilling is one of the the last things I do. I may only get a few more ounces of nasty oil out, but I’m making good use of my time- so I don’t see any harm in it. I’d rather do that than rush an oil change any day.
and for the record, I do 20ish oil changes a month.
I will add that using the correct oil for the car is a big step that many people skip. Over the years I’ve lost a lot of business by refusing to do a conventional oil change on VW/Audi cars that require a specific Euro Spec oil.
If you are really that OCD about oil drains, I have a suggestion. Save your oil bottles and use a funnel to drain the last couple of drops (maybe an ounce) of oil from the bottles into one bottle. That will give you a couple of extra ounces of oil.
Next oil change, after draining out the old oil, put the plug back in a few turns and pour in this couple of ounces of oil. Let it sit for a minute then pull the plug and let this drain. Keep this bottle for catching the residual oil from all the bottles from the next drain.
If you are using the 5qt bottles, just save the bottle from the previous drain but there won’t be as much oil to clean the bottom of the pan each time.
But for me, I just drain the oil, replace the filter and put the drain plug with a new gasket back in and tightened, then fill. A little residual oil will not hurt anything if you have been reasonable faithful to the PM schedule.
I usually wait until a sale on synthetic and buy a bunch. It is often the same price or cheaper than the same grade of conventional oil. Everything I own gets synthetic now. That includes small engine equipment which runs hot in the summer and is harder on oil.
I have found doing it this way makes it no more expensive than using regular conventional so plan ahead. You have plenty of time with how little this truck is driven.
I don’t see any screaming deals right now but there have been some in the past. That Pennzoil Platinum deal was sure a steal at under $2/quart! It is expired now. Slickdeals: Searching for "synthetic oil"
Here we go though. Any oil question is worth at least 100 posts. At any rate its that old correlation versus causation issue. I could correlate having a cup of coffee with 500,000 miles.
I usually don’t spend any more than 30-45 minutes on an oil change depending on my level of ambition. I drop the plug and then go update my service record for a few minutes any any other prep and that’s about it.
Like I said on oil though, if you are looking for house brands no problem with getting Dino. But if you are looking for Mobil it’s a different story. It has improved though at the farm store though and they actually had five jugs of Dino on the mostly empty shelf. Plenty of the citco recycled stuff.
Using a good synthetic oil will have benefits and will reduce wear. Is the price increase of synthetic over conventional worth it considering you might be dead by the time the car is “totaled” regardless if you use synthetic or conventional considering how little you drive, probably not.
If the difference in cost is insignificant to your budget (likely the case) and it makes you feel better you have better wear protection and happier, then might as well as use synthetic.
I wish synthetic rotor oil was readily available for French horns as synthetic oil is readily available for cars. I switched to Hetman rotor oil for my horn and it is out of stock at the music stores on my area. I prefer the synthetic oil because the valves on the horn work more freely. However, with the apparent lack of stock in music stores of synthetic rotor oil, I may have to go back to regular rotor oil.
I have had good results with synthetic oil for internal combustion engines. I had a push lawnmower manufactured in 1992 where the specifications called for straight 30 weight heavy detergent oil. The engine was burning a considerable amount of oil with the resulting blue smoke. I bought full synthetic 10W-30 for $2.79 a quart at our local Rural King store for a dollar more than conventional oil. It cut oil consumption by 75%. I got 3 more seasons of use from the mower. It still doesn’t smoke, but the compression has fallen off to the point that the mower lacks power in tough grass, so I no longer use that mower.
From my experience with synthetic oil for French horn valves and for small internal combustion engines, I highly recommend synthetic oil for automobile engines.
@texases Thank you. I am going to order some synthetic rotor oil from Amazon. I have enough for now, but one of the tuba players in our.band couldn’t find rotor oil for his tuba with rotary valves. I tried my local music store and had the same luck he had at his music store. I gave him an extra tube of synthetic rotor oil I have on hand.
@texases I used to use sewing machine oil on the rotor bearings of my horn. I would pour the oil on a needle nose point oiler. I would pour a few drops of regular rotor directly into the valve after removing the valve slide. .The Holton horns I own are notorious for valve problems, and I found the valves seem to work more freely with synthetic rotor oil.
I recently purchased an Alexander horn and I use the synthetic oil on its valves.
When I went on to Amazon and searched for 5w-30 motor oil the overwhelming majority that were shown were synthetic and synthetic blends. Then I used “Conventional motor oil” and got 3 non-synthetic hits - Amazon brand was #1 and I don’t want it. The other two were Shell (which I don’t want but I’m sure it’s fine) and then a “Conventional Break In Oil” made by a brand I’ve not heard of called “Driven”. All the rest listed were synthetic or blends. I realize I can go out, easily find and buy conventional oil but I thought that since many of the well known synthetic brands are similarly priced and some synthetic brands are cheaper than conventional oil, I might use synthetic. Since I now realize that synthetic isn’t necessary for my truck but it’s okay to use. This is the first time I’ve gone online to buy conventional oil and found most of the offerings to be synthetics. I didn’t know much about synthetic motor oil’s effect on older vehicles and am not a mechanic so I asked what might sound like a dumb question. Either way, I appreciate your input and everyone else’s.
To me that is not a dumb question if you do not know like you I don’t much about synthetics I also don’t know when synthetic oil was invented but I don’t think it was around when my 32 year old truck was new that being said the valve cover gaskets on the truck got to leaking one day I accidently grabbed a quart of synthetic oil by mistake I needed to add a quart and that is all that I had so I put it in suprisingly it cut back the leakage by over 50% I know stop leak products swell seal an gaskets I don’t know what the synthetic did but I will keep using it until I can get the gaskets replaced.
btw - I can’t find an expiration date on any of the few opened engine oil containers I have. I’ve read many places on the internet that the exp date is on the container but I’ve yet to find one. But it’s on the internet so it’s true right? I must be the only person that can’t see it. < picture of blind me.
I’m going to recycle the unused oil I have on my garage shelf but it would be nice to know how old it is and/or when it’s time to stop using it.
I think Amsoil claims to be “The first in synthetics” as there tag line, I guess in 1972 was when it happened. Now Amsoil has “100 % Synthetic” oils as opposed to synthetic blend or full synthetic
It’s not true in the sense that synthetic oil had been around prior to that, it’s just allegedly the first to meet the specifications at the time for automotive.
< picture of blind me.