Synthetic Oil..color..longevity

dn4192
Mon, 19 Feb 2018 13:03:03 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

When it comes to oil in all my past cars it’s always been the old trational oil we grew up using. NOW I own a car (2011 Cadillac CTS) that uses synthetic oils (5W30). Having never used this type of oils I had a couple of questions.

1. With the old style oil you would usually go about 3,000-5,000 miles between changes depending on engine, milage driven and such. What is the mileage/time breakdown for Synthetics? I know my manual said basically my car will tell me when it needs to be changed but just wondering on average how long this synthetic stuff lasts.

2. What are the advantages/disavantages of synthetic over old school type?

3. When you would replace you oil with the old school stuff it was clear on the dipstick and would darken over time as it got “dirty” and used. Is that the same with synthetic? The car I just bought says the oil is at 98% and according to the manual you change it out when it gets down around 25%, yet when I pulled the dipstick it wasn’t clear, it was dark which I thought ment older dirty oil but wasn’t sure with synthetics if it looks different.

78 posts - 29 participants