<VV> Re>>Conventional, Synthetic Blend, Full Synthetic--Another story

[Vairjer@cs.com]

My experience with synthetic oils has been nothing but positive....started 
using in the 1970's in my Chevy Vans, and have used in 100% of all cars/vans I 
have owned since.  The 1964 Monza 110 convertible that we purchased for the 
wife in 1989 had 81,000 miles when we got it...with standard 10W30 we were 
getting oil usage of about a quart every 400 to 500 miles (with NO leaks 
whatsoever).....We switched to Mobil 1 15W50 and went to 950-1000 miles before we were 
down a quart....still NO leaks.  We sold the car to the present owner at approx. 
110,000 miles with the same results....NO leaks...The car had been resealed 
around 60,000 miles by the original owner....I couldn't fix the wear and tear 
of the previous time, but it never got worse during the time we had it....still 
using a quart per thousand miles....Never had the heads off....did replace 
one rocker which broke the first 2000 miles we had it on the way to the Atlanta 
International Convention....After that is when we switched to Synthetic...

My 1991 Chevy Caprice which we recently sold at 167,000 miles had synthetic 
oil in it since the first oil change, (5W30) and never used any between changes 
of up to 8000 miles, but after 135,000 miles was beginning to mark its spot 
out the front cover, but not enough to be down a half pint in the change 
interval(6000-8000....the car was still as strong off the line and for gas mileage 
at the time we sold it as in the beginning but the leather upholstery, the 
headliner, and the other systems were beginning to show its 13 years of serious 
use....Synthetic oil protected the engine, but the car sure could have used a 
"restoration"....

Your results might vary, but after running several vehicles past 100K miles 
using synthetic oils, with no oil consumption increases from switchover point 
and NO engine failures, I am convinced that the superior temperature range and 
"clinging" qualities of most synthetic lubricants is reason enough to spend 
the small annual expense differential for such products.  Paint jobs and 
upholstery don't seem to benefit from synthetic application....I did note that in the 
1965 A/C 4 door car that I bought in 1991 with 41000 miles, that when I 
pulled the pan at 61,000 miles to put some Helicoils in to deal with stripped 
threads, that the areas of the engine visible were MUCH cleaner than they had been 
when I switched out the original pan for the Clark's Ultimate aluminum pan.  
Otherwise the 10W30 oil consumption was less than the original fill I made 
after acquiring the car in 1991....

Jerry McKenzie
Springfield, IL
Prairie Capital Corvair Assoc. (PCCA)