I have been thinking about going to synthetic oil in my 04 Ram. One of the questions I have is that I have heard, once you start using syn. oil you can't go back to conventional. I have not heard the reason why not. Also, if it were you and you were giong to keep you're truck for 15 yrs, run it up to 250,000 mi. would you use syn. oil?

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ifyoubegintothinkyou'relosingcontrol...it'salreadygone

I have used synthetic oil in both my car and truck for over 14 years with no problem. I just don't have time for changing oil every 3000 miles. I change the oil and filter every 7500 miles, the maximum the automakers allow. I recently had the pan gasket replaced on my truck,'92 F150, 4.9L and the mechanic refilled with regular 10w30. After about 3200 miles the lifters got noisy and you could definately here some piston slap on a cold start-up. Changed the oil and filter back to 10w30 synthetic and I haven't heard any piston slap or lifter noise at all between changes. I use Valvoline full synthetic. I think there has been a lot of false information circulated about synthetics due to all the wild scAmsoil hype concerning never changing oil and just replacing the filter and toping off the oil level.
Scott.

Modern synthetics are 100% compatible with petroleum based oils. There is no reason that you can't switch back at any time. Personally I like to stick with the same oil over the long haul but even that isn't strictly necessary according to the manufacturers.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

I switched my Dakota R/T over to full synthetic when it had 60,000 miles or so on it. It started using oil right away. By the time it got to 75,000 it was usuing a quart in 500 miles with no leaks. I wenty back to regular 10w-30 and it is back to a quart in 2500.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

There are lots of myths surrounding the use of synthetic oil in passenger cars and trucks. It gets talked about in terms of a "conversion" to synthetic, there is a lot of handwaving about special flushes and procedures, warnings against switching back, etc. I think most of this noise is put out by (Sc)amsoil, the company that uses a pyramid marketing scheme to push their overpriced, underperforming, non-API-approved oils and greases. When there's mystery and intrigue and special "conversion" procedures involved, it distracts from boring stuff like suitability for the engine involved and cost-effectiveness.

If you want to use synthetic oil, the best way forward is to use an appropriate grade of an API-approved oil from a reputable national brand. It's difficult to go wrong with Mobil-1, for example, and some of the other majors (e.g. Pennzoil) have some very good synthetic formulations of their own.

The "conversion" involves draining the regular oil and pouring in the synthetic. If you want to switch back at some point, follow the same procedure.

But do it thoughtfully. It's a gross waste of money and resources to use synthetic oil and change it every 3,000 miles. Use oil analysis to determine the useful life of the oil in your particular engine. It is not difficult or expensive to get it done, you buy a kit for around $12, send a sample of your new and used oil, and you get a detailed printout of how things're doing.

And be sure to use a good quality filter (not Fram).

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

You don't have a blown intake plenum cover gasket do you?

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Joshua

I've been using Mobil 1 faithfully in my 98 Dakota with a 5.2L (318) since about 50,000 miles. It now has 140K and uses at most 1/2 quart between changes which I do about every 5000 miles give or take. The question about the plenum cover is a good one because mine was sucking some throught the intake until I resealed it.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

M-1 intake, no plenum cover.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I have used both Mobil-1 and Redline extensively. They both have worked well with no oil burning or seal leakage problems. The last time I checked Mobil-1 still used a multi weight additive package like conventional oils use, so it can get thinner with wear as the additives break down. The redline oils are actually straight grades that are stable enough to meet the multi weight specs. I have been running the redline for 10,000 mile intervals for years with filter changes between 3000 and 5000 miles. I have torn down two of the engines, a 3.8 turbo at 122,000 miles and a chevy 350 with over 150,000. Both had perfect bottom ends and minimal cylinder wear, and were amazingly clean. With the Mobil-1 I have only run it for about 6000 miles before changing, and it seemed to be done. I had an increase in cold and hot oil pressure after changing it to support this impression. Running the Redline longer offsets the cost quite a bit. You can mix synthetic and coventional oils, but if you are going to long change intervals it would be good to start off as clean as possible. I would just do an oil change with normal oil and run it less than 1000 miles before the change to synthetic and drain it while warm and let it drip for awhile. Do not run your engine low on oil just because your brand of synthetic is not at hand. Better to top off with what you have than to run low. I would not bother going to synthetic with an engine that already burns oil.

I don't really want to start a flame war, but Amsoil is a quality oil. My father and I have been using it in cars for millions of combined miles and it has never once failed us. We us extensive oil analysis (primarily in our diesel trucks but also in our cars) and it has always proved better than other top brand oils after the same mileage.

My father is a lifetime dealer which he got back in the early 80s for about a hundred bucks, and we get the oil at cost, which makes it cheaper than most other oils. Its so easy to get dealer cost because of the pyramid scheme (which I don't necessarily like, but don't really care because it works in my favor) that its rediculuous for anyone to pay full retail for it.

However, you must be calling it crap on other oil analysis sheets than I see, because the ones that I see definately state otherwise.

Some of it is, some of it isn't. It's grossly overpriced for what it is, it's inconvenient to have to haul around a boutique brand of oil with you because you're not going to find it in many parts stores when you happen to need it, and they refuse to get most of their product line API certified, which means it has no place in any crankcase that belongs to me, especially not one under warranty. Sorry, but Amsoil's "We're better than API-approved oils, really, we are, we promise, just trust us" line of BS does not impress me at all. Neither do batches of rapturous testimonials in place of scientific data. Neither does their bizarre, paranoid and fanciful explanation for why their oils aren't API-approved. When I see easily-demonstrable lies from a company, I'm forced to conclude they're also telling additional lies that are not as easily found out. I do not do business with sleazy companies, and Amsoil definitely counts as such, in my book. Others are free to disagree.
People also use Fram filters without a problem. There are people who smoke cigarettes from the time they're 13 until they die of old age at 96 years old. There are people who drive without a seatbelt and never get into a crash. That doesn't make Fram filters a good product, or smoking a good idea, or driving without a seatbelt perfectly safe...it just means some people are luckier than others.
Yeah, most of the enthusiastic testimonials tend to come from Amsoil dealers. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? That one could be discussed and debated round and round and round with no good conclusion to be found. Others are welcome to do so; I have no interest.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

They're both excellent products. RedLine is very, very expensive oil, though, usually only worth the cost in exotic applications.
Good advice! If you do that, you turn an oil-burner into a money-burner!

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks for the replies and information, My 04 does not burn oil yet. I want to keep it that way for as long as possible as we will be keeping this truck a good while. I also am running out of time to do even the basic maintainence as there is only one day left in most weeks. Longer intervals would be helpfull. Anyone use Royal Purple?

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ifyoubegintothinkyou'relosingcontrol...it'salreadygone

Royal Purple's been around awhile. It's another one that's probably not worth messing with just on grounds of being a "boutique" oil that's hard to find. It's a really big advantage to be able to buy the oil you use at every parts store, K-mart, Target, Zeller's, etc. all over the US and Canada, and at a lot of gas stations besides.

As far as oil change intervals go, there are a couple different approaches you can take. Oil analysis is the most scientific and cost-effective, pretty much anything else is a guess. Here are the results of one particular such guess I made:

In 1995, I picked out a 1992 LeBaron w/nonturbo 2.5 and 70k miles on it for my mother. It had started life as a Hertz rental car, and then had another private owner before we bought it. I put in Mobil-1 10w30 and adopted a schedule of oil changes every 16,000 miles and oil filters twice as often (every 8,000 miles). Sometimes a little sooner on the oil/filter changes, but I don't recall ever going longer than that.

I bought the car from my mother in 2001 when it had 125k miles on it, and carried on pretty much the same schedule.

When I sold it at 164k miles, its 2.5 was still darn near silent (only a trace of the piston pin knock those engines tend to develop), passed emissions with ease, and used a pint of oil every 2,500 to 3,000 miles. At one point somewhere along the line it required a head gasket; the cylinders were still crosshatched with no ridge. I'd call that a fine result, but I'd still go to oil analysis next time for maximum cost-effectiveness.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

You do realize that I can mix any oil I want with synthetic and it won't hurt anything a bit. If I get into a bind and don't have any Amsoil with me, I can buy a quality synthetic to top off and get me through until I get some of my "boutique" oil.

I can even mix in a dino oil and it won't matter. If it is excessive then there is a) a problem with the motor and b) I'll have to be changing it anyway.