How often do you change your synthetic oil?

We buy our oil in 205 litre drums for use in tractors / plant etc. I spec an
oil which is suitable for use in turbo diesels as well as petrol engines.
The last lot was Exol. Its a 10w-40 G5 / CH4 mineral specification.

Have used Fina, Castrol and Esso in the past.

It doesnt really matter what brand it is, the spec is much more important.


Tim..

 

Well that just compounds the problem. Now you are pissing away money on the
extra oil changes and smoking it away on the cigarettes.

If I spend $16,000 per year on prostitutes and cocaine, does that mean I
should change my oil more or less?

 

" Tim (Remove NOSPAM. Registry corupted, reformated HD and lost alot of

Do you talk about thin as piss when it's hot or cold?
/per

 

" Tim (Remove NOSPAM. Registry corupted, reformated HD and lost alot of

My BS detector is ringing full volume. What a baseless thing to say.
Synthetics are no "thinner" than any other oil, they need to meet the same
specs to get their viscosity rating. Since sythetics hold to their viscosity
range through a larger range of temperatures they could be said to be
thinner when it's sub zero and thicker if the summer heat/malfunction has
taken the engine above it's normal operating range. That's a desirable
thing.

 

A very interesting oil life study has been done and posted at:

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/oil-life.html

One of the conclusions is that engine wear happens most rapidly in the first
few thousand miles after an oil change, which has me doing a bit of head
scratching.

This is one of the few published detailed oil life studies I have ever come
across.

John

 

Thanks for the link (as well as the other one to get one's oil
tested).

I haven't read the story yet, but if I were to guess... Could it be
as a result of the oil change? Draining the oil + no oil in filter
for a few seconds???? Just a guess, nothing more.

 

Engine savvy people fill the oil filter BEFORE replacing it on the engine.
That way no dry starts. Comment about engine wears more in the first few
thousands miles is nonsense. Most wear occurs during the first few seconds
after starting the engine. eddie

 

You sure won't find any savvy people at the dealer...

P.S. What I do is turn off the fuel pump and let the engine turn a
few seconds (~3-5). One of the anti-theft device installed kills the
fuel pump.

 

Well the engine has been run on syntectichs at lest a couple oil changes a
few years back. Recent years has been ordinary dino oil.

I really don't think the synthetics will cause any major, or any for that
matter, oil leak from lots of places. The engine is not that old. By volvo
standard it's barely broken in. Engine looks very clean inside, (under valve
cover) so it can't be that much sludge build up that will clean out and
cause oil leaks after switching to synthetics. When i cleaned the flame trap
it didn't need cleaning so that's a good indication that the engine is also
clean inside. Looking into the intake port it looks brand new.

91 940 167K.