motor oils for higher mileage engines

[SinceByMan]

Ive been reading old posts about oils and couldnt find any about these kinds of oils, do they actually work? Ive got valvoline max life 10w-40 in my car now. my car has 125K on it, do these oils for older engines help at all, do nothing or hurt the engine?

[lessthanjakejohn]

You might want to email palmerwmd I am sure he will be glad to help you.

[PalmerWMD]

Hi Mile oils (HM) have more seal swellers and are generally formulated on the thicker end of their viscosity ranges (not a bad thing, especially since a lot of folks spec too thin an oil).

It wont hurt, but as long as your engine isnt burning/leaking oil excessively I would stay with teh regular version of those oils.

Try Valvoline Durablend 10w-40 a solid step up in IMO.Also the MaxLife is not the same oil anymore that won all those awards they cut a corner and took out an additive that helped subsitiute, for the lesser ZDDP in modern oil formulations.

Also, dont be afarid to step up to a 20w-50 in summer.Too much disinformation out there about thinner oils being "in".

best way of course is to ahve your idle oil pressure checked w/ thicker vs thinner oils, if teh thinner oil can still give u good pressures its ok but otehrwise a thicker oil will give you more pressure and usually (unless the thinner oil employs much clevererand more expensive chemsitry than teh thicker one-rarely the case) better boundary layer film protection.castrol GTX and Pennzoil have graetrly improved their formulations in the last 5 years and are also worth considering in 10w-40 or thicker.

Fred...

PS: You didn't say the engine you were running, and how things look inside your oil filler cap, I could have been more specific then.

[p00t]

this pertains to a friends car... how well can the Max Life Oil deal with oil burning engines? how excessive is the limit? were talking about a quart of oil every 2-3 weeks, and a decent amount of smoke, but no where in the "James Bond Smoke Screen Car Gadget" range at the moment.

[Nismo_Freak]

this pertains to a friends car... how well can the Max Life Oil deal with oil burning engines? how excessive is the limit? were talking about a quart of oil every 2-3 weeks, and a decent amount of smoke, but no where in the "James Bond Smoke Screen Car Gadget" range at the moment.

He doesn't need thicker oil, he needs rings.

Mazda recommends that if it burns 1 qt. in 500 miles that the motor needs to be reconditioned.

[crypt2k]

but isnt that "recondition" quite costly.

[TomsMR2]

^ yes. very expensive.