Oil Change Regular or Synthetic Oil?

[JasonR]

I'm due for a oil change my car just hit 90k my last oil change was at the dealer I asked for Synthetic the price came out to $85

My question is it better to keep using Synthetic oil for my car or will It be ok just with a basic regular oil which is $40 at the dealer

What are the pros and cons Any input would help guys!

[Ilya]

The only real benefit of synthetic is increased oil change intervals. Some people/companies say/claim that certain oils help MPG, etc. but I dunno.

I do synthetic ever 5kmi because I like the piece of mind and I'm anal when it comes to maintenance, but that's just me.

[JasonR]

Wow 5k?!...I have Synthetic oil currently and they said to come back after 2500 miles so am I good for another 2500? or is it different for v8 45?

[LVdennis]

I also only use synthetic in everything I ride and drive. I go about 5K sometimes by mistake. The peace of mind and I think it works better. Google it and you'll read a lot of differing opinions. I used the best Dino oil in my CB900F Honda motorcycle in Italy. When I changed to synthetic I could feel the difference in the acceleration, and deceleration. I think it's more slippery.
Good Luck
Dennis

[cruzad3r]

synthetic Mobil 1 every 5k miles or so is absolutely fine. i do that on multiple cars already and my engines are still going strong. if the dealer is asking you to come back every 2.5k miles, you might want to think about the true reason ($$$$) or make sure they do truly use synthetic oil.

FYI - really you can spend 30 bucks both with synthetic oil and OEM filter for an oil change. Obviously you need to spend 30-60 minutes of your time for the work.

[EniGmA1987]

If you get synthetic you don't need to get it changed till 5k miles, maybe even a little bit longer. Real oil should be changed every 3k miles or so. The engine runes fine on either. I honestly think real oil feels smoother in the engine to me, it is difficult to describe exactly but engine has a "warmer" sound to it and acceleration feels "softer" (not speed wise). However the real oil gets dirty fast and towards the end you feel like you have a little bit less power, so synthetic works better. The dealership I go to charges $50 and uses a Mobile 1 synthetic/real blend. They recommend changing oil every 3750 miles but usually I do it every 4500 and they always say on the report I get that the oil still looked good before the change. The only time I have had a bad report about how the oil looked is when I use full real oil and go for 3,500 miles.

[axefire]

Castrol Synth strictly, every 3 to 5K for me.

But I have a question - anyone do a slick 50 or any other type of treatment? I used to do a slick 50 every 50K on my 95 Maxima and my sis is still driving that car with 260K miles!

Anyone? Beuler? Slick 50?

[antzrus]

Mobil 1 every 12k, religiously.

PS Here we go into the oil change interval imbroglio...

[JasonR]

Ok so i feel safe going to 5k If i ever have to but I most likely will change the oil in another 1-1500k just to be on the safe side appreciate the help guys!

[cruzad3r]

i find that if i pass the 5k miles mark, my engine oil will come out very thick and much less in quantity meaning if i pour in 5L, i'll get about 3.5L back if i waited that long. This is from personal experience over this summer where i was too dam lazy to change the oil before a long trip. But rest assure, my engine was much happier after i give it some R&R

[About Tree Fiddy]

Infiniti's published maintanance schedule is 7500 miles (after the the first changes @ 3750 & 7500 miles) unless you primarily operate the vehicle under severe conditions which include:

• Repeated short trips of less than 5 miles in normal temperatures or less than 10 miles in freezing temperatures
  Stop-and-go traffic in hot weather or low-speed driving for long distances
  Driving in dusty conditions or on rough, muddy or salt-spread roads
  Towing a trailer, or using a camper or car-top carrier

And that is with standard dino oil. Since I don't meet any of the above conditions I have no qualms going 7500 miles. I use Mobil 1 for peace of mind and I'm sure I could go longer but the only safe way to know how far you can go is to get an oil analysis when you do the oil changes. By the time you hassle with the analysis it is just easier (and @ >$30, cheap) to change it at 7500 miles. Plus, on the slim chance I would have an engine issue there won't be any warranty issues because of extended oil change intervals.

[The00Dustin]

Castrol Synth strictly, every 3 to 5K for me.

But I have a question - anyone do a slick 50 or any other type of treatment? I used to do a slick 50 every 50K on my 95 Maxima and my sis is still driving that car with 260K miles!

I use Valvoline SynPower 5w30 every 3750. With the oil burning issues some of the VK45DEs have, I figure why push it? I also check it at least once every 1000 miles, but that's beside the point.
I know a guy that uses Slick 50 religiously and believes it helps because his cars go 300,000 miles. He changes oil every 3K too, though, and I think the particular engine in question would go 300,000 without Slick 50.
I've never had to add oil during the 3750 mile interval, and usually it is about half a quart low when I get it changed. It was like that when I bought it with 43,000 miles on it, and I did a Cer-Met treatment shortly thereafter. I will have 110,000 miles by Monday, and I did FriktionTek treatments in the oil, PS fluid, transmission, and rear diff not too long ago. I can't really speak for the results of the treatments because I had major services done a couple thousand miles after that, but I've definitely noticed (good) things that I subsequently wonder if I could really be imagining based on the money spent (easier steering, smoother shifting, quite possibly more power [didn't notice that @ 50K with CerMet oil treatment only]). However, I figure the cost per mile is pretty low (probably lower than the cost per mile for something like Slick 50), and if my VK45DE isn't using/losing any more oil than it was 60,000 miles ago, there's at least a decent chance that the treatments help things (note that it is my understanding that Cer-Met is a slightly modified [to circumvent patents] version of FriktionTek made by some ex-employees).

[antzrus]

Anyone know of any oil related failures w/our engines? In all my time on these Infiniti forums for the past few years I have yet to hear of same-regardless of all our little idiosyncrasies re intervals and which oil vs that...

[EniGmA1987]

Anyone know of any oil related failures w/our engines? In all my time on these Infiniti forums for the past few years I have yet to hear of same-regardless of all our little idiosyncrasies re intervals and which oil vs that...

Failures? I am not sure. But if you go visit the G forums I am told by nearly everyone I have met in person from there that the G35's have the same bad oil burning problem as some of our M45s. I do not know if the issue has led to actual failures though.

[The00Dustin]

Anyone know of any oil related failures w/our engines? In all my time on these Infiniti forums for the past few years I have yet to hear of same-regardless of all our little idiosyncrasies re intervals and which oil vs that...

I guess that depends on your definition of "oil related." I'm pretty sure the "oil related" failures in the M45's on this forum are due to low oil (caused by the oil consumption problem that many engines have been replaced for prior to failure) and not extended OCI. I would expect you to be one to point out that such a failure shouldn't happen because people should be watching their oil level regardless of OCI. I was taught to check my oil at every fuel fill-up if I didn't know I had a problem and every stop if I did know I have a problem, and that was in recent history, long after full-service stations stopped checking your oil and subsequently went away. Obviously I don't go quite that far based on my prior post, but I wouldn't disagree with such an argument (regarding engine failure), although I would certainly be mad at Infiniti as well if that happened to me (if they're ging to design engines that consume oil, they should at least have an oil level warning light [here it comes!], my 99 Park Avenue Ultra had an oil level warning when it got a quart low [once in the 140,000 miles I drove it, in less than the 5000 mile OCI I used on it,no clue why]).

[fat3oy]

Just my two... On the VQs especially the ones with oil consumption issue, I've noticed the synthetic oils tend to accumulate much more rapidly in the intake manifold. I am not sure if it burns better as a non synthetic or not. a catch can will seriously just negate the whole issue.

From the Z crowd you have two camps, those who swear that synthetic will destroy your engine and make angels cry, and those that say it will lubricate your blinker fluid and add 90hp at the differential.

Honestly, unless you are tracking the damn thing, go for the longer interval changes... if you are tracking it, i wanna watch...

[kluken]

I'm due for a oil change my car just hit 90k my last oil change was at the dealer I asked for Synthetic the price came out to $85

My question is it better to keep using Synthetic oil for my car or will It be ok just with a basic regular oil which is $40 at the dealer

What are the pros and cons Any input would help guys!

When I owned my cars I did synthetic, it holds up better to more extreme conditions and heat and does increase the change interval (although I woudl never go past 5K anyway). I used to buy 5 quart jug at Walmart for liek $26 and supply my own oil, dealer would charge me like $20 for labor and filter, that was when I owned Acuras the dealer was great that way, their normal synthetic change was like $59 or $69. My current Infifinti dealer wants $50 for synthetic blend, which I get for free as Infiniti comped me a free maiantence plan for first 30K miles. When that plan is over they can use regular on mine as it is a lease.