Synthetic Oil Help Please

[casperfun]

Ok, the rarests of the rares has showed up at my local Wal-mart. Royal Purple 2nd only to hard to find Amsoil was actually stocked at my local Wal-mart.

I still have a second free oil change coming up at the dealer. I know the oil subject has been talked to death but is Royal Purple worth it?

Since I will be saving by doing future oil changes myself, I still find the higher price RP affordable.

Anybody experience this stuff? Heard good things about it at a Lexus Forum and see it crop up all the time in the past while researching oils. Is it mostly marketing crap (PLACEBO EFFECT) or is really as good as they say?

I was leaning towards Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic.

[kerrton]

I can't give you an answer, I can only recommend that you take personal anecdotes and testimony with a grain of salt, because only lab oil tests can quantify the performance of the oil and give you a true comparision. Also, driving style and driving conditions are not standard from one person to another, so you do have to take opinions carefully. I'm not implying that experience and opinions are not important, just that you have to look at the circumstances surrounding any conclusions.

Here is a link to a good discussion on this topic, and I'm sure you'll get some opinions on here shortly:

post3517222.html?hilit=royal%20purple#p3517222

[tempest.runner]

I asked my dealer the same thing and they pretty much summed it up with "Not really". They feel if you change your oil during the regular scheduled maintenance, it's unnecessary to go synthetic, but if you're the type who procrastinates between changes and let it slide months at a time, then your better going with synthetic.

Personally I don't really care as I'll take whatever Nissan recommends to not void my warranty!

[Pescakl1]

The question really is: Do you really need RP for your use of the Rogue? Will you race it? Will you drive it hard? etc...

First of all, every oil on the market are good oil, either conventional (called Dino by some) or synthetic (real and fake ones) oils.

It is all depends of your car, what you do with it and how you do it.

First Case: You want to follow the manufacturer recommendations? Buy the cheapest oil you can find at Walmart (which would probably be either SuperTech, PYB, Valvoline, QS, etc... depending of the sale this day). Any conventional oil in the Rogue will do the Nissan recommended interval, no problem. No need to get "the best of the best of the oils that my friend recommended me", the cheapest is enough. The most important thing is TO DO the oil change when the times comes.

Second Case: You want to drive further than the manufacturer recommended interval? Pick the cheapest synthetic oil you can find at Walmart (which would probably be either PP, Synpower, Mobil1, etc... depending of the sale this day) and start use the oil a little bit longer than recommended and do some UOAs to see, depending on how you use your car in your environment, what is the furthest you can safely go before changing the oil. It requires some empirical testing (time and money) if you want to use the most of the oil you bought, but for sure, you can at least do 7500 miles before starting the testing. Of course, as soon as you change your routine (moving from almost only City to mostly Highway for example), you will have to redo the test to find your new interval.

So, to answer your question more specifically: No, RP is not necessary in your Rogue, you can either use any conventional oil if you follow Nissan recommendation, or any synthetic oil (including RP of course) if you want to go further and change the oil less often.

Hope this helps.

[Pescakl1]

I asked my dealer the same thing and they pretty much summed it up with "Not really". They feel if you change your oil during the regular scheduled maintenance, it's unnecessary to go synthetic, but if you're the type who procrastinates between changes and let it slide months at a time, then your better going with synthetic.

This is actually a really good answer from a dealer .

Go with synthetic if you don't care that much about your car and therefore could forget to change the oil when time comes. At least you got some security margin using synthetic to cover if you forgot.

[takeshi]

Anybody experience this stuff? Heard good things about it at a Lexus Forum and see it crop up all the time in the past while researching oils. Is it mostly marketing crap (PLACEBO EFFECT) or is really as good as they say?

RP's mostly marketing (and purple coloring) from the testing data that I've read. If you're going to go with a synthetic there are much more cost effective options. I run synthetic in our other car but it's a high revving engine that gets autocrossed and will hopefully see some track time soon. Personally, I don't see any advantage to running synthetic in the Rogue but I'm no oil expert either so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

[DanTheMan]

Go with synthetic if you don't care that much about your car and therefore could forget to change the oil when time comes. At least you got some security margin using synthetic to cover if you forgot.

I disagree, If you care about your car/engine, then going with synthetic is the way to go. Yes, if you go with standard oil changes, your money MAY be out the window, but you will at least have the security of a better oil. I prefer a little higher mileage changes with synthetic. However, there are many good dino oils out there, I think it's just what makes you feel better and what you can back up, for warranty purposes.

[casperfun]

After reading the posts, I said to myself...dino oil is dino oil as long as you change every 3000 miles. etc. But as usual I have too much time on my hands thinking about my future DIY oil change after I get my last free oil change from the dealer.

I was thinking PP Ultra but then I keep googling away bored on Royal Purple reading reviews. I see some reviews on you tube (sponsered of course) on how Royal Purple increases hp by 5-8 horsepower. And some grinding test against Mobil 1 and how the metal bearings were less damaged.

Seemed impressive. Then some people saying the 1 year oil change maintanence or 10-15k change interval with only being $2 more a quart would be more cost effective. Would I wait a year? Probably not but perhaps I might change every 6000 or even 8000 if I feel comfortable.

Then they say Royal Purple is a class IV oil while Mobile 1 and PP are a Class III ever since Mobil lost some type of lawsuit or hearing about classification. So some of these major oil companys now degraded their oils since they could now say they are still synthetic. Confusing crap I know. I'm still lost too.

So if everything is the same, back to square one. Then is it probably ok to use the RP stuff? I mean they say its for racing and hard driving. But what is harder then short trips in the city and hardly highway? Just as bad right?

Any thoughts?

[Elton Noway]

Seemed impressive. Then some people saying the 1 year oil change maintanence or 10-15k change interval with only being $2 more a quart would be more cost effective. Would I wait a year? Probably not but perhaps I might change every 6000 or even 8000 if I feel comfortable.

Then they say Royal Purple is a class IV oil while Mobile 1 and PP are a Class III ever since Mobil lost some type of lawsuit or hearing about classification. So some of these major oil company's now degraded their oils since they could now say they are still synthetic. Confusing crap I know. I'm still lost too.

I'm not surprised Royal Purple would claim they are better than Mobil 1 (and all the other synthetics) ... after all thats why they call it advertising. Personally I wouldn't get hung up on Class IV versus Class III. The Rogue is not a Formula 1 racing machine so even Class III has its advantages over Dino. While synthetic has its advantages... I personally don't consider "longer time between oil changes" as cost justification to use it. I personally lean towards the benefits of less wear and tear on the engine and higher gas mileage.

So if everything is the same, back to square one. Then is it probably ok to use the RP stuff? I mean they say its for racing and hard driving. But what is harder then short trips in the city and hardly highway? Just as bad right?

Sure ...if you have money to burn you can't do any harm using RP. Although I'm pro synthetic, I still try to limit the damage to my wallet so RP is difficult for me to justify. You are correct... there's no doubt that short distance and city driving is tough on an engine so you could easily argue the benefits of using synthetic for this reason alone. While I can justify the higher $ of synthetic over Dino I can't justify RP due to the frequency of my oil changes. It may be a waste of money but I change my oil at regular intervals (trying not to exceed 4K per change) so the lower cost Mobile 1 is a good trade off for me.

Go with synthetic if you don't care that much about your car and therefore could forget to change the oil when time comes. At least you got some security margin using synthetic to cover if you forgot.

I disagree, If you care about your car/engine, then going with synthetic is the way to go. Yes, if you go with standard oil changes, your money MAY be out the window, but you will at least have the security of a better oil. I prefer a little higher mileage changes with synthetic.

Hi Dan... Hmmm... I think Pescakl1 may have been saying the same thing (in a round about way). His tongue-in-cheek implication was... if tend to forget to change your oil, you therefore don't care about your car so you should go with synthetic. In either case "I agree" synthetic is the way to go if you car about your car and "especially" if tend to forget oil changes.

Personally... I did an informal test... I put synthetic (Mobil 1) in my Honda Accord at 6200 miles and drove it for the next 5 years without ever changing the oil or filtered again. No engine problems of any kind, no oil burning, no loss of compression etc. The test was concluded when I totaled the car. You can read more about it in this thread.

has-anyone-changed-to-synthetic-oil-yet ... l#p4811675

[casperfun]

Don't get me started on Mobil 1. Well known corporation and oil company. The original synthetic oil which had the 25,000 mile oil change back in the day until they changed it to the 3000k schedule. Yes their record speaks for itself, not only that but all the grueling tests that is known about the oil.

I was also interested in this oil until people complained that it had noiser starts! Damn that mental block, I don't even know why that is stopping me from considering it when I already know that the Rogue is kinda noisy when it starts. Even though I go and research online, people experience's do influence my decision. But I guess it seems you should do what makes you happy. Funny thing is I used Castrol Syntec in my Maxima since first bought in 1990 and I'm not even considering that stuff. I really try to learn what people think is the best out there. Amsoil seems on top but I want something available at the local walmart.

[Pescakl1]

I was also interested in this oil until people complained that it had noiser starts! Damn that mental block, I don't even know why that is stopping me from considering it when I already know that the Rogue is kinda noisy when it starts.

If you want to decrease engine noise, use Pennzoil oil, especially PP.
This is what I use and even in the middle of winter, after the car sat in the cold for about 8 hours, I had a little bit of noise only the first 30 seconds of driving. Usually, I don't have any noise at all.

That is the internet rumor: PP returns less noisy engine than Mobil 1.

You could experiment with PYB (Pennzoil Yellow Bottle, the dino) or PP (Pennzoil Platinum, the synthetic) and see if you can hear a difference or not.

Try different oils and if you are picky, choose the one you like the best and stick to it. Choice can be subjective (will probably be anyway), that is not a problem as every oil on the market are good enough. If you are not that picky, change once in a while for another one you like too (nicer look of the bottle for example ).
It is the same as for humans with mineral water: It is good to change once in a while as all waters are strong in some fields and not in others, so changing is beneficial as you will get all the minerals your body needs by using several types of waters.
For my Rogue, I got Castrol Syntec at the beginning, then a diet of PP, and just change it for Valvoline Synpower.
Of course, I have a stash of PP (both in 5W30 and in 5W20) as this is my preferred oil, but still have a jug of Syntec, a smaller stash of Synpower (my second preferred oil), and 4 jugs of Canadian Tire Formula1 synthetic oil I got on sale which is supposed to be a great oil, especially for winter (made by Shell).
I may add another flavour in my stock if a good deal presents itself.

Have fun.

[Pescakl1]

I see some reviews on you tube (sponsered of course) on how Royal Purple increases hp by 5-8 horsepower.

I had a good laugh when I read this. My answer to this will be a question: Our Rogue has about 170hp, do you use all of them? Because IF you get 5-8 more hp from RP, you will get them only after you used all you have from the factory, not from a dead start.

Seemed impressive. Then some people saying the 1 year oil change maintanence or 10-15k change interval with only being $2 more a quart would be more cost effective. Would I wait a year? Probably not but perhaps I might change every 6000 or even 8000 if I feel comfortable.

You will save money, synthetic vs Dino oil, only if you use the synthetic oil to its full potential... something usually nobody do, even me.
So if you look from a money prospective, just buy any dino oil and change it every 5kmiles as Toyota now recommends for all its cars (it is true for all the manufacturers). If you want to stay within Nissan recommendations, change it every 4Kmiles while in warranty,... and then every 5Kmiles after warranty.

Then they say Royal Purple is a class IV oil while Mobile 1 and PP are a Class III ever since Mobil lost some type of lawsuit or hearing about classification. So some of these major oil companies now degraded their oils since they could now say they are still synthetic. Confusing crap I know. I'm still lost too.

They did not degrade their oils, they made it more affordable to you while keeping the same quality.
Not a single experiment showed that a group IV oil is better than a group III oil as preserving an engine during its life while used in a normal manner (not raced).
Don't forget some oil companies (Mobil1, Castrol, Shell,...) develop their oils by working with manufacturers, and then are used as factory fill. The best example is Motorcraft oil which is also known as Ford oil, because it is developed by Ford engineers for Ford engines.

Then is it probably ok to use the RP stuff? I mean they say its for racing and hard driving. But what is harder then short trips in the city and hardly highway? Just as bad right?:

It depends: If you rev up your Rogue to the redline at every stop and shoot the brakes to stop at the light, then yes racing and city driving is the same... for you.
City driving is harder on a car and engine than highway driving for sure, but that not even close to be as hard as racing. So, you don't need racing oil in your car if you don't race it.

[Pescakl1]

I disagree, If you care about your car/engine, then going with synthetic is the way to go. Yes, if you go with standard oil changes, your money MAY be out the window, but you will at least have the security of a better oil. I prefer a little higher mileage changes with synthetic. However, there are many good dino oils out there, I think it's just what makes you feel better and what you can back up, for warranty purposes.

As Elton Noway said, I believe we both agree, we just don't present it the same way.

I am not bashing synthetic, as I use only that in my car, since I am OK throwing a little bit of money out of the window, don't follow the manufacturer recommendations (just did one year interval with only 4000 miles on the car) as the car sat in the garage most of the time, and even don't follow the oil specifications of the manufacturer (put a little bit of 5W20 in the mix, will put more and more in the future).

But that doesn't mean that I should give that as a rule for someone seeking advice. It should be based on manufacturer recommendations and trying to keep it as cheap as possible.
With that in mind, any dino oil on the market will do the job as good as any synthetic, so why buy synthetic oil? Your car will be as preserved as if you used synthetic: There are a ton of people out there exceeding 300Kmiles on their cars using only dino oil changed at manufacturer recommendations, not using a single drop of oil.
Show me a single person that could prove with any doubt that his engine was shout by using dino oil at manufacturer recommendations and that his engine blew up because he used dino oil.
There are none, engines will die because of other things and not because of oils (mainly because of bad maintenance), and first of all, because owners cannot stand to see their cars anymore and want to change it.

[casperfun]

I like to thank all the forum members for giving their input. Moreover, I know how quoting a forum member's post then replying can be a tedious process (at least for me personally), so thanks to that too and for replying with some deep introspecive thought. Sometimes I get bored and I really look forward to reading stuff about the Rogue in here which acts like a secondary newspaper or magazine to me in a way. Unlike other forums, you can come here and practically read someting new each day if you so chose.

I would just like to comment that Mobil and Castrol did degrade their oils. As stated in Car & Driver, ( it can be found online at their site) which I find plausible because of their magazine.
TITLE:Synthetic Motor Oil Gets All New Semantics
BY PATRICK BEDARD

......Most guys know two things about synthetic oils. First, the price is three to four times that of conventional oils. Second, they're not real oil, not made from crude.

News flash: Scratch that second part. Now motor oils derived from crude may be labeled "synthetic." But they still cost over four bucks a quart.

Bait and switch? That's the obvious conclusion. Except in this case the advertising ethics people have given their approval.

Here's what happened, according to a detailed account published in the trade magazine Lubricants World. Late in 1997, Castrol changed the formula of its Syntec "full synthetic motor oil," eliminating the polyalphaolefin (PAO) base stock (that's the "synthetic" part, which makes up about 70 percent by volume of what's in the bottle) and replacing it with a "hydroisomerized" petroleum base stock.

Mobil Oil Corporation, maker of Mobil 1, "World's Leading Synthetic Motor Oil," said no fair and took its complaint to the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. NAD often arbitrates between feuding advertisers on their conflicting claims.

..........The argument before NAD tiptoed around the obvious -- does the consumer get four bucks' worth of value from each quart of synthetic oil? -- and plunged straight into deep semantics. Mobil's experts said "synthetic" traditionally meant big molecules built up from small ones. Castrol's side held out for a looser description, defining "synthetic" as "the product of an intended chemical reaction."

What do unbiased sources say? It turns out that the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the American Petroleum Institute (API) both have technical standards covering motor oils, and both of these organizations in the '90s backed away from their old definitions of "synthetic," leaving lots of room for new interpretations.

In the end, NAD decided that the evidence "constitutes a reasonable basis for the claim that Castrol Syntec, as currently formulated, is a synthetic motor oil," said Lubricants World. END
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In the end, oil is oil. It don't matter what type as long as you change it as recommended. But for the people who are paying for synthetic, they may not really get their money's worth( because of the marketing twist), then they should in theory buy dino oil and if they want TRUE REAL synthetic then they should buy Royal Purple, Amsoil. etc.

I also saw in the in-store advertising paper insert by the door at Advance Auto selling 5 quarts of Royal Purple with a free K & N oil filter for $39.99.

Also since Pennzoil Plantium Ultra came out. Normal PP went for $19-$21 to $23 a 5QT bottle. They say its because they want you to see that PP Ultra is only $5 more so they think you might go ahead and buy it. Yup, the marketing crap at work.

So that makes PP Ultra at $28 then if you add a filter. Then you get REAL close to the Royal Purple deal. So is it worth another $4-$5? Then again sales are off and on. But I kow Walmart sells it for $8 and some change.
Decisions ....Decisions.

All I have to say is your Rogue worth $40 of tender loving care every few months? I say yes. Really I dont see a difference between $30 or $40 for an DIY oil change. But I also know finances can be tough in this recession.

Enough babble from me. Enough Royal Purple chat for me. Thanks all for your input.