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Maintenance & Repair Synthetic motor oil
8536 messages, Last post on Nov 21, 2009 at 9:34 AM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
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Replying to: highmiler650 (Nov 09, 2009 2:46 pm) 
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Replying to: xwesx (Nov 09, 2009 3:20 pm) 
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Nov 09, 2009 5:17 pm) 
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I did have a long talk with my Subaru service advisor (they have "stellar" classification from Subaru) and he warned me that as soon as I switch to synthetic oil, I can expect more oil consumption as apparently it works past the seals. He was not sure how long this additional consumption would continue. My workaround is to use a "uplevel classification" conventional oil and change it every 3K miles (as my Subie's a turbo, Oil's required to be changed every 3750 miles). So far, the oil coming out of Subie's engine is less dirty than from my former Malibu Maxx or Toyotas for equivalent mileage changes.
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Replying to: kurtamaxxxguy (Nov 17, 2009 10:59 am)
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Replying to: kurtamaxxxguy (Nov 17, 2009 10:59 am) Unless Subaru uses gaskets and seals composed of material that is grossly inferior to what is used on every other car sold in the States, then your Service Advisor is speaking either from person bias or he was seriously misinformed. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Nov 17, 2009 11:02 am) When synthetics are introduced, the better ones clean up the varnish. If the seals and gaskets are cracked because they dried out, the synthetic will penetrate and could cause some leaking. Also when the nooks and crannies are cleaned out, the synthetic can now get in there like it was supposed to. This can all cause a noticeable increase in initial oil intake, and usually stops by the second oil change.
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Replying to: timvipond (Nov 17, 2009 1:21 pm) Nor have I ever observed synthetic ever doing anything funny to gaskets during a tear down. Given such real feedback on so many varieties of cars, I personally feel confident to advise people not to worry about this. My opinion is that this worry about synthetic causing leaks came from a confusion between "causation" and "correlation". In other words, they were tinkering with an old car, or reviving it from storage, and it started leaking some oil or burning it---but they had done so many other things to the car, or just starting using it again, or were new owners. The only engine I tell people not to use synthetic oil in, is a Mazda rotary, based on what I've studied on that matter. |
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