Honda Civic Fuel, Oil, Cleaners & Other MaintenanceExtending the life of your Honda Civic requires the proper fuel, oil, and cleaners, along with other regularly scheduled maintenance. Keep your Honda Civic fuel and oil at the right levels to keep your Civic on the road longer.
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Well, yes it is true that walmart has some cheap synthetic oil. To be honest, I don't know much about that oil. The reason being that when you buy oil, the difference between synthetic and dino is nothing compared to the difference in oil addative packages put into the oil. My point is that a good dino oil with a well proven and excellent addative package is better than a full synthetic with a crappy addative package.
to respectfully disagree , synthetic oils:
-- have much higher resistance to temperature variations, maintaining viscosity better than dino (high resistance to shearing, which is when the oil molecules get separated into smaller pieces). synthetics can be used at cold airplane-altitude stratosphere conditions and also saraha-hot situations
-- have reduced resistance to flow (lower cooefficient of friction), have superior surface tension which gives higher film attributes
--oxides much slower
-- can be used with viscousity enhancers (additive type) change oil weight, but while the synthetic oil won't breakdown in a hard situation, additives can be overworked and they can breakdown while the rest of the base oil stays in original form, causing a changed-version of the additive to present in your oil. this condition is even worse when happening with dino oils. yuk.
dino oils:
-- are made of molecular polymers (not on the single molecular level, which synthetic are brewed on) and there is no dino refining process on this earth that can rid the oil completely of contaminants that are in those polymers
-- contain sulfides, with contribute to sludge when the oil starts oxidizing
-- do not have a extreme resistance to temperature variations
-- breakdown much quicker
***
Having a solid synthetic without additives needed are most reliable long term street driving and in race situations. Superior lubricating properties and less friction directly contribute to increased HP and better fuel mileage. The real trick is get the synthetic with the appropriate ZDDP (zinc / phosphorus) that protect metal-on-metal contact (valvetrain, etc) while being just viscous enough to lubricate as well as release friction throughout the engine. you can use dino's with additives, but nothing will get rid of molecular-sized crap in dino oils that will contribute to premature engine failure if you compared the same exact engine used long term with synthetic oils. a common mistake also is to use additives to compensate for a shitty Group 3 synthetic oil (fake synthetic, created using "hydrocrackers" that's an advanced version of dino refining... definitely not like mobil one that is created on the molecular level by reacting gasses)
mobil one has been tested, tested, and tested. comes out on the top of the API spec and test chart right along royal purple, but royal purple is only developed for short term usage (having to do with degredation qualities, that's another discussion).
i think another topic very relavant to this is oil filter type, because people can use synthetic oils with fram filters and get horrible results because the fram part sucks. in short, K&N oil filters changed with every synthetic oil change will give you the best performance and most reliable conditions. it's more on the buck, but up to the end user.
oh yeah for the Noobs using Quakerstate or Pennzoil regular (dino) oils.... DO NOT MIX THEM IN THE SAME ENGINE. EVEN WHEN FLUSHING ONE AND PUTTING IN THE OTHER. specifically these two oils combined will counteract with each other and turn to sludge very quickly.
honda makes its own synthetic, in the Bay Area they charge a whoppin $7 bucks a quart for it. fukin rip off since it doesn't spec even close to the top of the oil chart in comparison, however it is much better than a dino. if you don't specify for them to use synthetic, they'll use the standard honda dino oil. either case its honda made (unless they outsource the oil from somewhere...)
highest retail for mobil 1 here is $6 a quart, i've found it in discount down to around $4.50 if i grab a 12 pack on sale. if you're going synthetic, and are willing to do your own oil change (i don't let anybody work on my car, even the certified techs) then go mobil 1
Yeah if all you are driving is around town. You can run a good synthetic without LC20 and get the same benefits. Beating the shit out of your engine every few months needs better protection than dino IMO. I am sure LC20 is great with both dino and synthetic, but how much $$ do we need to sink into oils and additives?
__________________ Life isnt a test drive, gotta live a little. (02fpcivic)
Well, most of what you said is true. But there are a couple of nit picks here. I'll just make my comments in bold because it's easier
Quote:
Originally Posted by CivicSF
to respectfully disagree , synthetic oils:
-- have much higher resistance to temperature variations, maintaining viscosity better than dino (high resistance to shearing, which is when the oil molecules get separated into smaller pieces). synthetics can be used at cold airplane-altitude stratosphere conditions and also saraha-hot situations yes, this is true because the molecules are a uniform size. On the link I provided above, I mention that smaller molecules of oil have lower flash points, or points that they burn off. So, if you have a distribution of molecules, and the smaller ones burn off more quickly, after a some time you only larger molecules left, hence making the viscosity go up. In airplane engines this is very important, after all that engines fail, you die. But in a car engine this is not as important. There are people on here that have run nothing but 10w30 in their civic and been fine, not that I think that is a good idea. So my guess is the engine can run fine with if the oil gets a hair thicker oil toward the end of it's life. As I generally say, dino oil are good for about 4,000 miles, you will not see much degradation in that time.
-- have reduced resistance to flow (lower cooefficient of friction), have superior surface tension which gives higher film attributes this depends completely on the additive again, Check this thread out, look at post number 8, I go through some basic oil additive and their purpose
--oxides much slower see above, oxidation rates can be slowed by additives. Also dino oil WILL oxidize faster simply because when some of the molecules are smaller. It goes back to that flash point stuff I mentioned, when the smaller molecules "burn up," that is an oxidation reaction, but again in the 4,000 miles life of a car dino oil, this is not quick enough to matter
-- can be used with viscousity enhancers (additive type) change oil weight, but while the synthetic oil won't breakdown in a hard situation, additives can be overworked and they can breakdown while the rest of the base oil stays in original form, causing a changed-version of the additive to present in your oil. this condition is even worse when happening with dino oils. yuk. that is completely dependant on the addtive package in the oil. Hence the saying, you get what you pay for
dino oils:
-- are made of molecular polymers (not on the single molecular level, which synthetic are brewed on) and there is no dino refining process on this earth that can rid the oil completely of contaminants that are in those polymers well, okay. Dino oil aren't made from anything, they already exist in the ground and are simply separated. It is true that there is a paraffin (or wax) in the oil, but again certain additive are put in the oil to keep this in suspension and prevent it from building up in the engine. Not to mention there isn't much of this stuff in the oil.
-- contain sulfides, with contribute to sludge when the oil starts oxidizing true in older oils that don't have proper detergents. Today’s oil can easily suspend carbon and keep it in suspension. The REALLY bad thing about sulfur is that it changes the pH of the oil such that it will start eating gaskets away. But hopefully nobody goes that far with the oil. Even synthetics often use sulfide compounds as anti-ware additives.
-- do not have a extreme resistance to temperature variations This is absolutely correct. But again, most cars are not exposed to these type of conditions.
-- breakdown much quicker That is why I say only go 4,000 miles on dino oil, 5,000 tops where as a synthetic oil you can go far more. Truckers often don't even change their oil for about 25,000 miles, they just change the filter and add some more oil and use something like LC20 to replenish the TBN (the additives) that have been depleted.
***
Having a solid synthetic without additives needed are most reliable long term street driving and in race situations. Superior lubricating properties and less friction directly contribute to increased HP and better fuel mileage. The real trick is get the synthetic with the appropriate ZDDP (zinc / phosphorus) that protect metal-on-metal contact (valvetrain, etc) while being just viscous enough to lubricate as well as release friction throughout the engine. you can use dino's with additives, but nothing will get rid of molecular-sized crap in dino oils that will contribute to premature engine failure if you compared the same exact engine used long term with synthetic oils. a common mistake also is to use additives to compensate for a shitty Group 3 synthetic oil (fake synthetic, created using "hydrocrackers" that's an advanced version of dino refining... definitely not like mobil one that is created on the molecular level by reacting gasses) Well I agree with everything, except that a synthetic without additive is going to protect anything. EVERY oil on the market today has additives. Without certain additives, ANY oil (synthetic or dino) can not even suspend carbon, hence causing carbon and sludge build up. True, that synthetics do not need as many additives, but it still contains them. But again, we are getting in to an issue of long life, and that horse has beaten to death
mobil one has been tested, tested, and tested. comes out on the top of the API spec and test chart right along royal purple, but royal purple is only developed for short term usage (having to do with degredation qualities, that's another discussion). Agree, Mobil 1 is probably the best "common" oil there is. And I have always said Royal Purple is a great oil for a short time, it's a true race oil
i think another topic very relavant to this is oil filter type, because people can use synthetic oils with fram filters and get horrible results because the fram part sucks. in short, K&N oil filters changed with every synthetic oil change will give you the best performance and most reliable conditions. it's more on the buck, but up to the end user. Agian, I agree 100%, without a decent filter, the best oil in the world is going to nothing for you
You really are not disagreeing that much. My point was that cheap Wal-Mart synthetic oil is bad. I say because of additives and you say because of cheap class III hydro cracking, and now I say we are both correct. So we both agree it is a crap oil, I just happen to think a good dino or blend oil will be better than the cheap Wal-Mart brand synthetic oil.
Sorry for the long response, but is informative to those who read it, for those who don't want to read it:
In the end it is up to each person and what they want to use. I personally go with quality dino oil every 4,000 miles, and have an oil analysis done every 15-20,000 miles, and my family and I have driven cars well over the 200,000 mile point without any engine issues. True that maybe you could squeeze another 10,000 miles of life out of your car, but most car today will last beyond the 150,000 mile mark without any help and I really don't plan on keeping my cars that long, and dino oil suites my needs just fine IMO. Besides in my experience the engines are generally not gives out on most common cars today (assuming you don’t beat it daily). We all have different idea's about what is the best, IMO synthetic in a non performance engine is over kill unless you drive 30,000+ miles a year and are going for longer oil changes.
yep. i guess our main back-and-forth contention is style of driving. i'm a fukin lead foot on a 4 banger cause that's why i buy em. love gettin great gas mileage while smokin around town at 100mph. therefore, i need synthetic. commuter driving, cool... use dino. i'm just not gonna allow the oil in my engine to be the weak link. yeah its more expensive but i also noticed the engine performs really solid above 80+ once i switched from castrol bullshhittec to mobil 1. i don't think it put more power to the ground (at 100 hp no mod is gonna make you a rocket period)... tho starting the engine cold in the mornin has much less vibration than it did with either the honda stock or castrol oils. that part is good too.
yep. i guess our main back-and-forth contention is style of driving. i'm a fukin lead foot on a 4 banger cause that's why i buy em. love gettin great gas mileage while smokin around town at 100mph. therefore, i need synthetic. commuter driving, cool... use dino. i'm just not gonna allow the oil in my engine to be the weak link. yeah its more expensive but i also noticed the engine performs really solid above 80+ once i switched from castrol bullshhittec to mobil 1. i don't think it put more power to the ground (at 100 hp no mod is gonna make you a rocket period)... tho starting the engine cold in the mornin has much less vibration than it did with either the honda stock or castrol oils. that part is good too.
Certianly if you are a lead foot, you will be pttuing more stress on the oil. Then go with the synthetic, I personally can not afford to be a lead foot, with a light foot I get 18-20 MPG and lead foot I get about 12-14 MPG, in 4x4 I get about 11 MPG. So once in while a punch it, but really I am quite easy going, but if you have 300 hp and 365 ft-lb, you just have to let it loose every now and then
Anyway, if you are going to drive like that, sure synthetics will probably help you out.
I also use amsoil. I love it. It is expensive but I used to use the 2 stroke oil it in my motocross bikes and it was the best their is. I think it's the best because what other oil company advertises 25,000 mile oil life. Although, you have to change your filter every 5,000-10,000 miles and add one quart every time you change it. Also, it's 100% synthetic and It's got a lot of ditergents that keep your engine really clean and reduce friction.
They use a honda blend and I'm only paying $23 for the service, I might change to a synthetic once my mileage gets up there. With only 10,000 miles, I'll stick to the real stuff!
, synthetic oils:
