I'm seeing the synthetic vs regular oil thread pop up again. For what it's
worth I've watched this come up several different times over the last few
years on this and other marques bulletin boards and magazines.
Summarized, the differences seem to be:
1) Synthetics flow better at low temps, and retain lubricity better at high
temps. I believe this is backed up by test data.
2) Synthetics tend to clean gunk out of engines, which can increase the
incidence of leaks in old or poorly maintained engines if the gunk was
helping the seals. [but who's going to notice on an LBC?]
3) No one seems to be able to prove that synthetics work better in normal
cars than regular oil changes with normal oil. I'm speaking here of 3K
regular oil changes.
4) No one has proven that synthetics will damage your engine. Just how is an
oil going to "ruin" an engine? (rhetorical question-I don't want to know]
5) Sythetics are sufficiently expensive that they aren't justified in an
engine in poor condition that already burns oil.
Everyone has their opinions. I've driven cars to 147K, 175K, 135K, 174K, and
am working with an 88K engine now, all on regular oil. In general the
problems that made me finally sell my cars didn't involve poor compression or
engine performance. I like synthetic in theory, I just don't want to pay for
it.
Thanks for listening,
Sean Johnson
'75 Spitfire
'79 MGB
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