Chet,
As I state in my thank you after receiving the responses, I have 15 years
of experience of extended interval service. Usually 12-15,000 miles.
Typically with no or very slight oil consumption. The overall cost for
materials is about the same because you do a lot fewer changes. The
first few years I changed the filters halfway through the year. The last
decade, basically I change it one a year. The high mileage commuter car
is run on the highway 90% of the time so I don't mind putting 18,000
miles on between changes. I did run a magnetic drain plug for the first
two cars; nothing extraordinary ever showed up. I just stopped buying
them. IMHO, the magnetic drain plugs would work better than magnets on
the oil filter. I don't know about you, but my oil filters don't always
agree with me when I decide it is time to remove them. Sometimes we
fight. I have always won, so far, but I have speared one or two with a
screw driver to get them off. It may be hard to keep the magnets on the
filter through all of that. Plus the drain plug will get them before
they get to the filter (I guess).
What I should do is spend $50 and get the oil analysed. The labs can
tell you what is in the oil and your shop manual can tell you what is
made out of what the lab found. You know exactly what is wearing at an
accelerated rate.
Keep in mind that if the engine had worn, the thinner synthetic oils we
are discussing will be consumed at a greater rate than standard oils. I
only converted (standard to synthetic) one car that had more than 50,000
miles on it. It did use more oil than all the others. Typically, on a
new car, I would complete 9-12,000 miles on standard oil then switch to
synthetic. The newer car warrantee require that you maintain the
manufacturers oil change interval through the warrantee. If you can't
prove the changes specified, you could forfeit the coverage. Overall,
I think the stuff is just better and the higher cost is justifiable,
based on vehicle longevity. I usually keep my vehicles 8-10 years.
If I solve my low oil pressure problem in my TR3, and the pressure is OK
on synthetics, I will probably not run extended change intervals, but
change it every year, limited to 2,500 miles by insurance requirements.
Jack Brooks
Hillsdale, New Jersey
1960 TR3-A TS69032L
On Sat, 23 Nov 1996 10:15:17 -0500 CMaster808@aol.com writes:
>Jack
>
>I would think that with the high cost of the synthetic oils, one would
>lean
>more towards longer intervals between full replacement, but might tend
>to
>change filter and top off in between say every 6000 or so. Does this
>make
>sense or not? I read in JC Whitney last night about a magnetic wrap
>for the
>filter , Whats the opinions of this out there? I was thinking of
>taping a
>couple of mags to mine just for a trial, then cutting the filter open
>and
>having a look see for myself.
>
>
>Chet
>
>But before this is possible I need to get a oil cooler installed so I
>can
> then put on my canister adapter, bought the one that has the ports
>for the
>cooler hoses, looks like the cooler has to be inplace for the adapter
>to be
>able to work ie: can't bypass the ports has to flow out one and back
>two.
>
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