As long as we're all tossing in experiences with synthetic oils, I
thought I'd throw mine in as well.
As far as oiling goes, I like it. Very slippery stuff! I've had great
luck with it in gearboxes and rear ends. Not much trouble with it
leaking in those applications either.
Engines are a different story. Hasn't seemed to matter whether it's a
car, motorcycle or truck, new or old, stuff comes out through seals and
gaskets and leaves the engine wet on the outside. Sometimes badly,
sometimes not so badly. But without fail, I have never seen an engine
with synthetic oil that wasn't wet on the outside.
One of the strangest things with it I've seen was in my 86 Honda CRX-Si.
A fine running engine. Using Castrol GTX 10-40 I don't go through enough
oil between 3-5K changes to need a topping up. That's with a whole lot
of miles on the engine to boot. Right now I've got just under 200K on
it.
Mobil 1 though did some very strange things in that engine. Of course it
made it soppy wet on the outside. But there seemed to be a volatility
game going on as well. With a new oil change the car would quickly lose
a quart of oil in about 800 miles. I'd top it off and it would lose
about 1/2 a quart in the next 800 miles. Top it off again, and the
engine would lose just a little, and then stablize. I don't know what
was going on for sure, but it seemed pretty clear that my engine was
driving something out of the oil. That's the only engine I've ever had
that would do that, though I have heard from others with similar
experiences.
Personally, I use Castrol GTX and aim for 3k oil changes with everything.
In the many years since I switched to Castrol I've yet to have any
problems, and I have abused the heck out of it many times. Like the time
I lost a cylinder on a motorcycle in western Maryland, rode home anyways
(without removing the spark plug) which was a couple of hundred miles,
and filled the crankcase up with gasoline. By filled, I mean about two
gallons. No damage to the engine was found upon tearing it down. Which
was done because I expected I had done lots of damage.
So far I haven't had any sludge buildup running this oil. As long as I'm
doing routine oil changes. I haven't met the oil yet that wouldn't
sludge and carbon without oil changes.
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