Conventional oil hard to find?

ANything with VVT you need to be carefull to use the specified oil and change it often enough, or the savings realized by skimping on oil will bite you in the ass in a spectacularly expensive way.

I'm not Arlen, but Dexos is spec oil specified for GM products after

Not only is he extremely irritating he is wrong at least twice as often than right.

The cost of refining? Once it gets in the bottle it is the same as far as API is concerned.

I cannot fault him for the comment on oil and learn a lot from him and he is entertaining. He does make good points that make sense like a turbocharged small engine is bound to wear out faster.

He is a Toyota fan but points out some of their bad years. He expects a good car to last for hundreds of thousands of miles. I never had a car with much over one hundred thousand miles on it that was not dying of old age.

He has a huge fan base and makes all his money off You Tube videos and no car or car part sponsors.

I agree with you that oil is a commodity which people obsess about. Mostly because advertisers want to give people something to obsess about.

Every brand is different but those differences won't matter much to us.

What matters mostly is how often we change it (IMHO). Which itself matters mostly based on our weather & driving patterns (IMHO).

And even that is subject to a lot of personal opinion (IMHO). Everyone makes their own assessment of what to use & when to change (IMHO).

(My personal opinion is twice a year for dino & once a year for synth). (My personal opinion is a filter change roughly about once a year.)

For me the motor oil buying choice is simple.

1. Price (about .50/qt for good dino juice, about twice that for synth)
2. Quality (any API that meets or exceeds the spec in the owners manual)
3. Viscosity (any SAE range that meets the spec in the owners manual)

In practice you'd have to go out of your way to find an oil that doesn't meet the spec in the owners manual so it eventually boils down to price.

Price changes over time but currently it's $2.50/qt for Costco fully synthetic (API SP, SAE 5W30, Dexos 1 gen 2) in sets of two five quart jugs.

It's harder to find a spec for oil filters but like oil it matters less when you change often (defined by me as being about yearly which is ~12K miles).

I've seen many oil filter teardowns so I avoid Fram and STP oil filters and I know that only a few manufacturers likely make most oil filters anyways and I do know that the Napa Gold (also Wix) are usually the best in those teardowns and that the Purloators at Toyota turn out to be reasonably good too (as do the AC Delcos).

The Walmart K&N, SuperTech, Mobil 1 and Fram often come out differentially as do the Bosch at times.

Mostly I look for 30um at 99% or even 20 micron if I can find it but not all boxes say and there's no spec that I know of for oil filters like there is for oil that help compare them (they're all good enough for my cars except maybe Fram).

If you know of a spec that's printed on all oil filter boxes for comparison sake like there is for oil that would be helpful for sure.

Scotty Kilmer's automotive repair & maintenance advice is good for young kids (IMHO) but maybe not for wizened old farts like we are (& like he is).

The reason is that his advice is overly simplified (IMHO) such that Scotty leaves out important detail we old farts know (& I'm sure he knows it too).

Mostly Scotty is in the right direction but he doesn't go into enough detail to tell us much we didn't long ago learn way back in the sixties (IMHO).

Pretty much agree with your opinion. With a turbo, I'd go with synthetic as they are subject to some high RPM.

No matter what you or I think or have experienced, there is always the guy that says "my car runs a lot smoother or Brand Y over Brand X."

I agree and if I were to do some of this work I'd look for a detailed You Tube video.

It is interesting for us old farts how much computers do in cars today. You need a good computer, an expensive scan tool, to find many problems.

I recall a couple of years ago putting my dwell tac meter and timing light in the Goodwill bag.

Buy a Honda. My Prelude is almost 25 years old, god only knows how many miles it has on it because the speedometer was tricked up when I got it in 2002 but it says 110,000 and the engine is probably the strongest part. My guess is closer to 200k. I also don't take very good care of it. Cheap oil, when I think about it and that is far from once a year. At this point a dealer oil change and the service they sell you with that would be 10% of the value of the car ;-)

This is also that VVT thing that Clare says requires wonder oil.

They will scan for codes at the auto parts store for free. I have a blue tooth scan tool I have never plugged in.

I'm curious. If you're going to go to the trouble of changing the oil twice a year, why not change the filter twice a year, as in, doing both at the same time? It seems like only a small increment of extra work and expense.

On Thu, 25 Mar 2021 15:01:50 -0500, Jim Joyce posted for all of us to digest...

How dare you question Arlen?

That's a good question where the answer is that it's totally up to you.

The logic is no different than the logic you use for when to replace your brake rotors or when you replace your tire valves or when you replace your transmission filter or when you replace your tie rod ends (and on and on).

When to replace is up to you.

Why not replace the rotors or drums with every change of pads or shoes? The logic is the rotors/drums last longer than one change of pads/shoes.

Why not replace the tire valves with every rotation or change of tires? The logic is the tire valves can easily last longer than one set of wheels.

But it's totally up to you.

The logic is that the oil filter lasts longer than does one change of oil just as brake rotors often last longer than one change of brake pads.

If you want to change them every time that's completely up to you to replace them even though they're still well within spec when you changed them.

It's totally up to you.

Of course it is up to you. I can see condition and measure wear on rotors when changing pads so it is an easy decision.

Can you see and measure how well the filter is working? Given it is an integral part of the lubrication system, has a cost of $10, and is helping protect a $5000+ engine, I change it every time. Cheap insurance and peace of mind.

If "I" was going to change the filter on a different schedule than the oil I'd change the filter twice an the oil once - - - - - assuming synthetic oil

It's vestigial from the 1950s when oil and labor were cheap and filters were expensive. No good reason now, certainly not any technical reason. I changed to oil with new filter every 3K miles in the 1970s.

I had a Camry that had 195,000 on it when I got rid of it. OUtside of the normal wear items , all I replaced was a sensor that did cost about $ 600 at around 140,000. AS I did not drive it all that much, I changed the oil 2 times a year. Once at inspection time and 6 months later. Even the AC in that 20 year old car was never worked on and still kept me cool in the summer in NC.

In the motorcycle forums the usual reply is 'Sweet Jesus! Another frigging oil thread!'