my93accord

My car is old, about 186000 miles. I purchased it used back in 2001 when mileage was 118000 and used Mobil1 full synthetic 5W-30 from the beginning(about every 4-5k). The car has minor oil leaks(according to mechanic, it not leaking but sipping over some old gaskets and does not worth fixing it unless its too bad considering that it is an old car).

My question is, should I continue to use full synthetic oil (got expensive now a days) or swtich back to regular? Is there any advantage of using synthetic for such old cars? I know synthetic are better but does it add any benefit for my old car so that high cost is justified? Also, I heard that synthetic oil tends to leak more!!

Any advice on this?

GoLowDrew

I'm not a fan of synthetic oil. No reason, just because they are more expensive. Never had an oil-related problem in 25 years of use on all types of engine. So why change. Dino oil works (well).

I don't see the relationship between type of oil and the leak. If it's going to leak out, I rather leak out the "cheap stuff."

2 thoughts:

1. Have you try additives to stop the leak? This comes to mind. http://www.prolong.com/A_ET.html Not sure if it will work.

2. Time for a new car. $tart $aving up.

0Janet@bisimoto

Try this article: http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...oil/index.html

I hope it helps.

my93accord

thanks for your replies. So there is definite advantage of using syn oil for better engine life as per the article. I believe that. But probably noe of those consider an old enough car where performance enhancing may not be straight forward due to other problems like oil sipping, mechanical loss of efficiency etc. right?

conker

I have been using conventional in my 92 since day one. I started old-school with 3,000 mile changes but have been doing 5,000 mile for the last 5 years. It is quite happy at 361,000 miles, burns less than a half quart between changes, and gets 35 mpg. Point being, any decent oil with regular changes should keep the block happy for a very, very long time. No real magic to it.