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Engine synthetic- or fossil

Yahoo Message Number: 91894
Folks, I have a friend who has a 2000 Magna and asked me, since he has 85,000 miles if it would be advantageous to switch to synthetic? Thanks, Ernie Ekberg

Re: Engine synthetic- or fossil

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 91896
Ernie,

Under normal use and maintenance I don't see any real advantage to synthetic engine oil.
George in Birmingham '03 Magna 6298
George in Birmingham
2003 Magna 6298

Re: Engine synthetic- or fossil

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 91898
I use synthetic oil in all my vehicles. It is much thinner and provides much better lubrication than dino and can withstand much higher temps. Some noticable advantages include easier starting in cold weather and IMO a quieter engine, especially my generator and maybe a small increase in mpg. Just as an example of durability, jet engines must use synthetic oil because dino oil cannot withstand the higher temperatures. I get my Rotella Synthetic at Walmart.

Larry 03 Allure 30856

Re: Engine synthetic- or fossil

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 91902
Synthetic oil (100% synthetic) is best used in gear boxes, differentials, etc.. items that it is going to be left in for longer intervals, mileage or time. In the engine that isn't going to see high mileage between change intervals running pure synthetic is (in my opinion) wasting your money. The extra cost of the oil isn't always going to be made up with the little bit better mileage. For example if you drive the cajeebers out of your coach and really put the miles on in 1 year, lets say 10k miles and your coach gets 7.5 miles to the gallon, your going to burn 1334 gallons and at $4.25 a gall you'll spend $5670. Now put in the synthetic and you're mileage goes up to 8.5 miles to the gallon (and a 1 mile to gallon increase is probably a stretch) and you go the same 10k miles at $4.25 a gallon, you'll burn 1177 gallons at a cost of $5003, so you'll save $667. With standard blended oil it costs on average $10 a gallon, pure synthetic is around $25 a gallon, and your coach holds 8 gallons (for example) so the pure synthetic will cost $120 more, so that drops the savings down to $547. Now if you don't drive the 10k miles and only put 5k miles on the coach the end savings would be $215.
Now the savings is only IF you really do get the mileage increase, most of the time the true increase comes from putting pure synthetic in diff's, trannys, wheel hubs, etc. not so much on the engine. My recommendation is change over everything besides the engine and see what the mileage does, it should increase. Then once you have that baseline after a year, then if you want, switch the engine over to synthetic.

Jim Lewis

Infinity Coach

From:larry.feather@...
Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2013 4:39 AM To:Country-Coach-Owners@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Country-Coach-Owners] RE: Engine synthetic- or fossil

I use synthetic oil in all my vehicles. It is much thinner and provides much better lubrication than dino and can withstand much higher temps. Some noticable advantages include easier starting in cold weather and IMO a quieter engine, especially my generator and maybe a small increase in mpg. Just as an example of durability, jet engines must use synthetic oil because dino oil cannot withstand the higher temperatures. I get my Rotella Synthetic at Walmart.

Larry 03 Allure 30856

---In country-coach-owners@yahoogroups.com, wrote:

Ernie,

Under normal use and maintenance I don't see any real advantage to synthetic engine oil.

George in Birmingham
'03 Magna 6298

---In Country-Coach-Owners@yahoogroups.com, wrote:

Folks, I have a friend who has a 2000 Magna and asked me, since he has 85,000 miles if it would be advantageous to switch to synthetic? Thanks, Ernie Ekberg

Re: Engine synthetic- or fossil

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 91903
Jim,

Your example of a 1 mile per gallon increase is VERY optimistic. It maybe as high as .2.
I agree with your post completely, especially using a more conservative number. IF synthetic oil paid for itself every fleet would be using it.

Mikee