synthetic oil

For those who say you can't break an engine in on synthetic, what about the Dodge Viper? It comes factory filled with Mobil 1 synthetic!

For me, the synthetic is cost prohibitive in my 2 old vehicles, because they leak and burn about 3 to 4 quarts in 2000 miles. When I get vehicles that don't waste oil, then I'll run synthetic in them too...

Fred - Kansas

Years ago I was building a lot of engines and tried synthetic Ams and Mobil 1 even though we were getting Valvoline crude based for free. Few things I learned -- 1. The synthetic oil temp ran lots cooler than the crude based on a same day A/B comparison. 2. After tearing down a crude and a syn engine with the same number of hours; the rod and main bearings showed a whole lot less wear on the engine running syn. 3. A gearbox running syn ran 15% to 20% cooler than a conventional lube in a gearbox (and actually I think the best use of syn's is in a gearbox).

You'll get these objections - 1. Price. which is valid gripe, but you say you can get the syn cheaply. 2. Leaks. I've never seen it, but people have had that problem. There is a Mobil 1 flavor for older engines that has polymer leak inibitors. 3. Break in. Guys say you should break in with crude to seat the rings. Dunno, I've been dumb enough to use syn from the get go, and haven't seen a difference.

I've got two tractors over 50. One I use Mobil 1 in and it seems to work well. The other is an oil burner and so it gets heavy weight crude based until I get ambitious enough to do an engine rebuild. If you're getting the syn for next to nothing; it's hard to think you could go too far wrong.