• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

valvoline synthetic blend or Mobil 1 full synthetic

rav

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Albany, NY
Hi Guys,
I am about to change the oil in my newly acquired 95 XJ with 119K. I am sure that the jeep is running some cheap conventional oil. Luckily I have not seen any oil leaks, so I am wondering if it would be better to change to the Valvoline Synthetic blend (high mileage one) or straight to Mobile 1 fully synthetic. The reason I ask is the valvoline come with seal protection conditioners and I am worried if I change to full synthetic, I will start seeing leaks.

As always your opinions are highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ravi
 
why not start this change off with teh syn blend and upgrade to a full at a later time, blend might be better instead of full for the first time.
 
If you like replacing rear mains go for synthetic. If you like not having to check your oil between oil changes run dino oil
 
jeepthing07 said:
If you like replacing rear mains go for synthetic. If you like not having to check your oil between oil changes run dino oil

I switched to Mobil 1 at 120,000 on a jeep that had run straight dino its entire life. Never leaked a drop before, never leaked a drop after. Since that time I have run both the Valvoline Maxlife, Valvoline Synpower, and Mobil 1, all without a drop of consumption.

If you want full synthetic without worrying about leaks, try either the Mobil 1 High Mileage oil (it exists, I've gotten it often at Walmart) or Valvoline Maxlife Full Synthetic. There have been 3 different maxlife branded oils from Valvoline, making it a bit confusing. There is the dino only, the synthetic blend, and the full synthetic maxlife. Or you could try the synthetic Shell Rotella oil, a 5W-40 weight.

Some people who want to use synthetic but have leaks run part full synthetic and then put a quart of oil stabilizer, quart of high viscosity dino oil, in some combination. That's fine, but to me it seems like a waste of money.

Bottom line, if you aren't leaking oil now, you probably won't leak much with synthetic, especially if you have a clean engine before adding it and it doesn't leak. Obviously, there is a chance the superior detergency of synthetic could loosen up some sludge. But that was a small risk I was willing to take and it really paid off with better gas mileage and smoother low rpm running.
 
Did you really notice better gas mileage? Curious I tried several different oils in a 98 TJ with under 60K just for sheets and giggles. The infamous diesel 4.0 clatter was terrible with Rotella 5/40 syn, and quietest with Chevron supreme 5/30 with 0 consumption. Odd I thought, im a big Rotella 15/40 fan, I run it in bikes and most everything except the new Chevy PU.
 
dyna said:
Did you really notice better gas mileage? Curious I tried several different oils in a 98 TJ with under 60K just for sheets and giggles. The infamous diesel 4.0 clatter was terrible with Rotella 5/40 syn, and quietest with Chevron supreme 5/30 with 0 consumption. Odd I thought, im a big Rotella 15/40 fan, I run it in bikes and most everything except the new Chevy PU.

Yeah, in the winter especially I got about 1 to 1.5 more mpg in city driving, possibly because of better flow at startup during short trips. It was easy to notice the jeep felt much less stiff in cold temperatures for the first 20 minutes of driving or so. In the summer I averaged 1 more mpg with syn. I haven't actually used synthetic Rotella myself, just heard from others I know. I can attest that Rotella 15w-40 is good stuff for small engine machines I use, like small garden tractors, etc, although I haven't used it in my XJ.
 
my old tired 89renix was switched to mobil1 10w30, non of that high mileage flavor. ~140,000miles on the odo

before switching i replaced the rear main, valve cover, filter adaptor and rear main seals/gaskets.

after all these new seals i did seep some dino oil here and there. then this past oil change i switched to mobil1. the seeping stayed the same.

i do notice that it takes a second or two to get good oilpressure during my morning startups aka cold/dry starts, i have some lucas heavy duty oil stabalizer to top off my oil as it leaks but the level has not dropped in a month. what i plan to do is change my oil filter with a new one. and top off the little oil that was lost with lucas, hopefully that will help with the cold/dry starts.

i had no problems with going directly from dino to full synth. look at it this way, if your rig starts to piss oil out every seal atleast you know you have crappy seals. if you really dont like the leaking oil you can always switch right back to dino at any given time.
 
rag said:
my old tired 89renix was switched to mobil1 10w30, non of that high mileage flavor. ~140,000miles on the odo

before switching i replaced the rear main, valve cover, filter adaptor and rear main seals/gaskets.

after all these new seals i did seep some dino oil here and there. then this past oil change i switched to mobil1. the seeping stayed the same.

i do notice that it takes a second or two to get good oilpressure during my morning startups aka cold/dry starts, i have some lucas heavy duty oil stabalizer to top off my oil as it leaks but the level has not dropped in a month. what i plan to do is change my oil filter with a new one. and top off the little oil that was lost with lucas, hopefully that will help with the cold/dry starts.

i had no problems with going directly from dino to full synth. look at it this way, if your rig starts to piss oil out every seal atleast you know you have crappy seals. if you really dont like the leaking oil you can always switch right back to dino at any given time.

Agreed with all said here.
 
dyna said:
Did you really notice better gas mileage? Curious I tried several different oils in a 98 TJ with under 60K just for sheets and giggles. The infamous diesel 4.0 clatter was terrible with Rotella 5/40 syn, and quietest with Chevron supreme 5/30 with 0 consumption. Odd I thought, im a big Rotella 15/40 fan, I run it in bikes and most everything except the new Chevy PU.

I've run syn blend in my 97 since the first oil change after I bought it at 78k and it gets roughly 1-2 mpg better than it did with dino, it is smoother at idle and high rpm, and still 0 consumption/leaks (its just about to turn 99k) :)
 
FoMoCo said:
I've run syn blend in my 97 since the first oil change after I bought it at 78k and it gets roughly 1-2 mpg better than it did with dino, it is smoother at idle and high rpm, and still 0 consumption/leaks (its just about to turn 99k) :)
Same here, except I started at 130k with full synthetic. Doesn't burn or leak a drop with either 10w-30 or 5w-30. Fuel savings pay for the oil.
 
Jim Mesthene said:
Same here, except I started at 130k with full synthetic. Doesn't burn or leak a drop with either 10w-30 or 5w-30. Fuel savings pay for the oil.

not to mention the extra longevity of the motor ;)
 
FoMoCo said:
not to mention the extra longevity of the motor ;)

This is true, although the 4.0 is one hell of a tough engine; you can easily find people on this forum with 275,000 , even 300,000+ on their engines without opening it up who used nothing but cheap dino oil. I agree that synthetic will definitely cause less wear, however I'm worried about plenty of other parts on the jeep that will wear out long before my engine! I do it mainly for the fuel savings, and the extra longevity is an added bonus.
 
How bout neither.:D Mobil-1 is the new redheaded stepchild of synthetics. And we know about the high Iron wear particles with running it in the 4.0. And, I'd put in STP blue before lucas.....
 
nothing but cheap dino oil.
==================
There is not a thing cheap about dino oil. It has proven it worth in millons of engines for well over a hunderd years.
If this is a DD, no heavy towing or hard offing stick with the dino.
I myself use the syn oil when towing hot and heavy. But for DD dino is more then up to the job.
 
thats kinda why I stick with blend, I ran full syn for one oil change and I only noticed a marginal difference between that and the blend whereas I noticed a relatively big difference going from dino to blend, plus blend isn't much more than dino, I pay $2.59/qt for motocraft syn blend at autozone. IMO the $5-6/qt for full syn just isn't worth it on the 4.0
 
another vote for the Rotella-- 148000mi totally abused rig when I "stole" it ($200.00 and needed a water pump) and the crud that came out of it looked more like unrefined crude than motor oil. Ran the cheapest stuff I could for about a thousand miles until I knew it was road worthy and changed to Rotella. The 1000mile cheap stuff came out looking clean as a whistle, so I assumed the engine was clean inside-- boy was I wrong! About 500 miles into the Rotella, I decided to change the valve cover gasket and found a collection of deposits that resembled the Rocky mts. under the cover! I did no cleaning, reinstalled the valve cover and planned another visit to clean her up. Long story, shortened, I changed oil again (Rotella) at 1000mi and it looked like tar
suspended in cooking oil when it came out-- I thought "good grief, what am I gonna find when I pull the v.cover again? Amazeingly enough, I found less than half the crud that was there a month ago and it was running better too!

Rotella's got my endorsement!
--Shorty
 
I have, since begun changing the filter about every 500-1000 miles and looking at what's in it when I do.Puroilater Pure one and Mobil 1 filters as they trap more junk but contain more pleats to protect from plugging up-- so they say!
--Shorty
 
Back
Top