against all the rules - a great dealer and the oil is better

found a great dealer, chrysler, after getting seriously fleeced by
the local mechanics, tried to give them business and boy did
they give me the business. it's so bad it's funny. i'll spare you the details,
like doing the same repairs twice! since on their dirty bulletin board
they are selling 50 bullet drum magazines, i decided not to make
a big confrontation, bit of discretion here with heavy caliber guns u know

anyway this great chrysler dealer, fabulous, actually inspected
my vehicle, more than 10 year old minivan VOYAGER
and found not a thing wrong with it, nothing, not even a burned
out bulb, there was one burned bulb in the dash, and also
honored some discount coupons, i still can't believe my luck
i had already told them to leave the stickers on since they were
good for another two months and i am not going to get away
from a dealer, a big dealer, with a 10+ old minivan for the
state inspection. i felt for sure it was going to be a failure,
just how big a failure could i afford was the question.
this is a rare first time i have ever passed an inspection without repairs
usually it's gift time for the auto industry and i accept that.

in any case, i noticed that i did not use oil in 2000 miles
before i was using what, maybe 1.5 quarts in 2000 miles
which is not bad at all for car that has about 200,000 miles

but no oil usage
and i even let the dipstick hang out on this hard to read dipstick
leave it to chrysler to make even reading the dipstick an adventure

the dealer is using a semi-synthetic conoco 5W-30
which technically i would prefer for the V6 3.0 10W-30 regular oil
always afraid the synthetics may do in the seals
but something is working better
would you not say - any big ideas on this?

now i did do the you know who oil analysis, blackstone labs
and they said the oil i had been using was seemingly
5W-30, this was before going to the dealer.
the report was pretty good although when i showed it to
mechanics they get irritated with all the chemistry.
probably info overflow. but i did some chemistry so it's cool.

now i am thinking, is it possible that my local mechanics
did me wrong when i was trying to just be nice
they really put in 10W-30 and since they lied to me about
other things, probably lied to me about the oil?
or maybe a combo of things. i put in some quarts of cheapo
walmart's oil, forgive me, and that reprocessed canadian oil
might really be closer 5W-10 after reprocessing?

in any case, this dealer has a nice TV room and free coffee and i found
him on the click and clack brothers that everybody loves to hate
here but they really helped me with their web site and advice
yes they make mistakes, but the mistakes are honest ones

 

The mechanics probably do not know what oil is used. Depending on were you
live the place you went to probably had bulk oil in a large tank. The oil
company comes and replaces the oil when needed. But in Canada and other cold
climates, The oil company automatically changes from 10/30 in summer to 5/30
in winter. The mechanics are probably not told when this changes. You see
the oil company has one truck with a single tank. So they only put in the
one grade and drop off at all the shops at once. So the mechanic probably
does not know, as the shipping slip is given to the manager, and he just
puts it in the file cabinet. And If he is on a contract oil shipment, even
the shipping slip does not show the grade of oil dropped off.

 

Thanks for the answer.
In this case, the mechanic who first changed the oil
also owned the garage so he might have known since he was the only
person there. His wife was a non-working but "licensed" mechanic and
handled the paperwork but I think s/he knew what oil he was using.
They were very nice, just far from me.

The oil from Walmart's was not their bulk but their own branded
cheap quarts I would add myself.

I have never used Walmart's to actually change the oil. Although
they are cheapest of all, the lines are long and the horror stories,
well, you have to make sure the oil plug is on right.

So although the Walmart's quarts said "10W-30," I thought the oil itself
might be thinned from being re-processed or re-cycled. I had
read a little about Walmart 's and this seemed in line with their
hard, bottom line. The oil is just too inexpensive to not be
partly recycled, what $0.84 USD a quart?

The 5W-30 came from Blackstone Labs whose name I picked up in
this newsgroup. They were surprised I said 10W-30 since they thought
it was 5W-30 but they also said it was doing the job and keep at it.

The dealer specifically said semi-synthetic 5W-30 and apparently they
got a very good deal by getting a large amount of the same type of oil.

In any "case" the semi-synthetic 5W-30 seems much better than
whatever the previous regular oils were. Whether it's magic or what, I don't know.
I'll just be happy for the time being.

But now I understand from your answer how it's not easy to know.

 

I'm generally not one to stand up for WalMart. In fact I have a bit of
a hate on for the corporation - but their oil is actually one of the
better oils available, made by Shell IIRC. Their filters are
reasonable too- a LOT better than Fram.