Engine Oil/Additives for high mileage 3.0

When I changed the oil for the first time in my 3.0, the engine had
141,000 miles on it. I used Valvoline MaxLife 10w-30 as the motor oil.


I was wondering what the experts recommend for engine oil for this
motor as well as their opinions on oil additives such as slick-50,
and/or engine flushes to help prolong the life of the motor?

Thanks,

Joe

 

Forget the slick 50. If the engine is REASONABLY clean an engine flush
using a mild agent like rislone or ATF can be helpfull. Don't use
anything too aggressive, and not if the engine is REALLY cruddy.
At that mileage I'd start looking at 10W40 oil - and do NOT believe
the crap about 10W40 being no good. Just change it reasonably often
and the "red herring" viscosity loss will never be a problem.

In summer I always ran 20W50 in my '88 3.0, and 10W40 in the winter.
Central Ontario, 240,000Km on the car when I sold it, still running
like a champ.(had heads replaced twice due to the "normal" valve guide
issues)

 

There is no reason to use "high mileage engine" oils such as MaxLife, and
several good reasons not to. They tend to be injurious to polymeric seal
materials in the long run.

A good grade of standard 10w30 is a wise choice.

NO!

 

You waited till you had 141K miles on the vehicle to do your first oil
change?

Seriously, do not use the Slick 50 as it can only damage the engine. Stick
to good dino or synthetic oil (Valvoline Max-Life or basic qualifies in my
book) and use a good filter (I use Purolator stay far away from Fram oil
filters). On flushing, this is your call. I have occasionally used the
Kerosene flushes on high mileage vehicles that had not been properly cared
for by previous owners and never had any problems, but I followed the can
instructions to the letter and made sure I drained the old oil completely
before refilling with fresh oil. As I said, I've been lucky here and never
had any gasket leaks or major engine problems develop after doing the
5-minute flush. That said, on vehicles I've owned since they were brand
new, I change the oil and filter every 3K miles so have never needed to do a
flush.

Bob

 

I'm ignorant of the whole Max-life thing....I use syntec in my '66 VW,
but that thing is my baby....for my new cars, I use whatever the manual
says.

If not Max-life, which brand is the best? Castrol Syntec Blend? I'm
not going to use pure synthetic if I'm changing every 3000 miles, it
costs too much.

 

Unless you drive very short trips that don't allow the motor to get hot or
tow large loads, changing every 3,000 miles is a waste of oil. Mobil 1 can
be purchased in a 4 qt container for about $20.00 at Wall Mart and is go to
go for 7,500 mile changes. Whatever you use go by your vehicle's book to
select the proper viscosity and grade.

Richard.

 

7500 miles on an engine that already has 142,000 on it?

I guess I'm just old-fashioned about oil changing.

I assume you're talking about Mobil 1 synthetic?

 

So the choice is yours ... You can continue to do 3K oil and filter changes
and use regular oil dino oil, or you can use the 2.5-3X more expensive
synthetic and if you take Richard's advice, go 2.5X longer. Doing this also
saves you the cost of the filters as well, so on the surface appears to save
both time and money. But, keep in mind that you will need to add oil over
that period (at 142K miles, I'd guess at least another 3-4 quarts over that
7.5K miles) and your oil filter will collect 2.5X as much and could
constrict your flow of fresh oil. In addition, the detergents added to the
synthetic oil will break down and lose their effectiveness over that same
time period.

Again, it is your choice and I know many people who follow the
manufacturer's recommendation and change their oil at 7,500 miles and almost
all have gotten 100K from their cars before selling them. (The exception I
can recall came from a woman who did a lot of around town driving and not
highway miles.) I'm just not one of them since I feel the cost is minor
compared to the risk of waiting. I also only choose to use synthetic
(Mobile-1 10W-30) in one of my family's 5 vehicles due to the higher cost
and regular Castrol GTX or Valvoline 5W-30 (winter) and 10W-30 (summer)
depending on what is on sale at the time. For me, changing the oil myself
in my home garage is not a problem. In the 32+ years that I have been
driving, I can only think of one oil change that I had done by a service
center and that was because I was on vacation and 2,000 miles from home when
the 3K miles came up.

Bob

 

If you want to use conventional engine oil, there's nothing the matter
with plain Valvoline or Castrol or Pennzoil or Havoline. If you want to
use Synthetic, get Mobil-1; change the oil every 12,000 miles and the
filter every 6,000 miles.

"Synthetic blends" are largely a scam.

 

Not unreasonable with well-chosen oil and quality filters (not Fram).

Update your thinking!

That's the only kind of Mobil-1 there is.

 

If not Fram, what is the best quality oil filter? I've used fram in
every car I've ever changed oil in, for better or, apparently, worse.

 

I think Castrol oils do pretty well on most tests. When i have need for
a non-synthetic motor oil, I tend to reach for Castrol GTX.

So don't change it every 3k. Use synthetic and go 7k.

The big question is how big an oil-burner is this 3.0? ALL 3-liter
Mitsus burn oil, some just are lucky and don't burn more oil than
gasoline. If it costs you several quarts of make-up per oil change,
then there's your strong reason not to waste synthetic oil on it. OTOH,
if you're in an area where visible smoke will cause you to flunk
emissions, then synthetic smokes a lot less when burned than
conventional oil.

 

Wix and Purolator are my top picks. Motorcraft and AC are generally OK.
Fram is pretty much bottom-of-the-barrel with a lot of gimmicks to boost
sales. I personally could care less if a filter has an "easy grip"
coating on the end of the can and the internals are garbage.

This link:
http://minimopar.knizefamily.net/oilfilterstudy.html

Gives a lot of good ideas about oil filter construction. Note that it
doesn't actually test FILTERING performance, but given how really bad
some of the Fram construction features are you can't help but wonder if
much of the oil even goes THROUGH the filter media on the average Fram
filter!

 

Considering that I can't get an accurate reading on my dipstick, I
can't tell how much it burns. I've only had the car for 400 miles.

If it doesn't burn much, I'll probably go the 7K synthetic route.

I don't get any visible smoke anytime using Valvoline Maxlife right now.

 

NOT all Mitsu 3.0s burn oil. After replacing my heads (for the second
time at 180,000Km ) at 240,000 it was never down 1/4 liter between
5000Km changes using 10W40.
With the old heads (replaced first time at 90,000km) it was burning
1.5 liters between changes and killed the catalitic converter.

 

If the cat is working properly there can often be no visible smoke
with 2 liters per change.

 

Its all relative. That's still a fair amount of oil (and a lot of work
on the engine) compared to my wife's Chrysler 3.5, which has 238,000
miles on it, never had the heads off or the bottom opened, and uses
about a quart per 5000 miles using 10w30.

The Mitsu 3.0 is a pretty tough engine (the bottom end is
indestructable, and they rarely ever break a timing belt) but it does
like its oil, and even the last and best with all the oil consumption
"fixes" still burn more than comparable engines. I'm convinced its in
the nature of the beast- probably the ring set design or the piston
design, because it can't all be the valve guides given how many fixes
they've thrown at that aspect of it. The 3.0 is kinda like a tiny
version of a Wright 3350- feed it oil, and try not to think too much
about it. ;-)

 

Well, I'm running 10,000 mile change intervals on my 3.3L in my 1996
Grand Voyager that currently has 177,000 miles on it. I've used Mobil 1
since I bought the van with 33,000 miles on it. I used 5,000 mile
intervals until it had 150,000 miles and then decided I'd go to 10,000
miles. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1. It uses a quart every 1,500 miles or so and has done so since I
bought it. I figured I'm changing the oil every 6,000 miles anyway!

2. I'm kind of hoping it dies as I'm getting tired of driving it.

3. It is a cheap vehicle to experiment with!

Even though I still wouldn't do it on a newer vehicle with less mileage,
I do believe more and more that changes at less than 10,000 miles is a
waste of oil and money for my driving conditions. I drive 21 miles each
way to work with almost no city driving. I don't tow, don't drive in
dusty conditions and don't drive on all that many hills. So, I suspect
that even 5,000 mile changes are overly conservative.

Matt

 

Have you tried checking the oil cold before starting? I've never had a
vehicle that wouldn't give a decent reading then. Sure, when they are
hot and haven't been sitting very long, they can be hard to read,
especially right after a change when the oil is really clean.


Matt

 

Wix (NAPA Gold). Purolator. AC. Even Motorcraft.