You mean it's possible to put the words "good" and "Fram" in the same sentence (legally)? Of course everything I have uses enough oil that I just change the filter every 3000 miles and add another 5 qts . Well, maybe not that bad but I do swear by petroleum oils, especially in the race car. Perhaps someday when I'm running quick classes or something (not anytime soon) I might try the man-made stuff. It's supposedly worth about .1.
I would stick with conventional motor oil. My Dad was a certified technician foreman in the National Guard for over 30 yrs. The military takes oil samples from vehicles to test metal deposits, sometimes they get reports back stating particular bearing wear, as they know what types of metals are used and can identify such. They did this to analyze when the oil needed to be changed. It varied greatly from engine to engine. The same engine may have needed an oil and filter change every 1000 miles while others needed it every 5000. There is lots of room for human error in engines as they aren't all exactly the same, they are tuned differently. They are machines, some are always going to be stronger or weaker than others. He says that the only filter that he has ever seen fail, or collapse, is a Fram filter. And he saw that on multiple occasions until they stopped using them. They switched to other brands; Wix, Purolator etc. Here is his take on synthetic oil: conventional motor oil is made up of various sizes of molecules that fit together naturally, filling in against eachother to reduce friction. Synthetic is an engineered product of mostly identical molecules. In some cases synthetic has been proven to last longer, and lubricate a little better. But with equal sized molecules synthetic finds exits more often, thus it will leak faster. Modern engines are designed to use synthetic, our Mavs/Comets were not. I'll stick to frequent conventional oil changes and avoid Fram filters for mine, but I don't drive it on a daily basis, and won't. Even if I did, drive it often, no matter what type of oil I used, I would change it and the filter more often than that mentioned above. My $.02. Seth
Castrol rules. I have a Tracker and I change the oil religiously every 80,000 miles(whether it needs it or not). I use only Castrol GTX. It has 231,000 miles on it now and is still my daily driver. Wouldnt use any other oil. AC
Are you saying that you are due for your third oil change in 9,000 miles or did you mean to say every 8,000 miles?
Castrol rules. I've seen good reports about Castrol. What's funny is they're the one major oil company that doesn't own a refinery. They buy their base stock from one company, have their additive package manufactured by another, and get a third company to blend it! But it seems to work. Btw, don't get suckered in to buying synthetic blends where they mix part synthetic and part dino. Most people think that it's a 50/50 mix, and the price would indicate that. Actually you could get as low as 5% syn and 95% dino and it's legal for sale. It's one of the biggest money makers for oil companies.
FRAM FILTERS ARE THE WORST!! Guys, Fram advertises. A lot. But open up thier filters. They are easily the cheapest and most poorly manufactured. Purolator makes Motorcraft, Mopar, and Carquest 'Gold' filters, among others. Wix makes Carquest 'Blue' filters. Pretty much all filters are similar if you disect them, EXCEPT Fram. Check it out for yourself!!
i've used synthetic in my race car. it picked up almost .2. however the new engine has a tiny leak at the rear seal and synthetic will find any little leak and make it worse. after i fix it i will go back to the synthetic. mobil 1 p.s. don't ever try to break in an engine with synthetic oil....
Last time I went to the junkyards I made it a point to count the cars that had engine failures and see how many of them had Fram filters on them. You'd be surprised....out of probably 1000 cars I looked at (broken engines only) I'd say 999 of them had fram filters. The only one that I can remember that didnt had an oil filter that was not legible due to the large amount of gunk built up on it. It was orange, though...so it 'could have been' a Fram as well.
I owned several 10 minute oil changes (as many as 6 at one time). In the 15 plus years, we never had a single claim of an oil related engine failure. Yep, several from LACK of oil, but none from a bad filter or oil. We used mostly Group 7 (made by puralator) and Pennzoil filters, and Pennzoil oil. YMMV. IMO, in anything approaching street driving, any major brand oil and filter will serve you. What is important is that the oil be changed because, inter alia, the additives detoriate. .
Just thought that I'd add this....At the local parts house, they had a cutaway of a Fram filter (just a basic fram) and a Motorcraft Filter. It was scary-no comparison. The Fram filter looked like a coffee filter inside an aluminum can. Motorcraft looked much more promising. Motorcraft is what I use, with Castrol 10W30 changed every 3000 miles. If I had time, I'd love to change it every 1500 miles.....I know that's overkill, but it's just my druthers. Preston
I have read the same report that BMCDaniel has. The Fram endcaps are made of cardboard. How well does cardboard stand up to oil? Just imagine if that cardboard does come apart and gets in the oil passages, bearings, lifters, ETC. Also the drainback valve in Fram leaked and it was said Fram was known to cause a dry start with lifters ticking away. I had used Fram for years because thats what others in my family did but Fram is not what it used to be. Purolator was one of the better ones is what the report stated. The purolator pure one(A high end purolator) was the best right with AC. Also Motorcraft filters are made by purolator and packaged as Motorcraft and appear to have the (Pure One) internals but at a cheaper price!! So I have been using the old FL-1A Ford Motorcraft. As for oil I just started to use synthetic in my new truck but have continued to use regular old Dino Oil in the Mav even though it has been rebuilt. For me its kinda a thoguht is this engine was made when there was only regular oil. No matter what type I will always feel there are to many ways to contaminate oil so it must be changed by 3000 maybe 5000 for synthetic. Regular old dino oil has more natural contanimates than synthetic and will create a little more sludge. Synthetic is not contaminated with waxes and sulfides and contains more detergents. NEVER switch and engine that is older higher mileage from regular to synthetic or you will have seal and gasket leaks everywhere as it will wash out any build up that actually might be helping seal older harder seals.
