i have an 83 bird with the LG4 and 130,000 miles. i use mobil 1 high mileage 10W-40 with no problems...just a little oil burning and leakage- no more than when i used conventional oil. i was wondering if the synthetic lucas oil was a good idea or not. i read the article on bobistheoilguy.com about the regular lucas oil so i'm not going to use that. is the synthetic version any different? has anyone here used it?

http://www.lucasoil.com/products/dis...tid=2&loc=show

 

I dont think your answer is found in a bottle, Pull that puppy out and put a basic rebuild kit into it.

 

yea i know i plan to but i don't have enough $$ right now. i was just wondering if the stuff was any good and if there were any benefits. i've heard of people using lucas oil and all of a sudden spinning bearings and i DON'T want that to happen to me. i saw it in the store the other day and was just curious if it was any good.

 

a guy i work with used to have a 97 dakota pickup and he swore by the lucas additives, without them, it would sound like the engine was full of marbles, with it, sounded brand new. he sold the truck with 290,000miles.

 

The regular Lucas is basically snake oil. Their "synthetic" crap is probably just as bad, but from synthetic snakes. You're already using Mobil 1 PAO, so nothing you add will ever make it any better.

If the engine is burning and leaking oil due to wear and clearances, fix the wear and clearances. Cooter is dead-on - Your solution will not be from a bottle.
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In the case of the Dodge V-6s, the "brand new" sound would have been like a bunch of marbles in it. Little doubt the owner was using the wrong oil (either viscosity, quantity, or additive package) and the Lucas only "Band-Aided" the poor oil selection.

 

Yikes, ive been using Lucas for a LONG time with no problems, but i didnt know it would do that to the engine.

Lucas itself is a great lubricant, but i had no idea thats how it behaves at high speeds. Although i only use Synthetic lucas.

As for you, if you have a leaky oil or burning oil situation, synthetic is the worst thing you can put in there. Only use regular oil, and 10w40 is a good start, but u can go even thicker.

 

on bobistheoilguy.com they did a test of all those additives, and they all did more harm than good (oil has many additives already in it, so now you add more diluting the oil and possibly changing it's viscosity) synthetic oil doesn't burn, and will not cause leaks (that is a proven myth)

 

Synthetic oil does not burn? hmm.... Care to elaborate?

 

that has always been their marketing strategy, the chemicals are much more resistant to burning.

 

Still not convinced.

The reason i was saying synthetic is bad for your engine, is because it is accepted fact that you cannot break in an engine with synthetic oil. Some dealers will tell you this if you buy a new car.

Its a very good lubricant, because its so good at getting in all the little nooks and crannies. On an older engine with larger tolerances it just does a better job at blow by. But i dont understand why it doesnt burn.

Not trying to argue pointlessly, id just like to understand why it wouldnt burn.

 

thanks for the input guys. i'll stay away from that stuff. and trust me when i say synthetic burns- i get a little poof of white smoke when i start my engine up in the morning.

and since i've switched to full synthetic i haven't had any problems whatsoever so i'm prob. going to stick with it.

 

ya know last year i took an autotech course at my community college (i needed more credits so i figured it would be funto work on my own car lol) and my professor, a GM guru, actually taught my dad nearly 25-30 years ago about GM electronics, actually goes over GM proposals about new ideas, is also a fire specialist for car accidents to identify the car's reason for burning and such, would always tell us that if your car was meant to take conventional oil, then use conventional oil, if it was meant for sythetic oil, then use synthetic oil.....his argument for this ist hat they are both use different sized molecules that are meant to be used in specifically sized nooks and crannies in the motors, he would tell us how the gap for the bearings and such on the piston and crank shaft was like a thousandth of an inch or smaller and that some oils would have too large of molecules to get inthere or something, i wasnt very convinced by his story, such as if you took an F1 car, took out the sythetic oil and put in conventional oil then the larger molecules would not lubricate properly and the motor would eventually break down, and the motor would essentially grenade....again, i dont know aobut his preachings.........what i ahve to say is that my motor has 143,000miles on it, it is my daily driver and i use castrol high mileage, and have not had a single problem with this, when my motor did smoke, it was due to valve seal problems which i fixed and yet it still smokes on the start up but thats why i want to get a beater motor and fix it up for this car.......but like i said, i use conventional oil, i have used lucas before but i dont go pouring the whole bottle in, i'm not sure if thats what you guys are doing but i only put in a little bit just to thicken the oil up a bit, i have tried engine restore, but that seemed like a load of bull so i never used it again, but it seems to me that everyone else on this site is a lot smarter than i am lol so i will look forward to being proven wrong soon lol

 

PAO based lubricants will burn just fine. That's how I dispose of my used M1. And it makes good heat, just like plain mineral oil.

That's one of the few USEPA suggested means for disposing of waste oil. Several states, like New Jersey and Massachusetts used to have laws against burning used oil. The USEPA educated them out of thier ignorance and more or less forced them ("Get your facts straight, or forget about any more federal money") to at a minimum develop a permitting program to allow the use of used oil as a heating fuel. Many places now collect and burn used oil as an efficient and clean/safe manner in which to dispose of used oil, including synthetics. This probably wouldn't happen if synthetics didn't burn.

 

the burning in a furnace and burning in the engine are different (you also get gas into used oil) as far as the molocules being different, according to GM tech classes (which I had to take, and took them with GM engineers present) they recommend synthetic in all their engines regardless of year (also explains why the vette said use mobile 1 and the camaro didn't with the same bottom end of the engine)

 

I was told by a guy that made corvette motors for GM. If you don't use synthetic from the beginning then it does not have great benefits.
Use it but i never saw any gains worth the extra $$. I just use valvoline max life and my motor runs clean and smooth. (with only 117,000 miles)

 

You can burn a synthetic just as well as regular oil.

I see a bunch of old wives tales up above. Sounds like my dad who never wants to run Mobil because you cant tell when its dirty... because its black to begin with. Yes, 50 some odd years ago. 10W oil is 10W oil. It doesnt leak any more than anything else will. If its burning oil, run a thicker weight. Thats all the Lucas will do. Chances are in the end you'll have more wear but your motor is already toast so may as well minimize the burning while its still running.