Mobil 1 0W-20 Advanced Fuel Economy Synthetic Oil

[russellc]

Yesterday, while looking at local gas prices in GasBuddy.com, I saw a banner ad for Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy synthetic oil, which is sold in the grade that both generations of Honda Insights uses, 0W-20. Mobil claims that it helps to increase engine efficiency and improve fuel economy up to 2% over conventional 0W-20 oil. As a result, this oil can save over $400 in fuel costs with 150,000 miles driven.

https://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English...l_1_0W-20.aspx

I'm thinking about putting this oil in my car the next time I have an oil change. Does anyone use synthetic oil with their Insight II?

[JTS]

I believe it is recommended. I just had my first oil change done at the dealership where i bought the car. Cost me 70 dollars due to the fact they had to put in the 0w20 synthetic oil. I even called around for prices and everywhere i called was between 65-70 dollars.

[nameless00]

Will the engine oil senor realize the difference between 0-w20 synthetic vs non-synthetic? The price difference is almost doubled!

The comparison in that chart seems to be vs 5-w20. Since the I2 is already using 0-w20, the comparison would be far less and the difference would be to offset the cost of changing the oil.

[Cobb]

Ive been sold on the royal purple, however I just had the dealer change it, dealer oil and purchased 6 oem honda filters.

My change was 32 bucks and change and they said they used honda brand synth oil for the hybrids as its a special oil. I doubt you can get non synth oil in a 0 weight.

[fuelmiser]

Originally Posted by Cobb

Ive been sold on the royal purple, however I just had the dealer change it, dealer oil and purchased 6 oem honda filters.

My change was 32 bucks and change and they said they used honda brand synth oil for the hybrids as its a special oil. I doubt you can get non synth oil in a 0 weight.

I wouldn't waste money on Royal Purple or Mobil 1.

Amsoil 0W20 with an EaO13 filter costs about $60-70 and only has to be changed once per year or 25,000 miles.

Amsoil is proven to beat Royal Purple and Mobil 1 on the tests.

Amsoil vs Mobil 1

Amsoil vs. Royal Purple

This page also has a ton of stuff as well:
Amsoil stuff

I used Royal Purple and Mobil 1 for years. I remember paying almost $70 an oil change with Mobil 1 every 3,000 to 5,000 miles. I'm never doing that again. Amsoil is way cheaper and a lot better. That's what I plan on putting in my Insight as soon as I get it and let it break in first.

They have a guarantee in writing some place for the 25,000 mile intervals.

You don't find this stuff in stores. You mail order it. I went to several places all over town and ask why they don't carry Amsoil. They all pretty much told me the same thing, that they want to only carry oils with a low drain interval because it's a gimmick to keep people coming back. They said that oils like Amsoil keep customers away for too long. And I said, "And how is this my problem?" The stores don't care about saving you money or making your engine last longer. That got my blood boiling when I argued with these people. These local stores are all greedy thieves.

A guy at Discount Auto told me that all of his oils are sold as a "loss leader" and that he makes no profit at all on the oils. He told me that he sells all of the oil at cost and does that purely to get foot traffic.

Thank God for the Internet otherwise I would have never been able to learn about this oil. The locals would have been scamming me good with their junk oils.

[nameless00]

Originally Posted by Cobb

Ive been sold on the royal purple, however I just had the dealer change it, dealer oil and purchased 6 oem honda filters.

My change was 32 bucks and change and they said they used honda brand synth oil for the hybrids as its a special oil. I doubt you can get non synth oil in a 0 weight.

That's a good point at 0 weight that would have to be some good dinosaur goop.. I think it would be good to find the average duration of an oil change for the I2.

The longer away you stay from an oil change, the more residue and water gets mixed in with the oil, and the cleanliness of the gas. If you go in for oil changes twice as often with the Honda "0-w20" might still be cheaper to stick with the normal stuff.

[Fl_Fyr_Fytr]

Originally Posted by fuelmiser

I wouldn't waste money on Royal Purple or Mobil 1.

Amsoil 0W20 with an EaO13 filter costs about $60-70 and only has to be changed once per year or 25,000 miles.

Amsoil is proven to beat Royal Purple and Mobil 1 on the tests.

Amsoil vs Mobil 1

Amsoil vs. Royal Purple

This page also has a ton of stuff as well:
Amsoil stuff

I used Royal Purple and Mobil 1 for years. I remember paying almost $70 an oil change with Mobil 1 every 3,000 to 5,000 miles. I'm never doing that again. Amsoil is way cheaper and a lot better. That's what I plan on putting in my Insight as soon as I get it and let it break in first.

They have a guarantee in writing some place for the 25,000 mile intervals.

You don't find this stuff in stores. You mail order it. I went to several places all over town and ask why they don't carry Amsoil. They all pretty much told me the same thing, that they want to only carry oils with a low drain interval because it's a gimmick to keep people coming back. They said that oils like Amsoil keep customers away for too long. And I said, "And how is this my problem?" The stores don't care about saving you money or making your engine last longer. That got my blood boiling when I argued with these people. These local stores are all greedy thieves.

A guy at Discount Auto told me that all of his oils are sold as a "loss leader" and that he makes no profit at all on the oils. He told me that he sells all of the oil at cost and does that purely to get foot traffic.

Thank God for the Internet otherwise I would have never been able to learn about this oil. The locals would have been scamming me good with their junk oils.

First, even Amsoil admits that Mobile 1 synthetic is good oil, so the junk statement isn't validated.

Second, I have been using Mobile 1 for the last 20k miles (I don't know what was used before that) with change intervals of 6k. At the shop where I take my vehicles for all thier work, I get involved with every detail and they are more than accomidating (thus the reason I go there). Every time I change the oil, I ask what it looks like, and they always say thats it's like changing fresh oil... and at 6000 miles, not 3000. They are very impressed with the performance especially considering that this car has 190k miles on it. There are also people on this forum that change less often using Mobile 1.

I am always interested and somewhat leary of products that make wild, almost unbelievable claims like 25-35k mile change intervals (remember Slick50?). I have a few hesitations concerning this claim though:

How can a filter be claimed as "full flow" and use micron filtration at the same time? These are oposites.

You would have to assume that any contaminates in the oil are bad, right? Does 1 micron filtration sound incredibly small to you? I use a .5 micron sedimate prefilter on the water input line to my deionizer for my fish tank and yet the deionizer can remove up to one half ounce of impurites (calcium, lime, heavy metals, chlorimine, ect) per gallon before entering the tank, and this is after a filter capable of filtering out solids one-eighth the volume of the Amsoil filter (.524/.065).

Also consider that this is a closed loop system. While acids and other contaminates may be caught by the filter, they are still in the system and work to break down the oil for the 500-1000 hours the engine is running between oil changes (25-50mph x 1,000-500hrs = 25,000 miles). Does this also take into consideration the age and wear of the engine? As the engine wears, more exuast gasses will contaminate the oil causing further breakdown. I bet that if you read the fine print behind thier warrenty, you will discover alot of limitations.

I know little about Amsoil and am not putting them down for any reason. In fact, they might even be better than Mobile 1, I just would be more careful about dumping thier oil in and forgetting about it untill you see black smoke pouring from your tailpipe and then discovering some limitaion to thier warrenty that puts you out on your ass. Also remember that all ICEs burn oil in some quantity so be sure to check the oil level from time to time. If your engine burns just one drop of oil every two minutes it runs, it will lose nearly two quarts over the 25000 miles (750hrs (33.3mph overall average) @ 46,080 drops per gallon).

To the others on this forum:

How many people on this forum use Amsoil? Has anyone ever gone 25k miles or more between oil changes in thier Insight? I'm really curious...

[fuelmiser]

Originally Posted by Fl_Fyr_Fytr

To the others on this forum:

How many people on this forum use Amsoil? Has anyone ever gone 25k miles or more between oil changes in thier Insight? I'm really curious...

I have, MULTIPLE TIMES in MULTIPLE vehicles. It's not a wild claim.

Like I said before, I used all of the synthetics before. If Amsoil is better than Mobil 1 and proven to be so, why are you so loyal to Mobil 1? Just because I had good luck with an oil before doesn't mean I have to be loyal to them. If something else out there is better, you switch to it. You don't need to be loyal to any brand. There's no logic whatever in that unless you didn't know anything about oils and saw no actual ASTM testing to see how they all compare. Think of ASTM testing as a guide to compare how well oils perform the same way when you pick up Consumer Reports to see how all of the car makers perform in reliability.

Thankfully Amsoil paid to have tons of testing of their oils with their competitors so we can truly see who's better than each other. It's like if you and I argued about which car has more horsepower. We could sit there and swear all day who is more powerful, but until running the car on the dyno, one will never know.

Amsoil is not new. These people pioneered synthetic oil LONG before Mobil 1 ever even thought about making it.

I remember when I was loyal to Mobil 1 years back. I kept telling people, "I'll keep using Mobil 1 until you show me something better."

I know people who have had oil consumption issues with Mobil 1 synthetic that totally went away after they switched to Amsoil. Mobil 1 doesn't deal with heat as good as Amsoil does. It's almost like when you leave a glass of water out for a week or two. After a while it evaporates. Mobil 1 does the same thing. We couldn't figure out where the oil was going as there were no leaks and nothing was coming out the tail pipe. Switched to Amsoil and all of the problems went away. Then I did a ton of research on this oil and that's when I saw how much better it was than anything on the market. Yeah, it costs a little more than all of the other oils in Wally World, but so what... now I only have to deal with an oil change ONE TIME per year and be done with it. And if you're a father with teenagers and have 3, 4 or 5 cars in the family that you're responsible for doing oil changes, that bill adds up F-A-S-T for oil changes.

Forget being loyal to any product or brand name. Just buy the best. Just like I wont stay loyal to any car maker. Yeah, it sucks that Honda is made by the Japanese and doesn't originate from North America, but so what. They have a better track record than Ford, GM or Chrysler, so I'm buying one. I have no reason to be loyal to Ford, GM or Chrysler just like you have no reason to be loyal to Mobil 1. Now that you've been given those links and saw the comparisons, you no longer have a reason to stay loyal to Mobil 1. If you never heard of Amsoil in your life, that's one thing. But now you know about it, so now your excuse to keep using Mobil 1 is now nil.

I've seen this stuff perform miracles in lots of different cars of my own and many other people I've talked to. If I get this Insight and start it while the car is new, this car can literally last over 1,000,000 miles. I've seen crappy Ford's go that long on Amsoil. If a Ford can do it, then I know a Honda will have no problem exceeding 1,000,000 miles.

[Cobb]

As a former mechanic, I do kow there is a vast difference in the regular brands. Pennzoil left a wax build up in engines, quaker state or quick sludge as we called it left potting soil inside the engine. Best we found was castor and havoline.

My dad I believe was suckered in to amsoil and like the cars that used regular and mobile 1, he got 300 thousand miles before it start to smoke and rattle. So, at that point there was no difference for reg vs synth.

As for mobile 1 we had a suzuki jeep that would rattle the rods in first gear with mobile 1. Switched back to regular oil and it stopped.

Having said that my former tacoma truck was parked for 6 years and it was fine. The geo metro that used regular oil and vw fox both were ruined.

Unless the oil is broken down when inspected in your car, its fine to use the dealer brand. Seriously, you should do an oil annanylaist, however thats about the same a a change.

Iv checked with other mechanics and they agree on the 1 year or 10 thousand mile routine. THey say the escalade and a few other new cars have an unbelievable change interviel too.

Dont know about Honda, but Toyota uses mobile 1 and its the synth blend.

[satchel]

Holy cow. $70 for an oil change?? I bought Honda filters from H&A and paid $4.25 a qt for 20 qts of Mobil 1 0w/20 after $40 in rebates this summer and fall. It only costs me $16.50 to do it myself. I can buy enough gas to drive somewhere on the order of 1400 miles on the $53.50 I save!
I just set the MIL on the dash and change the oil/filter when the light stays on, usually around 8,000 miles by the time I get to it.