Hey guys, I recently bought my s80 from a man that had it since it came new off of the lot. It is a 2000 with about 114k on it. He has been using non synthetic since he bought it. I prefer synthetic, but I have heard it is bad to change. Can anyone chime in on this? Good idea or bad idea?

 

The rumour that it is bad to change is a complete fallacy.. there is no risk whatsoever in switching, and it can only benefit the car in the long run.

http://www.carbibles.com/engineoil_bible.html

read up there about it.

I would use synth and if the car is turbo do the oil changes 3000-4000 miles, if it is NA I would go 4500-5000 or so.
Right now I personally use Mobil1 10w-30 High Mileage but thats because of a RMS leak, not because i'm burning oil or anything. (i'm on 111,000 miles)

Personally, it doesnt matter which synthetic you choose, they are all better than conventional dino oil,
The best deal right now is the Quaker State Q horsepower, $18 in walmart and then you can file for a $10 rebate online.. $8 for 5 qt's of synthetic? quite good.. just remember that this car takes something like 7.4 qt's so an oil change isnt as cheap as it would be on other cars..

Normally I use about $40 worth of Mobil1 per oil change (plus cost of the filter)..
Now on to the topic of filters, its generally agreed that sticking with the OEM (mahle or mann) is probably the easiest and best bet..

 

Just to put my 2 cents in.....Dont be fooled by the syn/blend types....go with FULL synthetic.

 

well I should have stated myself more clearly
"Personally, it doesnt matter WHAT BRAND synthetic you choose..

I didnt mean to say "which" implying that anything other than full synthetic would do.. I would never see the logic anyway, most syn blends are almost as expensive as syn..

 

I was probably just going to do Mobile. I had a Benz before this that took synthetic, so I know its costly...

 

Yea, Mobil1 (no e in Mobil) is my personal choice, but there are many excellent products out there.. Of course, walmart has the best pricing, don't pay a cent more elsewhere...

 

use synthetic, but hey nicolaselias, why such short oil changes on synthetic ? with a proper oil filter im sure you can push 10.000 KM

a lot of guys on bobistheoilguy.com do oil analysis to determine if they can push their OCI (oil change interval even longer to 15.000Km or even 20.000 km/ or once a year)

my turbo burns a little oil so i dont push it more than about 6.000 Km on castrol syntec, i have the chance to switch to Lubro Moly synthetic which is a group 4 synth in their 10w40 version, or thats what i read at least

 

Well Andrei, your 6000km = 3720miles so within my range for turbos..

For the NA, I have taken it as high as 6000 miles but I dont see the point, oil is fairly cheap to change, even if you dont do it yourself. I go to tuffy near here (one of those quick lube places), walk with my own filter $5, own oil $40 and pay them $10 to change it and dispose.
Better to change oil too often that have to do some constly engine repairs.. I suspect that the prior owner didnt pay too much attention to his oil, maybe overfilling a few times, lead to my ruptured RMS.. just a suspicion cause I dont want to blame bad luck.

Castrol Syntec is a great oil, use it on my accord back home, but for $1 more per 5 qt bottle, i'll pay the extra for Mobil1. RE: the Lubro Moly, how much are we talking in terms of price difference? Also, isn't it recommended that you stick to 5w-30 or so for the cold up there in Canada? at least for winter?

 

I was a oil jobber back in the 60's yea I know before some of you were born. But then we changed oil every 1200 miles. Syn was not even heard of then. I now use castro 5w 20w and change my oil every 3500 miles without fail. Cannot bring myself to go past this I just rather change more often and go with a good oil than use a syn for much higher price and run it longer.

 

well you might say a much higher price, but say castrol gtx vs castrol syntec, the synthetic is about 50% more cost.. but with that you can reasonably run the oil 50% longer.. Im not saying to go for some crazy drain intervals like 7500 or 10,000 miles with it, but instead of changing at 3500, its not a problem to go to 5000, thus negating the extra cost and paying back for itself.

 

The previous owner of my S80 T6 used Mobil1 because the original owner did. I decided to continue the tradition except I use the 15,000 mile Extended Performance version. I have a slight turbo drain leak and figure I can use all the protection that I can get. Wal-Mart is only ~$28 for five quarts also. Compared to ~$34 for Castrol Edge that is ~ a $7 savings on five quarts. Compared to regular fully synthetic Mobil1 it is only an $.80 savings per quart or $4 per five quart. I think I can stretch that $5.60 in cost for 7 quarts on each oil change for the added protection. They both offer a 15,000 mile guarantee too. Money saved is money spent elsewhere.

PS - I also like Q Horsepower. The local Fred Myer has it on sale for $3.99 per quart and Wal-Mart carries it for $18 for a five quart jug. That's $3.60 per quart! If it is good enough for Ferrari then it is probably good enough for our S80's in a 5000 mile service interval. The only reason I do not switch is because of the theory that two seperate oils start attacking each other. Although this is probably not true (I have not done any research on it) I figure the engine is used to Mobil1. With how finicky a good number of these are, I am better safe than sorry.

 

I'm pretty sure the theory of oils attacking eachother is untrue, especially when talking good quality synthetics. The Q Horsepower is cheaper than you think cause they have a $10 MIR right now, making it $8 for 5qt's at walmart.. hell of a deal

I used the mobil 1 extendd 15,000 mile once, but after one change decided it wasnt worth the risk and stuck with my regular m1 or m1 high mileage.. No oil should really be pushed even close to 10,000 , let alone 15,000 in my view.. Its not about the quality, its just about the risk vs cost factor.

To give the Volvo a little extra protection, bought a magnetic drain plug for $2.50 from eeuroparts and im putting the bear trap filter magnet on as well.. hopefully keep those metallic particles under control..
Yes I am a magnetic fiend..

 

So are you saying that you will change the oil every 15k?

 

The Lubro Moly is something that a buddy of mine has at his mechanics shop, his dad is an old school Porsche Fanatic so he sells it (offers to customers i guess) because he thinks its superior to many synthetic oils not to name names, he has it in different variants such as 5w-30, 10w-30 and others, the reason i mentioned 10w-40 is because that particular weight is classified as a Group 4 synth ( a true full synch like mobil one) where as other weights are possibly group 3 or a mix i dont know, this whole Lubro moly talk is new to me as i never changed oil at my buddy;s shop, so i am just now starting to read up on it slowly...

i think i will go to him for my next oil change because from what i read that oil is on par or better than mobil 1, it meets all the German specs for VW, BMW, and Mercs. and also because i trust his work that he does on mine and my fiances car in terms of brakes and other things and he will probably give me a discount

You gota understand, extending OCI's is all about saving money and getting the most out of the oil that you use, if it can go 10.000KM why change it at 5.000KM ? you know, its a pain to get an oil analysis done and i would never bother with that, thats why i keep to 6000 KM + the oil filters that the quick lube place puts on right now are probably not the best quality, but hey thats how i save money ...

 

now for the rest of the story, I got an s-40 that I suspect was run on Pennzoil and when I switched to synthetic (Castrol) I developed a leak at the camshaft seal. When I pulled the pan off it had little hard crumbles in the bottom of the pan. I think that it's not the synthetics fault , it's just breaking up and floating off the crud from the previous products shortcommings. Hopefully yours will all pass to the filter or into the pan and not cause problems like mine did. After the seal change and the pan cleaning and a few oil changes it seems to be ok. Again it's not the synthetics fault and it is far BETTER than petro-base lube.

 

No, far from it. As I may have mentioned before (I was having network issues and had to wait to reply for an hour) I have a leak in the turbo drain. I lose oil at about 1 quart every three weeks. I try to stay on top of it but we are all human and can be very busy. I figure that if I change my oil at every 5,000 miles and drive 15,000 miles a year, what is an extra $15-$20 per year for a little peace of mind. Sorry, I should have stated my reasoning before. On the other hand, I do have friends in the trucking business who run their synthetics 30,000 miles and change their filters every 7,000 miles. They love the performance of it. Am I suggesting that we do this with our own S80's? No, but it is a little more proof to me as to why I choose to run one of the "highest quality" synthetics made. I also have a cousin with a 1996 Cobra Mustang. He lost some o-rings in his oil pan and instantly lost 2/3 of his oil pressure. He was running standard Mobil1 Synthetic. Yes, he stopped as soon as possible but he and his mechanic felt that running anything else may have killed the engine. Is the base good enough? Probably, but I need my car. Living in the rurals, it is a life line. Why cut corners? BTW, I am going to try out the High Mileage synthetic this go around to see if it helps with any of my leaks.

 

Good Luck with the change.. Let us know if the oil took care of the leaks!

 

I find that once I started using the high mileage M1 synthetic it helped out my RMS leak a bit.. I mean it would never fix it but the leak is a bit slower when the car is just run with normal use..

On the other hand, driving back from New Orleans to Tampa, FL last month, I lost about a qt of oil sprayed out from underneath (including all over the rear of my car)...
I keep on top of my oil level, but driving 10 hours with a lead foot and a bad RMS seal.. no oil can help that.

You may lose .5mpg or so with the high mileage, or so they say.. seeing as it isnt "Energy Conserving"
Only reason I use it is for the leak.. my Accord on the other hand is higher mileage than the volvo 110k for the volvo, 160k for the accord but I wouldnt put the high mileage in there.. regular synth or even synth blend has always been good to me with 0 leaks, why mess with what works.. been using castrol syntec in it and the car seems to love it. Or maybe its just my mind (and butt dyno), but I feel like I have a bit more power on the full synth..

 

Anything to slow the leak down it until I can afford to fix it I have a fuel pump to worry about now. Ultimately, I would rather fix the problem than cover it up.