This is right from Mobil;

Mobil Drive Clean Plus NV and Mobil Drive Clean Plus HM engine oils are premium synthetic blend formulas engineered to provide added performance and protection with formulations specially designed for both newer vehicles (5W-30) and higher mileage vehicles (10W-30 & 10W-40). These products contain a mixture of high-performance synthetic fluid and quality conventional base stocks with premium performance additives boosted by 23 % which means more advanced detergent, dispersant, and anti-oxidants to help maintain or restore engine cleanliness. In addition to more performance additives, the higher mileage formulas are offered in higher viscosities to offer better oil consumption control, and contain seal swell conditioners to help condition seals as they age. These oils protect against sludge and engine rust and corrosion under severe low-temperature operating conditions. Because these are high performance synthetic blend products that have been boosted for added performance they help reduce engine wear, maintain long lasting protection and help prevent the build up of harmful sludge in hotter running engines, like turbocharged and other high-performance engines. Pour depressants and viscosity index (VI) improvers are included to provide the desired viscosity-temperature and low-temperature fluidity characteristics.

Koz

Don't forget that even though you drive your engine clean or have high mileage you must add some 'start up' oil, too, that is unless you don't start your engine much or just don't care. And if the engine is build in Germany then you need some 'European Formula' oil. And as many domestic cars have Mexican engines you will need something special for them, too. And don't forget Canada, maybe those engines take Moose Head Oil.

By all means, read the label. How could you get anywhere with maintenance and not have that important information. And watch the shelves this spring. We're all going to need some 'vacation oil'. Then we can drive clean to high mileage while starting our engine every time we go somewhere and get ready to go on vacation. Be careful, do you drive an SUV? If you do there's SUV oil, wouldn't want to be caught driving down a gravel driveway in four wheel drive clearing a speed bump with your lift kit and not have SUV oil.....oh the shame of it all. Who knows what you'd be risking? And all this can be avoided by reading labels.

Larry your right it's getting crazy out there!!! Just keep it (oil) clean and change when the manufacture recommends and of course trade your vehicle when the warranty expires and you should be OK

Pitbull, don't let the oil companies hear you! It's harder to lead the sheep to the pen when they find out they are going to get clipped. Even dealers have clippers, just like the quicky lube places. Grab your ankles and squeel like a piggy. If you are not using a new 'designer' oil you're just not with it.

Believe it or not, there is a difference in the additive packages that each oil manufactures uses. And these differences have been proven to provide different amounts protection in different applications. Considering what I have seen in lab. testing/comparisons, I would give Mobil the benefit of the dough. I'm not saying that ALL manufactures' claims are fact, but there is a clear difference between Mobil 1/Amsoil products and most of the others. Some people seem to be a little cynical. I would think that before flushing their products down the toilet or consider it useless, they would get some solid data to back their personal opinion.

Koz

KOZ, I am sure you are right. I think the Mobil 1 will cover you much better if you are running in Death Valley or Alaska and not wanting to change every 3-5K miles. If someone like me that lives in the midwest and every time I drive my 4runner I am getting it fully warmed up by driving 15+ miles. I am also driving a mix of city/highway, so the idea of using a premium dino oil at the manufactures recommended interval will fully protect my engine for its normal life cycle, for less $$$. But the extra $20 3-4 times a year for Mobil 1 should not be a big deal and I will go to Mobil 1 myself when my drivetrain warranty is up (extend the OCI to 7500 mile) and get my $$ worth out of the Mobil 1 OC. What do you think? Am I on the right track???

Pitbull,

Don't wait to change over to synthetic. It is far superior to conventional oil in many ways. One of the most important reasons is cold starts. The largest percentage of engine wear happens in the time it takes your oil to reach vital areas of your engine when it is first started, especially when in cold temp. Conventional oil is drastically affected by cold weather, where as synthetic oil has an incredible pour rate even in extremely cold weather. That alone is enough reason to change. If you look at all the other measures in rating oil, synthetic oil KILLS conventional oil.

Koz

Koz is your recommendation to me the same if I always park my 4runner in a heated garage and I will be trading it at 80-90K miles? Plus I now do OCI at 3750 miles and use Castrol GTX 5w30 and OEM filter?

And these designer oils are from corporations that bring us stuff like Slick 50, Prolong and numerous others. I would say that it's okay to stick with standard oil packages and not feel guilty. I use a synthetic and it works okay for driving clean and high mileage and starting. It comes from a small company in California and I can call them on the phone and talk to their tech support. I've even spoken to their head chemist and I'm happy that I can get information without a sales pitch.

I agree with Larry about designer oils and fancy additives. ALL synthetic oils are overkill, so choose the brand that you feel comfortable with. The thing to remember is that additives either in the oil itself or added later is made from chemicals. Chemicals tend to be prone to thermal breakdown and cause contamination. The least amount of additives the better! That's one of the reasons why Mobil 1 and Amsoil rank best, they have a lot less additives added to the base oil.

Everyone has to get out of the thought that changing their oil sooner then the manufactures recommendation is going to provide better/more protection, especially with synthetic, it doesn't. Toyota and all the other manufactures get to write their on ticket on oil change intervals and determine the amount of miles that would insure long engine life. So if a manufacture decides that 7K miles is a safe amount, I'm sure they have added at least 25% (less) to that figure. Also that amount is based on the use of conventional oil. When synthetic oil first came out, the oil manufactures suggested 25K mile change intervals, to justify the cost increase. The auto industry took a fit, and convinced (change oil sooner sell more oil) the oil companies to change intervals back to conventional oil specs. Do you see where I’m going with this? Lab testing on Synthetic oil has shown that it can still provide safe protection with over 20K miles on it, so DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY AND TIME changing synthetic oil less then 10K miles or one year. It’s just like using premium fuel when you can use regular.

As far a good reason to use synthetic based oil; every single aspect of synthetic oil is better then conventional oil. Things like; viscosity index, flash point, pour point, percentage of sulfated ash, percentage of zinc, much higher temp. oxidation resistance, high film strength, very low tendency to form deposits, stable viscosity base, and low temp. flow rate. The best and most important thing you can do to prolong your vehicles life is use synthetic fluids. I’ve replaced every fluid I could to synthetic, including the trans fluid (not cheap at $5 a quart). I even use synthetic grease.

Let me tell you a story about why I am so adamant about synthetics. Back in 1990 my cousin and I bought identical motorcycles (badest motorcycle on the planet at the time) on the same day. We picked them together, (he kept his in my garage) we road together, we broke them in together, and we serviced them together. During the break in we noticed things like the electric cooling fan kicking on at almost the same time and swapping bikes to see if they road the same. After the break in I decided to use Mobil 1 and my cousin decided on Castrol GTX motor oil for the first change. We changed the oil together (both bikes had the same mileage). Right after the change we were eager to let them rip so we headed for the highway. We had to cruise our local main street for about 3 to 4 miles. As soon as we started I noticed the lever for the gear selector felt funny (loose or something). When we reached the first red light my cousin’s cooling fan kicked on and mine didn’t. We got to the third light before my fan kicked on. So we get to the highway and we hit it and I start to pull on him very slowly. So after 2 or 3 roll-ons we swapped bikes to see if it was the bikes or our riding. As soon as I get on the other bike the first thing I notice is his bike is not shifting as easily. We do a couple roll-ons and he is walking me very slowly just like I was walking him before. So we get back home and the first thing my cousin says is your bike shifts better/easier. He then says he wants to change his oil to synthetic. Import motorcycles have the engine and tranny sharing the motor oil. We change the oil that day, and as soon as we start for a test run he’s telling me his tranny is shifting better. We get to the same first light and neither bike’s fan comes on. We get to the third light and within seconds of each other the fans kick-on for the first time. Sure enough we do a roll-on and are tied together.

First off, synthetic oil absorbs and dissipates heat better, the fans would take longer to kick-on and take longer between on cycles. The oil made the trans shift like butter, and apparently to motor produced a hair more power with synthetic oil. MY COUSIN AND I WERE SOLD!

Koz

I saw an Amsoil van driving down the road yesterday advertising "Only change your oil every 35,000 miles with Amsoil". That's absolutely absurd. I see on this forum there are many Amsoil believers and perhaps it's a good product. I prefer Mobile 1 with no fears of warranty issues. Has anyone ever seen an Amsoil ad like the one I saw yesterday?

Maybe it's a bit out of context. Were they talking about using a bi-pass filter along with their oil?

I use another brand of synthetic but I still follow 5k intervals. I am now taking out the 5k oil from my 4Runner and putting it into my 78 Toyota pickup truck. So the pickup gets changed every 5k miles on the 4Runner. After the pickup some goes in the lawn mower. How's that for a maintenance schedule?

I'm at the 30k service interval for my 03 & I'm thinking of having the dealership do all the tranny & diff fluids, etc. That's so they ca't say anything if something fails later (like when I'm towing).

Do you think they would put synthetics in for me?

If you provide your own oil, I don't see why not.

With respect to synthetics, it's not easy to tell if you car engine is running any cooler or not, at least in normal temps. After I switched to Redline MT-90 in the manual tranny on my old 4Runner, I did notice the stick doesn't get nearly as hot on long drives, esp. through the desert. And since the stick goes directly into the tranny, it suggests there's less friction generated w/ the synthetic (I don't think Amsoil and Mobil 1 have a dedicated manual tranny oil). So this is the one case where I can actually feel a difference, just like Koz riding his bike. If you change the oil yourself and spend $20-24 on a pure synthetic (not a blend, which has << 50% synthetic in there..don't think it's 50-50) and $5-7 on a OEM filter, that's about the same price as a dealer change, and you get the better oil.

Synthetic is better in every way, except initial cost. Everyone is an experiment in one so it's hard to measure the difference in every application. I like Red Line because it's a Group V base stock. Also Red Line is a small company and you can call them for questions and get an answer. You have to look around to find the stuff, but with some searching you can find it for about $6.50 a quart for engine oil. The other part of the engine oil maintenance is the oil filter and I use Mobil 1 or Amsoil filters. All this care is because I keep vehicles a long time. If you trade in every three years then skip the whole thing and go to a quick lube. You'll get 10w-30 and a white box filter that plugs the hole where a real filter goes.