Hey there. I'm rather uninformed as to what maintenance's are needed done to my vehicle, but an oil change is due soon.

I own a '95 Chevy P/K c1500 2-RWD (don't know if that's how it's put). The engine is a V8 5.0L and I use Castrol GTX 5W-30 motor oil with a Fram oil filter.. It has roughly 187000 miles on it (I don't know if the mileage has a correlation on what oil should be used).

I'm hoping Gearheads will give me the knowledge on what brand/type of oil and what oil filters are better. I don't know if the motor oil I'm using is going to cause any problems for my vehicle in the long run or if I should be buying high mileage or syntec. I also don't know if there are any differences in the type of oil filters.

Please enlighten me with your knowledge and reasoning.

dont use fram. regardless of what their advertisements would have you believe, they're crap. use a wix. fact is wix makes a lot of oem brands and they make the napa gold line.

Fram filters are fine.

Use whatever oil is specified in your manual. Don't 'upgrade' to a more modern oil just because some guy in a store tells you it's better - if your engine is designed to run on dinosaur oil, run it on dinosaur oil. If you start using a modern synthetic oil in an old engine, for example, because modern oil is designed for modern engines with harder components, you may end up with premature wear. On the other hand, if your manual specifies a fully synthetic oil and you use mineral oil, it won't have the right additives in it, and you'll end up with wear and caking (where the oil gums up and blocks the smaller oil passageways).

IMO Castrol GTX is a very good oil, and if it's the right specification for your car, then it's absolutely fine to use.

dont use fram. regardless of what their advertisements would have you believe, they're crap. use a wix. fact is wix makes a lot of oem brands and they make the napa gold line.

I take it back actually, Wix are better than Fram.

dont use fram. regardless of what their advertisements would have you believe, they're crap. use a wix. fact is wix makes a lot of oem brands and they make the napa gold line.

I've never seen Wix filters around here. The best we have is Purolator, and I've only seen them sold at Advance Auto. It's a damn good filter brand. If I can't find one, I'll always go with an AC filter.

According to Rock Auto the C1500 uses roller lifters, so the newer oil formulas won't hurt it. Personally, I would go with synthetic because of the entended life of the oil and because of it's better thermal properties.

On the other hand, if your manual specifies a fully synthetic oil and you use mineral oil, it won't have the right additives in it, and you'll end up with wear and caking (where the oil gums up and blocks the smaller oil passageways).

While I do not believe that any premature wear will take place using synthetic motor oil over petroleum-based, you absolutely do not want to use petroleum-based in an engine designed for synthetic. The two oils flow, lubricate, and absorb heat differently, not to mention how they perform as they age.





Read over this: http://people.msoe.edu/~yoderw/oilfilterstudy/oilfilterstudy.html

Personally, I would go with synthetic because of the entended life of the oil and because of it's better thermal properties.


dont switch to a synthetic if you are leaking oil though, it will just leak out faster and cost more to replace

While I do not believe that any premature wear will take place using synthetic motor oil over petroleum-based

Yeah, I thought that but then I read an in-depth article in a classic car magazine that was written by Comma Oils saying that a lot of modern synthetic oils simply aren't 'slippery' enough for older engines.

I'll see if I can dig it out and post the technical details of it

So wix > fram in terms of oil filters

I lost my manual a while back and I hadn't bothered to replace it so I wouldn't know what type of oil it specifies to use. I appear to be good on the oil usage then. I'm just unsure whether switching from petrolum to synthetic during this next oil change is going to end up in as a retarded move.

I'm not sure what the difference is between V8 5.0L 305 CID and V8 5.0L 307 CID other then the latter having +2 CID than the other.

While this may be off topic, would wix air filters be better than fram ones? And if so, is wix > fram in general? I'm due for a smog check before I receive my tags.

dont switch to a synthetic if you are leaking oil though, it will just leak out faster and cost more to replace

What about if the engine burns oil slightly? Slightly being where you have to add a quart about every 1500-2000 miles.

What about if the engine burns oil slightly? Slightly being where you have to add a quart about every 1500-2000 miles.

Synthetic won't really cure the problem. Only a thicker oil will mask the problem. Even then, some engines are designed to uconsume oil, like the Chevy LS, Saturn engines, and Northstar.

chevy's max allowable oil consumption spec is 1 qt every 1000 miles, so you are well withing. on a truck with that many mile on an engine that basic i wouldnt switch to synthetic. you will be better off just buying dino oil. just be sure to get oil with the the api donut and api starburst

to answer the question about filters, yeah, in general i would say that wix is better than fram. furthermore a good paper/cloth air filter is better than any oiled "high performance" air filter. dont waste your time or money on that silliness.

chevy's max allowable oil consumption spec is 1 qt every 1000 miles, so you are well withing. on a truck with that many mile on an engine that basic i wouldnt switch to synthetic. you will be better off just buying dino oil. just be sure to get oil with the the api donut and api starburst

to answer the question about filters, yeah, in general i would say that wix is better than fram. furthermore a good paper/cloth air filter is better than any oiled "high performance" air filter. dont waste your time or money on that silliness.

The K&N's can be used many times over when cleaned correctly, saving money. Of course, air filters really don't cost that much so I wouldn't evne consider buying a K&N unless you know you will get a mpg increase. Otherwise it's just not worth it. (As the associated cost is less when it is used several times as opposed to a standard throw-away filter. This means the associated cost of either the disposable and K&N re roughly the same, thus the only reason to spend much money now to get a K&N is for fuel economy.)

Paid roughly $13 for a Wix oil filter and air filter earlier today. I plan on doing the oil change this Friday.

Since I've already established that I use 5W-30 motor oil, my next lingering thought would be on what brands of oil would be better than others. I'm pretty sure Castrol is more than sufficient enough for my budget and the quality, but how does it compare to others such as Quaker State, Mobil 1, Pennzoil, and the other brands out there?

http://www.performanceoilnews.com/oils_against_oils.shtml
http://www.smartsynthetics.com/articles/api_comparative_motor_oil_testing.htm

Just a couple of things to look over if you really care for it.

Paid roughly $13 for a Wix oil filter and air filter earlier today. I plan on doing the oil change this Friday.

Since I've already established that I use 5W-30 motor oil, my next lingering thought would be on what brands of oil would be better than others. I'm pretty sure Castrol is more than sufficient enough for my budget and the quality, but how does it compare to others such as Quaker State, Mobil 1, Pennzoil, and the other brands out there?
Regular oil by brand doesn't matter much, as I understand it.
Not sure if the links from AP2k point that out to be wrong, as the Valvoline petroleum oil seems to stand out as different.
Synthetics, however, may differ, as AP2k's links above point out.
BTW, Mobil 1 in your list above, is pure synthetic, while I think you are referring to buying regular petroleum oil.
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Fram is garbage, plain and simple. Pure garbage. There were even some issues with the glue inside dissolving and letting pieces of paper loose inside your oil passages.

Castrol makes good oil, I use it in my car.

As long as there aren't a plethora of horror stories about a brand, the filter doesn't matter much (Apparently fram does tend to be crap...). As for the actual oil, people have already summed it up.... the main thing you have to watch for is synthetic/non and the viscosity.

Personally, I use cheap generic oil and so does my family. We have been doing it that way since the beginning. If I had a high-performance engine, race car or other need for 'guaranteed quality oil', I would buy it. Otherwise, with your low-output basic 305....as long as you are changing your oil and watching the level and stuff.... it doesn't matter that you bought the $1.05 no name as opposed to the $3-4 superplus 10 or whatever.

i care about my car, and since its turboed it puts more stress on the oil. i stick to the Mahle Oc-51's when i had my 1.8t a4, those fuckers hold almost a quart in the filter.
now on my 2.0t a4, it uses a cartridge type filter, either mann or mahle.
and for oil i use mobil one full synthetic, or castrol syntec.
mann or mahle filters are impossible to find in stores, before i ordered my big pack of mahle's, i used the bosch ones, but for the 1.8t they were still too small compared to the newest revision mahle and mann filters.

i tend to trust mahle when it comes to components for my car, if anybody here knows about them, they have some of the baddest ass built components for my car, pistons and stuff, also they supply audi sport.

http://www.germanfilters.com/images//images_big/hu7196x.jpg

http://www.performanceoilnews.com/oils_against_oils.shtml
http://www.smartsynthetics.com/articles/api_comparative_motor_oil_testing.htm

Just a couple of things to look over if you really care for it.

The Uniglide results were pretty interesting.

if anybody besides me has a 2005-2006 audi, heres the list of approved oils:
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:sCR-f3sPgHEJ:dejong947.com/audi/tsb/audi.tb.17-05-01.pdf&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=safari

and for the rest of the vaggers, germanfilters.com has cheap filters

http://www.performanceoilnews.com/oils_against_oils.shtml


Just a couple of things to look over if you really care for it.

interesting, i use M1 0-w40 full synthetic in all my audis that i've had (recommended oil for it).
the only other oil tested that made as much torque was the one with M1 5W-50, but hp wise, it had like a 7 hp advantage at 270 hp for the 0-40, where the M1 5W-50 only got 261.


interesting also on the royal purple 267 hp and 315 ft/lb, the lab said its like 0-w30 oil, came unlabled