i plan on keeping mine for at least 400,000 miles , that's alot of oil changes. gm 4.3 get that many miles , i know of more than 1 , and 1 guy that puts the cheapest oil he can get , and rarely changes. i have a 4.3 also , i put nonsynthetic in it and it never looks or smells bad.

 

NO it will not.

 

[QUOTE=diskullman;354839]1) Diskullman, your panel HHR is beautiful! NICE paint job!!

2) Obviously you are a AMSOIL dealer. I have read all the AMSOIL claims. But no matter how "long" AMSOIL is good for in an engine, as my mechanic says, "For oil to do it's job, besides lubricating, it picks up the dirt and other stuff in the engine. Do you really want that running through your engine for 25,000 miles?"

3) Synthetic oil, in non-extreme situations, can last for 15K miles with no problem. But, I agree with my mechanic above and change my oil every 6K miles.

4) That is wonderful that your 98 Dodge is doing so well. Two thumbs up! :twothumbs

5) Amsoil, Mobil 1, the new Castrol Synthetic, regular oil....there are many opinions, many claims, discussions upon discussions, BUT no matter what, the most important thing is to keep up on your maintenance and change the oil and oil filter on regular intervals. My late father used to say, "If you take care of your toys, your toys will take care of you."

I came back to GM, after 20 years, and hope my HHR lasts at least 6 more years (I'm in my 14th month of ownership). My last two Chrysler products didn't last more than 3 and half years each, and I took care of them. Poorly designed, poorly built. Thank goodness they came with warranties.

I love my HHR.

 

Synthetic oil was originally developed for high performance racing engines. Mobil tried to popularize synthetic oil for passenger vehicles back in the early 1970's. At the time, Mobil was promoting 20K or 25K oil changes with synthetic, but they soon backed down from this. Synthetic oil is a good choice if you have a vehicle with a high performance engine (in fact synthetic is required for many of these engines). It is also a good choice if your vehicle is operated in extremely cold climates. It has higher resistance to breakdown caused by heat and it flows better in extreme cold. Unfortunately for the synthetic oil industry there is virtually no advantage to using synthetic oil in a non-high performance engine that is operated in moderate climates. You probably could go a bit longer between oil changes with a synthetic, i.e. following the normal service schedule even if you fall into the severe service category, but I wouldn't advise this. In short, synthetic may give you the peace of mind of knowing that you are using an oil that is far better than necessary for your vehicle, but it won't reduce wear or extend the life of the engine. The mistake some people make it to wrongly extrapolate these benefits onto normal engines operated in mild climates, with the ultimate lack of any knowledge being manifested with statements such as "synthetics provide 'Peace of Mind,' or 'Cheap Insurance,'" or other such nonsense.
Quoted from http://www.nordicgroup.us/oil.htm.... it covers all the oil myths....
I like Berrymans B12..sorta the same stuff..when I worked parts and servicing the local garages Sea Foam and Berrymans was their product of choice for cleaning.Whenever I had a stumble I'd drop a can and it would clear up in 1 tank.But thats fuel not oil....

 

i just skimmed this whole thread, and i have a question.... what kind of "smell" does the oil have in your vehicle when you check/change it?

my girlfriends pontiac 3.8 supercharger oil smells like something crawled into the engine and died right after someone drug it through a restaraunt dumpster, but then again it smells that bad right out of a brand new bottle

if your oil regaurdless of what type, organic or synthetic, smells heavily of gasoline, then i would say check your sparkplugs and PCV valve as unburned fuel is mixing with your engine oil, and it wouldnt hurt to have your engine checked for compression and a leak down test as a faulty valve guide or seat may be allowing unburned fuel to contaminate the oil as well - never hurts to take a lil precaution, plus if everything checks out OK at least you KNOW its OK :)

if there is some other smell, like burnt oil/rubber/plastic, then you may be burning up a seal somewhere in the engine, or there may be metal to metal contact that the oil is not sufficiently lubricating against.

my suggestion would be to change the oil and check it every day keeping a record of how clean it is by using a white paper towel and save each "check" sample with the mileage untill it starts turning brown, once it starts to look like light coffee, reguardless of what type it is, its time to change the oil.

the DIC oil quality indicator is for relative reference ONLY... there is only so much that the sensor will detect and relay information about, anything else is relied on experience and knowledge of when oil is starting to go bad -- if my oil starts to turn dark enough that i cannot see through it, i change it, if it starts to smell like gasoline, i definately change it

 

There is no "sensor" that detects and relays information about oil life. It is a software program that uses an algorithm developed over about a ten period by GM Powertrain engineers. More specifically, specialists in oil chemistry and engine performance who have the letters "Ph.D" after their names. Millions of dollars were spent on developing this system and it was actually put in place in Cadillac and Corvette about 12 years before the HHR was introduced. I assure you these people know what they're doing and do it well.

If you expect the car to last 400,000 miles and change the oil every 3,000 on synthetic, you will have spent $2660 on oil (on sale) and put 665 quarts of used oil into the environment. If you follow the owner's manual, you will have spent about $800 on oil and put about 200 quarts of used oil into the environment. What's your carbon footprint?

 

The brother of an old coworker was a helicopter mechanic. They use synthetic oil and replace it every other filter change. I found that very interesting.

 

Sounds like some liberties were taken with history. Synthetic oils were first developed by the aviation industry, primarily jet engines. Mobil didn't test market until 1975.


"Eight years later the first PAO, a synthetic product using olefin polymerization, was manufactured. 1937 was also year that the Zurich Aviation Congress became interested in ester based lubricant technology. From 1938 to 1944 thousands of esters were evaluated in Germany with excellent results. In our own country ester basestocks were also being developed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory and introduced into military aviation applications during the 1940's.

During this period scientists were well funded, and the new processes of synthetic creation had some great success. But as is so often the case, the existence of a "better mousetrap" does not always result in its commercial survival.

It was the space age that helped create a greater appreciation for the benefits of synthetic lubricants. Jet engines raised the bar on what was required of a lubricant. The high speed, high heat and cold temperature performance requirements of modern jets created a demand for a new kind of lubricant.

Just after the war we saw the first use of diesters by the British in turboprop engines for high temperature performance. And from the late forties to the early seventies various synthetic fluids were developed to meet the demands of new and more efficient high performance engines and machines."

 

keep your nose outa my footprints , and i'll keep my footprints outa your oil. just kidding . i do what i can , i recycle my oil and i will probably just change my filter more often , like i stated earlier . i will change as many times as i like until the great phds come out with a good electric vehicle. i may have to build my own. i wish my dog was still alive and could talk , she could tell me what that smell is in my oil. i wonder if the phds can do that? THANKS FOR EVERYONES POSTS i really didn't mean to start this debate , but i do respect and like to hear all the different opinions and facts and trying to figure out which is which.

 

I just switched from Mobil 1 which I have been using for years to the new Castrol Edge. This last oil change (from Mobil 1 to Edge) was only at about about 2,000 miles, and the oil actually looked fairly dark and "smelled old" like some have noticed. We have several other cars to compare to, and the oil on the dipstick after several thousand miles still looks reasonably clean and has no unusual odor. So, yes, I am also curious why this is, (i.e. not our imagination). If it was only the SS, I would think it might have something to do with Turbo or maybe direct injection soot.