Clarification about fully synthetic oil change

virajn · June 28, 2020

I have Honda GP5 (75000km) and all service done by Sterling. They have used Havoline 0-20w fully synthetic oil changed by 5000km. From this forum i have learned fully synthetic oil can run 10,000km and asked them about why they recommend 5000km for fully synthetic oil. Their answer was if i use Mobil ( which cost double compared Havoline ) i can run 10,000km but for Havoline it's 5000km. Is there any truth to this ? Also i would like to know what's agent recommended oil and oil change interval ( i never gone to agent ) . Also since daily running on heavy traffic route ( 45min to go 12km normally ) i'm fear waiting for 10,000km. Is my fear baseless ? ( i'm asking this since i hope to keep car around 200,000km and want to do best maintenance today so i can save bit money in future )

Edited June 28, 2020 by virajn

Twin Turbo · June 28, 2020

HI, not getting into a brand war, i'd stick to oil change recommendations set by the manufacturer of your car for city driving.

Kavvz · June 28, 2020

On 6/28/2020 at 2:29 AM, virajn said:

I have Honda GP5 (75000km) and all service done by Sterling. They have used Havoline 0-20w fully synthetic oil changed by 5000km. From this forum i have learned fully synthetic oil can run 10,000km and asked them about why they recommend 5000km for fully synthetic oil. Their answer was if i use Mobil ( which cost double compared Havoline ) i can run 10,000km but for Havoline it's 5000km. Is there any truth to this ? Also i would like to know what's agent recommended oil and oil change interval ( i never gone to agent ) . Also since daily running on heavy traffic route ( 45min to go 12km normally ) i'm fear waiting for 10,000km. Is my fear baseless ? ( i'm asking this since i hope to keep car around 200,000km and want to do best maintenance today so i can save bit money in future )

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They are probably saying that because some agents in SL use Mobil fully synthetic and do 10,000-15,000km oil changes etc. While maintaining warranty and for those cars Havoline fully synthetic isn't rated (it doesn't meet the manufacturer's specifications).

That being said as long as you want to maintain your warranty status you'll have to follow along with their guidelines, no point losing your warranty to save a few bucks and then regretting it later.

Kavvz · June 28, 2020

On 6/28/2020 at 2:29 AM, virajn said:

Also since daily running on heavy traffic route ( 45min to go 12km normally ) i'm fear waiting for 10,000km. Is my fear baseless ? ( i'm asking this since i hope to keep car around 200,000km and want to do best maintenance today so i can save bit money in future )

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Mostly Baseless, I think as: While it's true that a car sitting in traffic vs a car running on the highway will take longer to reach its 10,000km oil change mark as long as you change the oil within the 10,000km limit or within 1 year whichever comes first; generally you are well within the tolerances of oil life and lubrication property lifespan that most Fully Synthetic oil is designed for.

Also please note that while some oils are marketed as synthetic engine oil sometimes they are synthetic oil blends. (Synthetic oil + mineral oil. This applies to fancy name brands such as mobil as well -Only some grades of mobil synthetic oils are fully synthetic, some are blends.) So the lubrication properties and the oil change interval may vary based on this fact.

Also at the end of the day there is definitely no guarantee that if you use fully synthetic oil your car will run past the 200,000km mark with no problems, it will not have engine sludge etc. But what you are doing right now (using fully synthetic oil and changing it at the 5000km mark) will certainly help keep your engine in optimal condition as much as possible. And hopefully you will be able to use the same car past 200,000km as well.

By stretching out the oil changes to 10,000km while using fully synthetic oil will you be able to do the same: Probably.

Would I recommend it? I don't see an issue.

Do I do the same: Yes ( I don't use the same brand of fully synthetic oil as you though)

Can I guarantee that this is good for your engine and that you will have no issues running the engine past 200,000km? No.

Can I guarantee that by using Mobil fully synthetic oil you can stretch your oil changes to 10,000km and run the car past 200,000km without any issues; No- No guarantee. And if anyone gives you such a guarantee I would be extremely skeptical.

Will you probably be okay stretching the oil changes out to 10,000km with Mobil fully synthetic? Yes. But that would be the same for any well known name brand of fully synthetic engine oils (including Mobil, Castrol etc and most likely Havoline as well.)

Edited June 28, 2020 by Kavvz

virajn · June 29, 2020

Thank you and well explained !

gayanath · June 30, 2020

On 6/28/2020 at 2:29 AM, virajn said:

I have Honda GP5 (75000km) and all service done by Sterling. They have used Havoline 0-20w fully synthetic oil changed by 5000km. From this forum i have learned fully synthetic oil can run 10,000km and asked them about why they recommend 5000km for fully synthetic oil. Their answer was if i use Mobil ( which cost double compared Havoline ) i can run 10,000km but for Havoline it's 5000km. Is there any truth to this ? Also i would like to know what's agent recommended oil and oil change interval ( i never gone to agent ) . Also since daily running on heavy traffic route ( 45min to go 12km normally ) i'm fear waiting for 10,000km. Is my fear baseless ? ( i'm asking this since i hope to keep car around 200,000km and want to do best maintenance today so i can save bit money in future )

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How about your daily or monthly or annual millage ??

Edited June 30, 2020 by gayanath

ramishkad · June 30, 2020

On 6/28/2020 at 2:29 AM, virajn said:

I have Honda GP5 (75000km) and all service done by Sterling. They have used Havoline 0-20w fully synthetic oil changed by 5000km. From this forum i have learned fully synthetic oil can run 10,000km and asked them about why they recommend 5000km for fully synthetic oil. Their answer was if i use Mobil ( which cost double compared Havoline ) i can run 10,000km but for Havoline it's 5000km. Is there any truth to this ? Also i would like to know what's agent recommended oil and oil change interval ( i never gone to agent ) . Also since daily running on heavy traffic route ( 45min to go 12km normally ) i'm fear waiting for 10,000km. Is my fear baseless ? ( i'm asking this since i hope to keep car around 200,000km and want to do best maintenance today so i can save bit money in future )

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I put Mobil 1 0W-3 fully synthetic oil for the 6 or so years I had my previous car (Honda Civic Hybrid) from Sterling but did the service at 7500km. I ran about 1000-1500km per month. Maybe you can do 10k with that oil, but I didnt want to take any chances with the climate and extreme traffic conditions in SL so I did it at 7.5k just to have peace of mind. I never had any engine related issues in that car and I had run 125000km by the time I sold it.

I also changed the CVT oil at every 10000-15000km. Agents recommended 40k intervals. But there was a noticable improvement in the shorter cycle changes I did after researching online. That CVT ran smooth without any issues until I sold it.

Did I go overboard with oil change intervals? Probably yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Edited June 30, 2020 by ramishkad

virajn · June 30, 2020

On 6/30/2020 at 6:34 AM, gayanath said:

How about your daily or monthly or annual millage ??

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Monthly 1000km-1500km normally.

virajn · June 30, 2020

On 6/30/2020 at 7:11 AM, ramishkad said:

I put Mobil 1 0W-3 fully synthetic oil for the 6 or so years I had my previous car (Honda Civic Hybrid) from Sterling but did the service at 7500km. I ran about 1000-1500km per month. Maybe you can do 10k with that oil, but I didnt want to take any chances with the climate and extreme traffic conditions in SL so I did it at 7.5k just to have peace of mind. I never had any engine related issues in that car and I had run 125000km by the time I sold it.

I also changed the CVT oil at every 10000-15000km. Agents recommended 40k intervals. But there was a noticable improvement in the shorter cycle changes I did after researching online. That CVT ran smooth without any issues until I sold it.

Did I go overboard with oil change intervals? Probably yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

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Thank you. Also not directly related to this, but did you changed coolant ( fully replaced ) in your car in 6 years time. Online research suggest best to change on 80k -100k or 2 year time.

ramishkad · July 1, 2020

On 6/30/2020 at 12:13 PM, virajn said:

Thank you. Also not directly related to this, but did you changed coolant ( fully replaced ) in your car in 6 years time. Online research suggest best to change on 80k -100k or 2 year time.

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I changed coolant at every 40k km which is around once every 1.5 years - 2 years. I used the Toyota Blue coolant on the Honda.

Edited July 1, 2020 by ramishkad