synthetic oil ?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(whitewhiskers @ Mar 28 2007, 06:12 AM) [snapback]413459[/snapback]</div>

I dont have a real professional opionon, but I am sure sythetic is environmentally friendly to begin with(since it is created and not pumped from the earth), I am just not sure if it is once it comes out of the engine and to where? I don't know

hopefully someone else knows the exact impact of Sythetic Vs. Conventional over its life span.

 

There is a lot in the groups's searchable archives about synthetic engine oil. Its use in Prius has not led to any problems reported. Its advantages remain controversial, unless one embraces its main advantage, which is a longer service life. Less frequent oil changes mean less waste oil generated/recycled. Extending Prius' oil change intervals also remains controversial.

It used to be the case that many synthetic engine oils were made (indirectly) from ethylene gas, itself derived from fossil fuels. AFAIK no engine oil is now made from plant oils, though it certainly could be. It would just cost more.

Now the oil industry seems to be heading towards using very higly refined mineral oil, since it is still legal to call that 'synthetic'. If those prove inadequate over 12k miles in Prius service, I'm sure you will read about it here eventually.

Whether you use conventional or synthetic oil, it is your responsibility to recycle it. Down a drain, or on the ground is very very bad. Don't do that. Some recycled oil gets remanufactured into cheap engine oil, and most of it is burned as fuel by ships at sea. I have forgotten the proportions.

 

Let me just point out that your maintenance schedule from Toyota calls for changing the oil at a 5K mile/6 month interval, whichever is less. I'd suggest following the schedule until 36K miles/36 months when the bumper-to-bumper warranty expires. I think a synthetic oil at 12K miles/12 months may be fine after that.

Since the ICE is spun up without load and doesn't run much of the time, 5K miles on a Prius is a lot easier on the oil than 5K on a Corolla, for example.

 

I'm going on 11 months now without an oil change, although it's been only 4000 miles. The upside is that I used Mobil 1 5-30 and an OEM filter. The downside is that the car sat for 4 months last summer while I was deployed and has been through one heck of a cold, snowy winter.

I'm sending my oil to Blackstone Labs for analysis when I fianlly do change it. If the oil has suffered severely, I won't do it again.

 

I'am sure most owners take their cars to the shop for the oil change, so we would not have to discard.

 

12~13 years back @tochatihu says something fairly benign and you've gotta resurrect the thread to call him on it?

 

Totally misleading. Only geoup 4 or 5 or both are like this. The rest are still dinosaur oil

 

Yes if the post is not worthy it still would not be there. Keep trying.

 

ROFLOL! No one goes through old posts to see if they are worthy and then removes them. There are probably a million posts here that would go away if that was the case and anyone had that kind of free time.

As to how many people change their own oil, the estimates are all over the place, but I never saw any guesses over 25%. I won't let anyone do that on my car and have several friends who feel the same way. But even if only 5% of drivers change their own oil, that's a lot of oil that could be improperly discarded. So tochatihu's advice is very pertinent even 12 years later.

 

Lax stewardship at oil recycling facilities is a bummer though. Our nearby Mr Lube has a tank for waste oil. Trouble is: the apron in front of it is awash in spilled oil. It's not that hard, but I guess people are careless, show up with all manner of funky containers.

Then every so often they bring a guy in with a pressure washer. He uses high pressure hot water with detergent, and it all washes into the storm drain, which feeds directly into a local salmon spawn stream, with green belt, wild life. It looks terrible, that little rivulet between their place and the stream, all the rocks and soil coated with nasty stuff.