Regular or synthetic
 

Ok my 2000 has over 150,000 I just bought it over 2 wks ago. I want to know if I should switch to synthetic or not. How could I tell what is in the engine right now without taking it to a dealership. I have heard so many bad things about going to a synthetic with alot of miles when it has had regular oil in it.

i'm not mechanically inclined but i've heard the opposite, going from syn to conventional is bad. same with gas if you always use higher octane then use 87, it might give you trouble. my dad's 94 crown victoria ran fine on 87, then after awhile it started rattling going up hills and such, so he put in 89 octane which smoothed it out. well then the high gas prices came so he went back to 87 and it got worse than it was b4 he put 89 in it. but he figured F it. he didnt pay more to get 89 so he lived with the rattles. i think of it this way. 87 octane is like veggies to kids, 91 or 93 is like candy. you cant give a kid candy his whole life then expect him to eat carrots without a fuss. but the other way around would have no prob.

im gonna tell you this now, cuz jus about everyone thats gonna respond to this is gonna say something about if its ran on regular oil that long why change it, they told me the same did i listen nope week after i put mobil 1 5w20 in mine didnt notice a single difference, but now that ive dont fully synthetic i cant go the cheap route with regular next time

The greatest problem usually encountered when switching to synthetic in an older engine is that if there is a weak spot, it will start leaking. If it were mine, I would use the Motorcraft blended oil.

On the later engines, you are wasting money if you run any octane other than what it is tuned for, plus, you may even be leaving harmful deposits.

yep if not that FOR SURE make sure its 5w20 dumb ass people put 10w30 in mine once i was about to kill them!

I would stick with what has been workin good for many years & miles If I were you!....

You can change back and forth all you want. There are few of the old PAO synthetics anymore and unless you are using Royal Purple or Amsoil, you're putting dino oil in it anyway. Yep, most synthetics on the market today are a Gp III dino. There is not any advantage to using any of them. They won't make the engine last longer, you won't get better fuel mileage using the correct viscosity, there is no more protection that folks like to expound on- it's all advertizing hype. As long as it has the correct Ford spec on the bottle, you can't buy a better oil regardless of price.

If in doubt, use the 5w20 Motorcraft semi-synthetic and a Motorcraft filter. You cannot go wrong that way and it's relatively inexpensive.

I just changed my oil today at 115K using Motorcraft 5-20 and 820S filter. I'm good to go for another 5 K :thumbsup:

Going from syn to dino and vice versa won't do any harm at all. I would also suggest a site dedicated to lubrication like BITOG to help you with selection. They have tons of UOA's (used oil analysis) for Ford engines. For the most part people there will tell you to stick to a 5W20 oil and a Motorcraft filter for the best results.

I own a 2002 ford f150 with 86000 miles on it. I just recently compared the two oils and found that syentic was a lot better. The set up I used was Royal Purple and a k&N oil filter. The difference was night and day. With Royal Purple my truck ran better. One thing that I have done and recomend is if u use royal purple is also change everything else to royal purple.

Why might I ask? that stuffs spensive!:drool: