switching back to natural oil?

[fnkngrv]

Originally Posted by Happy Little Pony

No once during my thirty years of driving have I "blown up" an engine during my daily commute. The Yaris I drive is the tame little economy car with the decidedly non-high performance engine. If you've turbocharged your Yaris and are using it as a race car, then I'll agree that synthetic is a good idea in a hot rod engine. I just drive mine slowly around town.



Hey, Mr. Moneybags, maybe in your world an engine is cheap, but in my world just the labor to install a new engine would be crippling. The original poster in this thread was worried about the few dollars difference between a synthetic and a conventional oil change. I won't speak for him, but I bought the Yaris because I can't afford to throw cash around.



I think what you mean here is that if we double our oil change interval with synthetics, we would use half as much motor oil, thus reducing our consumption of fossil fuels. True enough. I just bought a jug of Valvoline NextGen oil, free after rebate at Advance Auto Parts. And I've used G-Oil in the past and would consider doing it again in the future.

The 4E-FTE was a factory boosted engine from the GT Starlet which was being operated at what Toyota had designed it to in my car. The wastegate stuck closed and boost spikes caused the failure. A very similar case of overboosting happened to my 1NZ. Both motors have been torn down and I can see more scarring on the 4E with much less boost being put to it and all I and I am pretty confident the original owner used in it was conventional oil.

As for being a "Mr. Moneybags" sure on my replacement motor that is going on right now I am throwing a guy some cash for assisting me, but all in all the bulk of the shops that I had talked to were quoting me between 400-600 for the installation and you can get a solid 1NZ from car-parts.com for as low as 300. If you do the work yourself or have someone you know pitch in that install can get a lot cheaper and you would learn much more about your car. The Yaris, Echo, and Tercel are some of the most simple modern era vehicles to learn about with exception to the intricacies that have become commonplace in the ECM/ECU. Thanks BTW for making it personal...that is outstanding. I agree a lot with racerb's statements actually.


My opinion when it comes to operating anything is that I don't believe in people just being "users" of something. If you are on a computer you had best be able to use the thing without having to constantly pay someone else to fix the problems that you create on it. I take the same approach with vehicles. Take control of the thing. It is an investment. If all you do is short driving jaunts or low speed driving then that is great because it serves the purpose that you have, but personally if you have a vehicle for sale and tried to tell me that "hey, I only drove it slow and short trips so what I dump in it for lubricants shouldn't matter" then I would walk away and purchase elsewhere. The main reason for this is that short trips are actually the most taxing on an internal combustion engine regardless of whether or not you baby it or drive it like you stole it. Folks traditionally like to ask a premium for their trade-ins or private sales because they babied it or didn't run it hard. You want to get a premium return then treat it like racerb said...like an investment. In the long run synthetics can save you money, time, and grief, but that is just my perspective I guess.

And oh yeah...I have been driving cars, trucks, motorcycles, and ATVs for 22 years so I am not too far behind you in the rearview.