Home | Vehicles
High Mileage Oils have been around for a few years now, but are they really worth the extra cost? The commercials on T.V. would have you believe that strange things start happening to your engine once it hits 75,000 miles. One would have to ask; why do I need a better oil now? High mileage motor oil is generally a synthetic blend with additional additives to "recondition" your seals. I use the term recondition rather loosely because it's based on the assumption that the seals in your engine are in bad shape, which is not always the case. If they are adding special additives that prohibit the oil from burning off then why not just add this additive to there regular oils. How Do These Additives Work? That is a very good question. Unfortunately, there is no readily available answer. No one really knows what exactly goes into high mileage oils that make them so much better. Are the extra additives really worth the extra ten bucks for every oil change. It's not even clear exactly what it is they are adding to the motor oils to perform these tasks. How Does One Know If Their Car Needs High Mileage Oil? According to the oil manufacturers, it is generally suggested that you use high mileage oil in any car with an engine that has over 75,000 miles on it. This claim is intriguing for several reasons. For one thing, it's an oddly concrete number considering car manufacturers vary widely on how often you should change your engine's oil. If you look at the directions on the bottles of the few manufacturer's that say how often you should change your oil, they almost always tell you to refer to the owner's manual. Excellent idea. Remember, the owner's manual tells you how often you need to change your oil using the minimum quality oil that is recommended. You should never be using anything less than that, anyway. Most modern owner's manuals go up to 200,000 miles. So, at what point does your owner's manual say to begin using "high mileage" oil. I'm betting it doesn't. Conclusions The consumer is faced with making a decision using very little facts. The oil companies don't tell us why they figure a high mileage engine needs different oil, and they don't tell us how it does what it does so that we can draw our own conclusions. The 75,000 mile recommendation to switch to high mileage is simply a random figure the oil companies came up with and nothing more. However, that flies in the face of their recommendations to change the oil at the intervals suggested by the manufacturers. So what is wrong with the manufacturer's schedule that the oil companies feel is not adequate? Why are the commercials telling you to switch oils at 75,000 miles? Perhaps the oil companies want to make you think this is normal (it's not) when in fact a high quality synthetic oil can be used for the life of your car and your seals will never go bad.
Article Source: http://contentsgeek.com
Author-Steve Tarini has been testing motor oils for over 14 years both petroleum and synthetics. With all the hype surrounding High Mileage Oils we felt it was improtant to set the record straight. We have a special page set up for questions on this topic and another great article on High Mileage Oils.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
