Okay I have about 1650 miles on my 04 SE. I am goin to be making a nice 500 mile round trip this weekend. I was goin to get my oil changed tomorrow just to say I did. I am not goin to the dealer but to where my uncle works and have him do it. Just wondering if I should go with regular oil or go Synthetic? Thanks.

 

Smoken04 - Just my opinion, but I would stay with a good regular oil, say like Castrol, and a good safe weight, say 5W30, and begin using synthetic somewhere around 20K.

A few posters say they go with synthetic from the start, others begin using it at 10K. I usually begin using it around 60K.

I have heard Nissan sources suggest not using synthetic before 20k, but I'm not fully informed as to the reasons.

 

changed mine at 1180 (wanted to at 1000). Using Castrol GTX. Going to change 2 more times before switching to syn Mobil 1 at 10k. Although I may change my mind on the way and wait longer to switch like light said.
It's warm enough outside (no winter cold starts) and you should change oil at the 3750 or less while breaking in anyways, so you really won't benefit from syn yet.

Other seasoned mechanics like my 72 yr old grandfather/mechanic swear by syn and want to switch right away. Don't think syn would hurt, but just to be safe stick with regular for awhile. Enough argue the other point enough for me to wait a year at least.

 

Would someone explain this to me please? What is the superstition or whatever that makes synthetic only beneficial after x number of miles?

 

bluemaxx - I am not an oil expert, but one argument I hear is that the superior lubricating life of synthetic oil is mostly wasted very early in a vehicle's life, when ridding the crankcase of any metal fragments, contaminants, etc left over from the building of the engine means oil should be changed very frequently early on.

Why pay big bucks for a synthetic that would easily lubricate very well for over 150,000 miles when you need to change after the first 1000 or 2000 miles?

I'm sure Nissan has other reasons for their 20K suggested beginning for synthetic, but I don't remember what they were.

 

The common thinking is that synthetic does such a good job at lubricating, the bearings,rings and other things in a young engine won't seat or wear in properly. Seems logical to me. I use M-1 exclusively and have gotten hundreds of thousands of trouble free miles from all my engines. The cars themselves...another story.

 

My 04SEelite is 1 year old this month with 3.6K miles - would now be a good time to switch to synthetic (I am considering Castrol Syntec) at the next change somewhere around 5K miles but over 1 year? Thanks for the advise...

I have changed the oil 3 times to date - once at each 3-4 months as I do not drive the car in the winter much so that's the reason for the low mileage.

 

I had my oil changed at 3,000 km. A dealership advised me that it should be changed at 6,000 km and stated there was no benefit to changing it earlier, but I did it anyway. Hold off on the change to synthetic. I have read on this Board that Castrol Synthetic is no good and is not recommended. My local Mr. Lube uses it but I wouldn't touch it after what I read. I am sticking with Castro 5-30W as I only put 7000 km a year on my Maxima now and synthetic is a waste of money in a mild climate like I experience at the Coast of BC.