Castrol Syntec (5W-40)

[Perfectlap]

I recently changed my oil from Mobil 1 "factory fill" 0W-40 to Castrol Syntec 5W-40 after Advanced Auto had a special promotion of 5 quarts for $25 and a free K&N oil filter. I picked up 20 quarts to save some dough. I decided against Royal Purple at the last minute due to price and availability.
A local Mobil 1 oil change shop (actually no longer owned by Mobil 1 but everything else is the same) agreed to do the change for $30 and use my oil and filter even though they sell the same Castrol Syntec for much higher. We left the engine to drain for about an hour and 15. My 2000 S recently passed the 60K mile mark without any major issues. The only unscheduled repair has been a new throttle body and replacing an 02 sensor. That's it. This is not a daily driver and I change teh oil every 7K miles or so.

So my first post Mobil 1 impressions of CS: Something has definitely changed.
I've had m1 oil changes before and didn't really notice a difference. After a couple of days of the oil running I'm strongly inclined to say the engine runs much crisper and smoother after a CS oil change than a M1 oil change. It's most noticeable from a standing start. The revs seem to be "flawless" if I can put it that way. Almost as if the engine is not working as hard to get the car up to 70mph or so.
Obviously this is not a very scientific analysis. I had some concerns about introducing a new mixture into the engine while there was still some M1 in there. A friend also made a switch from a different oil to CS and soon noticed some strange looking oil residue near the oil cap that had a tan/greyish color about it.
The engine also sounds quieter when idling. I'm wondering if this more to do with changing the weight of the oil from M1 0-40 or the Boxster engine just liking Castrol's mix better. Going forward I'm going to change the oil every 5K miles to take advantage of the lower price for Castrol Syntec.

[Bob O]

Two weeks ago I did the same thing with my 01. Changed to Castrol Syntec 5 W 40 from Mobil 1 since new. What I noticed almost immediately after the change was how quiet it was on startup. Significantly quieter. I guess I never really paid attention or noticed the little noises it made on starting, but now that it doesn't, it's very apparent now for the LACK of noise. I haven't seen any changes like you mention of it being quicker to accelerate or crisper, but it does seem to run smoother. All of which I suppose could be attributed to the heavier weight oil.

I also got my oil from Advance. 10 qts was 37.10. No free K&N...you had to buy one oil filter for every 5 qts to get that price. Since they didn't have any Boxster filters (well.. they would order one for around $30 so I said no thanks!) I got a filter for wife's car and son's truck and still came out ahead. Total invoice. 10 qts oil, two filters, tax, $53.78!! not bad, considering the oil alone would have been around $70 including tax!

Bob

[mts]

The next time they are running a special on the Castrol please feel free to post about it! That's a great price on that oil.

[blue2000s]

Is that a group III or IV based oil? I'm finding it's hard to find which are true synthetic and which are extra-refined group III as they're both called "synthetic".

[Boxtaboy]

I don't think syntec is actually a full synthetic, but instead a blend. Not sure it makes that much difference if it is a good oil, but still. There's a guy on another board that has over 214k miles on his 02 Boxster, and all he's used was Mobil 1 0W-40, so M1 can't be that bad.

[Bob O]

The bottle says "Full Synthetic". Could it have dino in it and still be cosidered full synthetic? I don't know the answer. But it's on Porsche's approved oil list. That was good enough. Plus, considering all the discussion about the formula change to Mobil 0w40 (most of which appeared to be negative) and the number of folks changing, or considering changing, to something else, that was enough to sway my decision to change.

I don't THINK the price was a special.. although it could have been. I didn't see anything advertised about it.. the clerk just told me about price if i bought filters. Filters were discounted too!

Bob

[schoir]

Originally Posted by mts

The next time they are running a special on the Castrol please feel free to post about it! That's a great price on that oil.

mts:

Autozone is presently running a similar deal on Castrol Syntec:
Buy 5 quarts for $27.95 and get a free Fram oil filter of your choosing. Limit 2 per customer.

Regards, Maurice.

[eightsandaces]

I was thinking about this thread and how it demonstrates our passion for being good stewards of our cars. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that at the days end we are all people who enjoy driving performance vehicles, four door motorcycles. AND as a comedy bonus, any guy out there reading this who had an engine failure has to be LOLing his ass off at the scrutiny of lubricants.

[jmatta]

I was thinking the same thing...debating over oils and such is like debating which is the best beer.

We all have our favorites and the key is to replace it often.