What would be your opinion on switching to synthetic in a 92 civic with 162k miles?

My biggest concern is causing the regular oil that might be gunked up to break lose and cause leaks.
Anything else, or do you think it would be ok to switch?

 

I would do it ONLY for one of the following reasons:

1. I drove lots of highway miles and wanted to extend my oil change intervals from 5000 to 10,000 miles.

2. I drove fewer than say, 7000 miles in 1 year - that way, I could change the oil once every year.

Companies like Mobil sell a Mobil 1 extended mileage oil for vehicles with more than 75,000 miles on them.

That being said, I must mention that I use Pennsoil Platinum synthetic in my CX with 123,000 miles on it. I will change it once every year.

 

Good things about synthetic, is better at reducing friction, thus its a better lubricant. It usually does a better job cleaning all the crap out of the engine as well. But some of its downsides include the fact that it eats silicone (so if you have silicone instead of an actual gasket on your oil pan, you ***should*** get a gasket) It WILL "mist" out of spots in your engine, not a particularly big deal, just need to clean your engine more. And it costs more XD but honestly, it would be worth it.

 

I switched to synthetic with 158k on the car. No problems here. Oil pan gasket leaks, but it leaked before that too, so it's unrelated.

 

Yeah, my car is for driving back and forth to work M-F, so its on the highway almost all the time.
It sits outside in the cold, so i think it would help with startup, since the synthetic wont sludge up as much.
Thanks for the input guys.
Think at the next oil change (soon) i'll switch over.
I'll check the oil pan gasket at that time to see if its silicone or an actual gasket.

 

sounds good, i would like to switch too but i cant see not changing the oil for 10,000 miles... thats just insane haha

 

...not if you have a good filter, like a K&N and synthetic oil.

 

**** it, 3 dollar filter and 2 dollar oil for me XD

 

Wix are also very good.
Same company who makes those makes the Napa Gold oil filter.
Although i use the Napa Silver in my truck along with Mobile 1 syn. I change that at about every 6-7k miles.

 

its a lil pricey but like Lergen said it provides less friction and also does a better clean up job my engine only has 60000 miles on it so imma stay with regular for a lil while for 2 main reasons 1. I dont drive a whole lot and 2. I dont race my car so if you do ONE or Both of those and since you have 162k miles it wont hurt to go to synthetic.

Also Im not sure because i hear that if you want to switch to synthetic you should go half reg and half synthetic on your first oil switch but I went strait from reg to synthetic with my other car and it didnt do anything bad but make my engine rev fr a few days just ask around first