I thought for sure I would have found this topic already but have not. My daughter's car has 130K miles and is a college car with occasional drives back to Jacksonville of 180 miles. She has run engine low on oil a couple of times (that I know of) and there is now some valve/lifter chatter and some oil useage (1 qt in 1K miles, maybe +-), no blue smoke. I am having car serviced by Honda and using recommended 5W30 oil. I added a qt. of Lucas Oil additive the last oil change. I wonder if I should stay with Honda oil and present weight, change to a heavier Honda/other oil, or consider high mileage synthetic oil, like Mobile 1? Car seems to run well, otherwise. Have been using some Lucas Gas additive now and then. Auto trans sometime slips from a stop to start, and sometimes doesn't downshift from 2nd into 1st when rounding corners. Any experienced ideas or suggestions out there? Thanx.

 

if you switch to synthetic, it will use far more oil than it does now. if anything, switch to a little heavier oil, but regardless, make sure it stays full. a minor leak like that that i forgot about claimed my original motor.

 

I would not switch to synthetic, or your engine will burn two quarts. I suggest a high mileage oil, that should cut your losses in half. Besides that, plan to sell the car and upgrade if you can.

 

My understanding on that Lucas oil additive is that it froths up the oil causing big problems (e.g. air in the oil = oil not getting to the parts). I am using 15/50 Mobil 1 in my Grandmother's sebring with 140,000 + miles on the V-6 engine. I didn't start using that until June/05, I changed it and did not want to have to do it again until March of 06. This is due to the fact that I had LASIK eye surgery and do not want to get anything in my eye..... By the way I now have 20/20 vision......