Got a check engine light, turned out to be variable valve timing, it turns out I was driving with under a liter of oil in the engine (it takes 4.3 L), and ran pretty good all things considered.. except for the VTEC not working after a certain point. The mechanic just said check your oil more often.. I suspect the chain mechanic that changed it before underfilled it, I don't know by how much, it had never used that much between oil changes before.

Anybody tried switching from dino juice at 70k miles to synthetic or semi synthetic? Most of what I've read has said if you have an oil burning car switching to synthetic will make it burn more oil not less. I remember people in here saying that Castrol Syntec sucks..

What one of my mechanic buddies did tell me was dump out the 5W30 right now and put in 10W30 so it's thicker upon engine startup. What do you people think about this? It can get below 0 degrees F here in the winter, lowest temp I ever started the car at was -25 deg. C and it made some weird noises. Any oil that could decrease engine wear at this point would be welcome.

 

castrol isn't shit....VW and Audi use it as factory oil.

i've heard that switching to synthetic after a certain while doesn't do any good.

but companies are now making synthetics specifically designed for higher mileage cars.

if it gets below 0 degrees i wouldn't use anything too thick for oil.