My uncle bought a tsx about 2 months ago. He said he needed to add some oil so he did. But he thinks he added synthetic oil to the regular honda motor oil. He doesn't see a problem with having done this. What do you guys think?

 

umm that's bad? Synthetic oil have different compound that reg oil. From what i heard, if you have reg oil then switch to synthetic, then you'd have to drain and do an engine flush before you can pour in the synthetic, and once you go synthetic it's not a good idea to go back to regular oil.

 

i think this was asked before. its not bad to mix it once. but don't switch back and forth between regular and synthetic

 

I'd just be safe and get a complete oil change, if he doesnt even know if it was synth or regular he probably doesnt even remember if it was the right weight

But seriously its probably not going to hurt anything. I mean valvoline sells their 'truck formula' oil which comes in the bottle as a 50/50 synthetic mix.

 

Having the oil at the proper level (especially on a brand new car) is a heck of a lot more important that the kind it is. As long as the oil is changed regurlarly, the kind of oil (both in terms of dyno/synthetic and viscosity) you put in it matters very little.

 

shall be ok.

 

While it's not a great idea to go back and forth between synthetic and regular oil, it's not as bad as everyone is saying it is. The whole idea of swtiching back and forth being bad only applies to older cars, esp older american cars whose gaskets, piston rings, and other odds and ends do not adapt well to changes in lubrication properties. Today's modern engines, including all the high compression, high revving Honda engines, don't mind as much. In fact, it doesn't hurt it at all given you change oil at regular intervals.

Now as for mixing... I wouldn't worry about it. If you're uncle accidently added sythetic to regular because the oil was running low, it doesn't do any immediate damage. If anything, it was a good move either way because it certainly was better than adding nothing at all. The issue here lies in the fact that synthetic has different thermal properties than regular. For the most part, sythetic has a far greater range of operating temperatures as far as lubricating properties go. Adding an oil with different thermal properties than another does little to make the lubricating less effective and even less to how the engine performs.

 

I don't know about other brands, but Mobile 1 is fully compatible with dino oils.

Is the TSX new? If so, there is a bigger concern. The syn. oils are so good that they will not allow a new engine to break-in properly. If it is new, then I would recommend checking with the service manager at the dealership to see what he recommends doing -- perhaps nothing. I don't know about Acura, but some cars come with a "special" break-in oil (or, at least used to).

 

Don't worry about it since your uncle only used some to top it off a bit. Correct? It's not going to do the engine big/any harm. But if you're uncle is really scared, just get him to go do an engine flush like and he'l be fine.