[taurus1996tp]

Does anyone know the best oil to use in a 96 Taurus? I currently use Castrol High Mileage cause it has 113K miles on it. The original owner used Castrol and wanted to keep Castrol in it. But I want to use synthetic, but I have been told it is bad in a older car like that. What do ya'll think?

 

[HighTecRedneck]

The key is to stick to 5w-30, as far as brand goes that tends to be a personal prefference issue. I personaly am looking into switching to AMSOIL's syntheic 5w-30 in the next month or so but am still doing research on it. Here is a site that you can read more about the different oils and questions others have had about them.

BOBISTHEOILGUY

Hope that helps.

 

[John in Charlotte]

Here's a current thread from that site with answers to what's the best "regular" (non-synthtic) motor oil. Opinions vary but the oils mentioned there.... Pennzoil, Havoline, Castrol..... and others, are the same most mentioned when I asked which was best for my '00 Sable Duratech.

I changed oil a few weeks ago and got a 5 qt container of Penzoil 5W-30 for $5.94 and a Motorcraft FL820S filter for $2.97 at Walmart. So total cost of the changed was under $10. These guys recommend that filterhighly, too.

My previous car was a '96 Taurus with a Vulcan. I got it as I get all my cars, from a lease company. It had about 75,000 miles when I got it. I had the oil changed at a local place that used bulk Valvoline. That car ran great until I sold it with 147,000 miles and never burned a drop of oil. Also, got 29.5 mpg on the hiway when I sold it.

 

[HokieSES]

What oil to use is something that has been debated everywhere for years...If you were to stick with a name brand oil, i.e. Mobil, Havoline, Valvoline, etc. you should be fine. If you're looking to save even more money, some of the house brands are okay too - usually the parts counter people will be able to tell you who makes the house brand. For example, I believe that Mobil or one of the other big companies produces the generic brand oil sold at WalMart.

Switching from conventional to synthetic in an older, high mileage car should be done with caution. People will say that the synthetic will cause leaks, which is NOT true. The thing with synthetics is that if your engine has an oil leak and uses conventional oil, it will leak even more with synthetic simply because the properties of synthetic are such that it is in a simplified sense, "more slippery", which is one of the reasons why synthetic oil is far superior to conventional. If the engine doesn't have any major oil leaks, there isn't any reason not to switch, unless cost of the oil itself is an issue.

Which brand of synthetic to use is basically up to you. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of the name brands here either, Mobil 1, AMSOil, Castrol Syntec, whatever. I'm partial to Mobil 1, but that's my preference.

Just make sure to stick with the weight/viscosity of oil recommended in your owners manual, and have the API certification on the bottle/box (usually on the back)...