New Protege, question about oil.
 

Hello all-

My first post! Yesterday I took delivery of a 2003 Laser Blue Protege ES! I love it!

My first question for the community: What type/brands of oil are you putting in your Proteges? I have the 2.0L engine, and although the manual recommends 10W-30 conventional oil, I'm assuming some of you are using semi or full-synthetics? Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!

I used to use Royal Purple 10w-30, but got tired of spending $40+ per oil change... I now just use Valvoline 10w-30 conventional. I never noticed any kind of performance/mileage gain from using synthetic. Also used 5w-30 a couple times in the colder months.

Congrats on the purchase, BTW. Welcome to the club and please stick around. This board is a little slow sometimes, but its a great group.

I recomend full synth if you live in a cold area.

REgular oil works fine. But synth offers protection when the cars not heated up. Seriously I just get in a go sometimes and dont want to have to worry about protection. Besides mobil one is pretty cheap.

I've been using Mobile1 in my Protege5 since it was new. :)

Congrats on a great handling little car!

I use 5w30 dino. Pennzoil, Castrol or Valvoline.

Re:
 

Thanks for the input, guys. And you're right, it handles like nobody's business. The test-drive was exhilartating!

Welcome!
Sign up for the intake raffle if you haven't already.

If you want more information than you can ever use about oil and oil filters, go to the BOBISTHEOILGUY site.

The consensus there seems to be that if you change oil every 5,000 miles, any name brand conventional oil is just fine. More often than every 5,000 miles makes you a "recreational" oil changer. Havoline dino is the preferred conventional for many. Synthetics and semi-syn.s are great for extended oil change intervals and for extreme service ... more than just spirited driving and an occasional auto-x.

Preferred filters are Wix, Purolator (especially PureOne), NAPA Gold ... pretty much anything OTHER THAN the standard Fram (the "orange can of doom").

You can use a 626 V6 filter if you want a larger filter.