Thoughts on synthetic oil & Royal Purple

I made the switch to synthetic oil yesterday and it was a little pricey. I got the oil change at Pep Boys which was priced at $69, but needed an extra quart for the Tacoma, so total was 85, but out the door for 75 with military discount. My buddy swore by Royal Purple so that is what I had put in, is this switch worth the money, and is Royal Purple the answer?

 

A lot of people swear by Royal Purple, and I run it in my rear diff, but for my motor I run Mobil 1. A little cheaper and in a stock Toyota motor I think it's more than sufficient.

 

unless you're racing, royal purple is a little overkill imo. and it is deffinately too expensive to pay someone to change your oil. our trucks are some of the easiest in the world to change oil on (location of the oil filter, and clearance to crawl under). if you do it yourself, you can get your oil changed using synthetic for about $35 and 15 minutes of your time.

 

That is what I was going to get but like I said my buddy was saying if I didn't feel the difference he would pay for my next oil change. Haven't noticed any difference thus far, but we'll see in the long run.

 

Yeah I thought about that today, but next time I will prolly do it myself, just wanted it done professionally the first time.

 

Please search the forums. This has been beat to death.

For brevity's sake:

1) Any quality (brand name) synthetic will do fine.
2) Regular oil changes are more important than synthetic/dino.
3) Use a quality filter (the OEM filters from Toyota are excellent), which should be changed as regularly as the oil.

There. Done.


FWIW, I run RP in my V6 at the moment and will be moving to RP in the diffs/t-case when the time comes to change (mobil 1 in the driveline right now).

 

I could use the search engine, but wanted to include my own personal experience, thanks for the info though.

 

I am the same way, if it's overkill protection then that's right up my alley. I got RP in the engine,trans and diff. I used Mobil-1 at first in my truck, then tried out RP in the engine and haven't looked back. Mobil-1 is great oil, I use it in the rest of my family's cars. Pep Boys has had that deal goin on for a while now and I'm lovin it.

 

I've seen some reports on Bob's in the past that Royal Purple isn't all it's made out to be. Castrol GTX Syntec and Mobile 1 performed as well if not better over longer durations for protection. As stated above though, any synthetic beats dyno oil for protection. At 5k intervols, either will work pretty well but I've always been on the 3k dyno mark, or 5k synthetic. Either is still overkill. $75 in parts is way to expensive, save some cash and get Castrol GTX Syntec or Mobile 1 quite a bit cheaper in the future. Also as mentioned, quality filters are where it's at. For once, dealer filters are excellent, though I still run K&N myself (always have, always will).

 

There are some interesting studies, actual si-yun-tiffik studies, on most of these oils, and the Royal Purple did not seem to fare too well, IIRC. the Amsoil and Mobile 1 did. And know I am hoping that I'm not confusing the motor oil and the gear oil studies....

If you are a Costco member, you may be able to find it for, uh, I think it was about $35/case (six bottles). The OEM filters are about $6, which is about half of a Mobile 1 or K&N filter at Autozone ($13). The filters have been pretty rigorously studies too.

What I don't undertand is that Mobile 1 has been proven to last 10K miles (one of the major selling points of synthetics, higher cost, but last longer), but lots of people seem to like to throw synthetics away at 3K miles. I guess they are rich, own Exxon Mobile stock, and like to waste perfectly good oil. I can see changing only the filter at 5k, but not the oil.

I know that when I put in Mobile 1 the first time, my truck gained like 500 hp, I got about 73 mpg, and all the hot chicks in my neighborhood suddenly wanted a ride. Amazing stuff.

 

All the whining I've seen over there has to do with RP 5w-30 shearing to 5w-20 at about 5000mi. Wear metals are always super low though, so I really couldn't care less about oil weight shearing down. A lower viscosity oil providing good wear protection just means better mileage.

 

This is some great information, I havent felt a difference yet in the truck, but we'll see how the mpg goes. I'm installing an Injen CAI hopefully sometime next week, but I may go to Mobile 1 in the future.

 

I used royal purpler at 3k - 6k miles on my truck, then I switched to mobile 1. I'm at 9K and the mobil one feels better to me.

 

I used RP w/a k&n filter the first 3 oil changes than I switched to Mobil one and started using OEM filters. When it was time to change the Rear diff oil I went w/amsoil. If you need help changeing your oil use the link at the bottom. BTW thank you for your service.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/technical-chat/11201-ultimate-oil-change-thread.html#post124480

 

Thanks, I'm gonna do my own oil changes, it is way too expensive to take it to the shop.

 

A good buddy of mine wrenches at Lexus and they use Catrol and I use the new CASTROL EDGE. My last Toyota truck before someone wanted it more then me took it had 398k on it and never had the engine open for any reason, I use it in my sons race bike too. I too use the K&N oil filters and seems to love it, my Taco tells me so all the time?

 

RP is way over-priced for what you get.

Lots of good synthetics you can pick up and get the same 5k protection for around $30. If you watch for sales/rebates, you can get them at even better prices. Right now I'm using some PP that I got for $1 a quart after rebate.

 

I agree. If I was going to use an oil that cost $8-$10 a quart, it would be Red Line. Since I don't heat up my oil by towing a trailer or having a turbo, I'll stick with my syns that I get on sale.

 

I'm starting to feel bad about my purchase, next time Ill do some more research, but I think I'm going to switch to Mobil 1 synthetic

 

Breezy, don't feel too bad about it. You certainly could have used a worse oil

Here's a link to several diff posts on BITOG about RP oil, lots of info there if you want to read it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images