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Mobile1 Synthetic Oil Recommendation?

4K views 24 replies 10 participants last post by  cardude10 
#1 ·
Hello Guys,

Does anyone using one of these and which one would you recommended for MDX 2016 @ 90K Miles?
I am currently using Mobile1 Advanced Fuel Economy and change oil every 6500-7000K.

I am not sure if I need to jump ahead and use the Extended Performance or High Mileage? are they both the same?
 

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#2 ·
I had great results on 15K changes on Mobil 1 EP...
Annual Protection is even better so I switched to that keeping my yearly changes.
 
#4 ·
EP contains a greater amount of the normal additives, as it's rated for 15k miles. I use that, although I would never take it out to anywhere near 15k. If you really want to get scientific, consider sending, at oil change time, a sample of your oil to Blackstone Labs, and they will send you a breakdown as to how much of each additive is left in your oil. This lets you know if you should shorten or if you could lengthen, your oil change intervals. https://www.blackstone-labs.com
 
#5 ·
^ Mobil 1 EP can last longer, few guys on Acurazine are pushing it to 20K with no issues (Lab tested).. So 15K on it is no sweat, mobil 1 annual protection is rated for 20k which will probably allow it to reach 25k easily.

Using EP for normal dyno oil changes is completely overkill and a waste of oil.
 
#6 ·
I don't think I'm going to keep it to 15K to change the oil. I'll probably do every 10K is the most. Do you guys think I can mix and match? Like every cycle I use the High Mileage Oil (Blue) and next cycle I use the Ext Performance?
 
#7 ·
I use the Advanced Fuel Economy one and change it around when the MID tells me to with some variance if I have a big trip coming up, when I might end up changing it early. This amounts to roughly 7500-10K miles. I determined that it hits 0% life left at right around 10K miles or so if it's mostly freeway miles.

I think any of them would be fine as long as you're changing at the recommended intervals and any would be okay by Acura as long as they meet the requirements stated in the owner's manual. I don't see a point in trying to second guess the engineers in changing it at some artificial lower mileage point. I also see no point in trying to push the envelope and go extra long on miles beyond what the manufacturer states. But, I doubt that either of these practices will really make much of a difference for most engines and especially for how long most first buyers keep the vehicles.

I think the biggest difference in these is the 'marketing' thrown into these variants, maybe along with slight differences in additives just to try to justify them and convince people to buy them. I don't see a point to over-thinking this.
 
#8 ·
^ Your main issue is that you are already going against Acura engineers by not using OEM oil.. Those intervals are designed for OEM oil once you put a NON-OEM oil that oil change reminder becomes useless as its TUNED for OEM oil.

If I use a higher quality oil than OEM I expect it to out-perform it so I can raise my intervals accordingly.
 
#10 ·
Your main issue is that you are already going against Acura engineers by not using OEM oil.. Those intervals are designed for OEM oil once you put a NON-OEM oil that oil change reminder becomes useless as its TUNED for OEM oil.

If I use a higher quality oil than OEM I expect it to out-perform it so I can raise my intervals accordingly.
No, I'm not going against the Acura engineers because the spec doesn't specify 'OEM' (Acura) oil - it specifies the attributes of the oil which includes oil available from many brand names including the Mobile 1 I use.

For me it's not a big deal to change the oil at Acura's specified time (except once) and isn't really bothersome or costly. When I change the oil I generally do a tire rotation at the same time, inspect the brake pads, and give it a general look around to see if anything's leaking or has road damage. I do this myself in my driveway at a convenient time when I'm in the mood to do it.

I think it makes sense for most people to just follow the manufacturer's recommendations and not try to out-smart or second-guess them. The difference in cost is trivial. If there's ever a dispute regarding an engine issue that has any relation at all to oil (which I've never had) it's best to play it safe with the changes and oil specification.

Do I think you'll really have an issue going 15K between changes? I doubt it but then you could probably go substantially longer than that and not have an issue but for the trivial cost of oil changes it's not worth changing to an arbitrary mileage.

OEM oil - the only oil of the specified viscosity, 0W-20, (which I also dutifully stick with), I was able to find at auto parts stores when I first looked around 6 years ago was in full synthetic and I only found something other than that, a syn blend, at the Acura dealership. I decided to use the full syn, which is within the spec from Acura, and not the Acura branded blend. To your point of your oil being better than the OEM - you're stating that the full syn is better than the blend therefore the intervals s/b greater for what you use. You're probably right that the full syn is better than the blend but you may or may not be justified in concluding it warrants a longer interval. There's more to the interval than simply degradation since changing the oil also gets rid of any contaminants that might happen to be in it that aren't related to whether it's full syn or a blend or what marketing spin the Mobile 1 variant is.

Regardless, I really doubt you'll have an issue swapping at 15K, I don't think I'll have an issue swapping when the MID tells me to, and people who decide to swap every 7500 or 5000 or whatever miles probably won't have an issue either so we're all good.

The 'except once' - I hit 0% oil life left on the MID once on a coast to coast trip. I almost made it but missed it by 200 or so miles. I wasn't concerned at all about it and changed the oil within a week or so of getting home.
 
#11 ·
Luckily for us we dont have to guess. A quick oil analysis test will show if the interval you are using is too much or not using X oil..

For me Mobil 1 EP (Golden cap) at 15K it was barely breaking even versus the normal Mobil 1 (Silver cap) when NEW!. Since my car usually does less than 15K a year Mobil 1 EP allows me to swap the oil on a yearly basis with no issues what-so-ever according to blackstone labs, under my usage I could even push it to 20K if I wanted to. But moisture becomes an issue the longer the oil is used so 15k or a year is enough for me..

So doing the math that is 36 bucks a year in oil change using Mobil 1 EP including EP filter...
Vs. 58 bucks by going with 2x changes (MID RECOMMENDED) with Mobil 1 Silver Cap and two cheap filters.

Now with Mobil 1 "Annual Protection" there is no guessing Mobil 1 is literally telling you that you can run a full year or 20k with that oil and even guarantees it.
 
#12 ·
Lol, there is no OEM Honda/Acura oil. Honda does not produce motor or any oil products. They buy from whoever gets them a better contract deal. Their current oil produces is (I believe) Conoco/Philips which isn't any better than whatever other brand of oil you can buy in the store. For naturally aspirated engines there is practically no difference in what brand of oil you use, as long as it's the right weight.
 
#13 ·
there is no OEM Honda/Acura oil
There's OEM Honda/Acura 'branded' oil. I assume they have multiple vendors supplying it since that's the smart way to produce anything.

While there may not be much difference between brands within a 'type' of oil, there are different types, which clearly have differences - dino, dino/syn blend, full syn. When it comes to real major differences between the variants of Mobile 1 - I'm skeptical and think it's largely marketing hype. Maybe Skirmich will volunteer to do methodical oil analysis testing using each of the variants to see if there's anything noticeable outside of a margin of error and whether that difference actually matters or not. It'd actually be interesting to know.

To your point - I started purchasing Chevron Supreme 10w-30 dino oil many years ago that I've used in other vehicles. The main reason I chose it was because Costco had it at a good price and it was a name brand. I've stuck with it since then. I've put hundreds of thousands of mikes on each of multiple vehicles I've used it in and I've never had an issue in the engines due to oil and these are cars/engines that I kept for over 200K miles. I probably would've had the same result if I'd have used any of a number of vendors for the oil.
 
#14 ·
Man that Chevron supreme stuff is pretty darn good! For a daily driver is pretty much all you need but bear in mind is known to evaporate (thus leave residue) under hard use. So I would follow the MID change on point with that oil.. I use that oil for flushes since its cheap and good.
 
#15 ·
I would follow the MID change on point with that oil..
I don't use the Chevron dino oil in the MDX, in which I use Mobile 1, but I still use it in my 50+ y/o cars (one of which is my daily driver for the last 35+ years) and used it in my Durango that I kept to 235K miles and used it in an Exploder and Cherokee before that, each with 100K+ miles on them - and never an oil issue in any of the vehicles (other than the Durango eventually using about a qt every 1K miles, probably due to old hardened leaky valve stem seals and the like), but it still ran great.
 
#16 ·
I've been using Mobil 1 EP (gold cap/bottle) for years and am currently checking out Pennzoil Ultra Plat oil. Project Farm (look up on youtube) did some excellent testing which reaffirmed some of my results. I've found M1 to be heavily contaminated by 8-9K miles with smaller particles despite using the M1 filter or OEM Honda filters. Replacing the filter helps but the particulate count jumps back up after 3-4K mile duration. I checked it at 8K, then again at 10K and 12K and found that I'd need a really good filter to keep the oil clean until 15K miles with no filter change, or to change the filter out at the halfway mark. The oil still has good lubricating properties so no issues with that!
 
#19 ·
Hello Guys,

Does anyone using one of these and which one would you recommended for MDX 2016 @ 90K Miles?
I am currently using Mobile1 Advanced Fuel Economy and change oil every 6500-7000K.

I am not sure if I need to jump ahead and use the Extended Performance or High Mileage? are they both the same?
I have been using the standard Mobile 1 synthetic for 180K miles on my 08 MDX and still going strong. This vehicle has seen 118 deg in the deserts and -30 in Mn. I would not pay extra for the other flavors.
 
#21 ·
I think i'm going to change the oil around 10K and the price isn't that bad.
Why make up some artificial mileage figure rather than just do what the manufacturer recommends as noted in the owner manual and change it according to the MID? Depending on how you drive it may end up close to 10K (it usually does for me but I do some long coast to coast trips of many freeway miles) but I change it according to the MID. It's a function/feature/capability Acura built in so I think it makes sense to use it rather than second guessing them, regardless of the oil used. No one here knows what criteria Acura used to specify when to change the oil.
 
#22 ·
Better yet, Do that 10K change and send a sample to black stone labs to make sure you are not over extending the interval.. That way you can be scientifically certain you are not damaging your engine!
 
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