[anthonysmith93]

So my wife, gullible little thing, stopped by midas at my request to get a normal oil change. They of course told her "oh no no, you need this super fully synthetic diamond version ultra pristine oil for your car." yadda yadda. She totally bit and ended up walking out of there with a $100 oil change.


This was probably about 6-8 months ago. Now the "change oil soon" light has come on again. I was always told that you could go much longer, even up to a year, with fully synthetic (assuming they actually even gave her the oil she paid for).


My question is, does the "change oil" light actually calculate for the difference of synthetics and regular oil? Or is it just using the same calculation of rotations and all as it would for regular oil?
I was about the put in mobil 1 extended performance (15000 miles / 1 year), but afraid the change oil light will come on every 6 months.

It does not calculate based on the type of oil, but if it says "change oil soon" you're at least at 10,000 miles on that oil and definitely need it changed, synthetic or not the filter is going to be clogged completely soon and not properly doing it's job. These cars are very sensitive to the type of oil used (if it's the turbo model) and synthetic is better for it, so midas wasn't wrong, but it was definitely too expensive.

 

[anthonysmith93]

The car has no clue what oil you put in it at all. It's based off miles and driving conditions if you were using the semi synthetic dealer oil. Unknowing what oil is in the car, I wouldn't go too far past 7000 on the synthetic. What year is your Cruze and has it had a ECU Recall done? That can change when the Oil Change message comes up.

As for Mobil 1, if you insist on that brand just use the original silver top and skip the extended protection. Still 7000-8000 recommendation for the silver top. Quite a few of us is using AMSOIL Signature Series and run it for 10,000-14,000 miles (after used oil analysis is taken). I had an oil change in January and have my next one scheduled middle of the month. If I kept using Mobil 1, I would have been 3 changes in by now.




Mine comes on at 8000 for my driving habits. Been on for about 3 months now.

Mine must last an obscenely long time then, I drive the **** out of my car (always) and it takes forever for my percentage to go down lol

 

[anthonysmith93]

I have some idle time in there to account for it. 30 degrees and a 2 month old, I may leave the car running when I go grab the kids from their moms or daycare. 11-12 is different from the rest of us unless they had the ECU recall done on the auto equipt cars.

Didn't the 11-12 cruzes have that ECU update to make the OLM a little more accurate by shortening the lifespan on it? If so and he doesn't have that update, it could be that they are quite possibly way over on oil life (because you know Midas probably used a basic synth oil, and not AMSOIL, and NO shop ever uses a synthetic filter, it's always a basic filter)

 

[anthonysmith93]

Thanks for all the quick replies guys. Honestly I have no clue about the ECU update. I inherited the car last year. As the previous owner is not with us, I can't find out if it was done... though knowing him, it probably wasn't.

The car was only driven probably about 6000 miles at most. I hear you about the filter though. I was going to buy a synthetic filter and fully synth oil, a combo that advertises one year, and give that a shot.

I guess my big question is, if after I change it this time, should I expect the warning light to change oil to come back on again after another 5k miles or so? Or will it measure differences with the fully synth oil and extend the time before warning lights?

Depending on the way the car is driven, it'll depend how long it takes for the light to come back on. It doesn't know any difference based on what type of oil you use. If it's driven a lot and you prefer less oil changes, Amsoil Super Synthetic oil is the only oil that's actually good to run out to 15,000 miles. Mobil 1 advertises it can go for about as long, but by then it's fairly degraded and not really keeping things clean anymore when Amsoil still is and isn't worn out yet.