Valvoline MaxLife in a "low mileage" car?

I have a 91 Civic with 165,000 miles.. I've been using Valvoline MaxLife in
it ever since I had heard about it (at around 155k) and it seems to be
helping.

I also have a 96 Civic with about 25,000 miles.

Would it hurt the 96's engine to use MaxLife in it? Or, would the fact that
it's almost 8 years old and only has 25k miles possibly help it?

My main concern is whether or not it would hurt it.. Using one oil for both
cars would be convenient for me. But I won't do it if it'd have a negative
effect on the car.

 

Should be no problem. Valvoline says it's OK for new car engines, and
have the API seal on the label (they didn't for their original MaxLife).

That being said, does anyone know if they increase seal-swell
ingredients, or just claim to "recondition" seals? If it's the latter
couldn't it possibly cause premature wear of the main seal?

 

Hmm, well.. Would another type of oil be better? Would using a synthetic
blend or synthetic give me better performance? I realized I'm not really
gonna be buying this stuff in bulk, so there's no reason to really have
both cars on the same oil. Especially if they have different needs.

 

Well - I remember something about the "seal-swell" stuff when the
discussion was about synthetic oils. Someone asked why oils don't
just contain more seal-swell ingredients to keep the seals from
leaking. The answer was that too much might cause the the main
oil seal to wear out preamturely from friction. I don't know if
anyone has enough experience with MaxLife or similar oils to have
experienced any problems. It costs about as much as some high
quality synthetic blends.

If I recall - someone once indicated that Valvoline MaxLife used
Type III base oil, which is the kind Castrol sells (or once did)
as Syntec. Long story, and it involved some sort of lawsuit.

You said '96 Civic, so I don't think they Honda to 5W-20 then.
Since I'm on the subject, I've seen far more 5W-20 motor oil from
nearly all brands. Some are synthetic or semi-synthetic. Mobil
has their 0W-20, which I think the weight for the Honda hybrids,
and which Mobil recommends for 5W-20 applications.

 

I'm not sure I understand this sentence.. Did you use Honda as a verb on
accident or on purpose? If on purpose, then I definitely don't understand
this sentence.

 

|y_p_w <> decided to join the conversation on 09 Feb 2004
|with message |
|> Should be no problem. Valvoline says it's OK for new car engines, and
|> have the API seal on the label (they didn't for their original MaxLife).
|
|Hmm, well.. Would another type of oil be better? Would using a synthetic
|blend or synthetic give me better performance? I realized I'm not really
|gonna be buying this stuff in bulk, so there's no reason to really have
|both cars on the same oil. Especially if they have different needs.

I think Max-Life is a synthetic blend, but I can't find the docs on it right
now. Also, it has the better wear-protection additive that is taken out of the
mainline oils now.
Rex in Fort Worth

 

Sorry. It was bad proofreading as I was in a hurry to get to work in
the morning. Let me rephrase and perhaps expand what I was getting at.

You said your "newer" car was a '96 Civic. That was back before Honda
moved its North American recommendations to 5W-20 motor oil ('98?). If
5W-20 was recommended, then MaxLife might not be a good choice, as it
doesn't come in 5W-20 weight. The rest of my post was just to state
that there are 5W-20 synthetic/semi-synthetic oils.

Also - using MaxLife wouldn't have caused any warranty issues, but
your car is likely out of warranty anyways. BTW - how the heck to
you have an 8 year old car with only 25K miles on it? I had that
much mileage on my '95 Integra GS-R in the first year. Which reminds
me - I could imagine that acids in the oil might affect the shape of
the oil seals regardless of mileage. If it's leaking, then MaxLife
or a similar oil might help.

 

It will not hurt your car at all. If you want to learn about oils, check
out the forums at www.bobistheoilguy.com.

 

(y_p_w) decided to join the conversation on 10 Feb 2004
with message

I'm the 2nd owner, my grandfather (turned 89 this past July) being the
first.

He bought it brand new.. When I got it (this past July) it had 15.5k
miles on it

Basically, my grandfather is not mentally fit to drive any more.. and I
needed a 2nd car so I could work more than part time (since i had to have
a flexible enough schedule to pick up / drop off my wife) .. So, it
worked out for both of us.

The car doesn't leak oil amazingly though.. But I figured because of the
car's age and lack of use in it's first 7 years.. MaxLife might be the
best thing for it.


(A little side note about Louisiana's OMV.. His license was up for
renewal.. and the part of the family (grandmother and uncle) that think
he's still able to drive convinced him to get it renewed instead of
getting an ID.. Amazingly he passed the vision test.. His words were
something to the effect of "I couldn't read it, so I just mumbled a few
numbers. I could've been legally blind and would've passed" .. Luckily,
he realizes he can't drive anymore though, so doesn't)

 

Learning.. yes.. excellent.. Thank you.

"Innnnnput! Need innnnput!" - Short Circuit

 

I wouldn't put any additive in my oil. If you need "something more",
then an engineered solution such as MaxLife is the way to go. On the
other hand, there is nothing about a car with low mileage, standing
alone, to suggest that you need to use this stuff. Which is more
expensive after all.

Don't swell up the seals unless there is a specific problem that you
are trying to cure. Once you swell up the seals, you may have a
specific problem that you are _then_ trying to cure.

I definitely don't understand the suggestion from others to check out
www.bobistheoilguy.com. The site is an advertisement for oil
analysis, backed up with a couple of air filter tests that (probably)
come to the right conclusions yet use pretty abysmal science to back
it.

JM

 

Sorry, I should have referenced the link to the discussion forums from that
site.

The discussion forums are at:

http://theoildrop.server101.com/cgi/ultimatebb.cgi

It is the internet, so there is a wide range of skill and knowledge
represented there, but with some time and effort one can learn a great deal,
especially by reading the used oil analysis and virgin oil analysis reports
where real data is presented.

John