Switch to synthetic oil?

[Bender]

my suggestion would be to take your own mobile one with you - a case is like 25 bucks at autozone. def would be less than they would charge you for synthetic and you know you are getting the good stuff. and yes, 7500 is too much. Bargain with them and tell them since you are supplying oil you want one every 5k. Its a car dealership, they were born to bargain.

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[nicolaselias]

i agree on the mobil (NO E) 1 ... Cheapest place is usually at Wallymart ($22 for 5qt's) ...

See if they will be willing to do it for you... That said, dealerships and all oil change places as a matter of fact charge ridiculous amounts for synth, such as 3x or 4x even the price of a regular oil change..

[hammer1234]

Originally Posted by peterjax

Thank you all for the great information!

Looks like I will be switching to synthetic, that seems to be the consensus.

My 2009 came with 5 years/60k miles maintenance from Volvo. Oil changes only include conventional oil, however, the service manager says that I can upgrade to synthetic buy only paying the additional oil cost. They will likely milk me for it though. As well, I bet that they use Castrol Syntec.

Volvo will only cover an oil change every 7,500 miles under this included maintenance. I'll have to think about slipping another one in at the middle of the interval. It seems that some posters think this is a good idea, others think it may be unnecessary. Decisions decisions.

Thanks again everyone!

Same situation here on my 2009 S40, I had the oil changed at my independent mechanic with synthetic at about 4K. Would like to stick with the 7500 mile intervals if possible...the synthetic oil cost was about twice as much as conventional which made for an expensive oil change.

Good thing about getting the change done was that the mechanic identified a problem (leaking angle gear) which I then got fixed at the dealer.

Does it really matter which brand of oil?

Regarding what others say about bringing your own oil...I can certainly ask at the time of my 7500 service but would dealers really be OK with this?

[Bender]

yes - brand definitely matters.

Mobile one or Castrol Synthetic German ONLY

If your dealer is not ok with this then you need to find a new dealer.

[Somthngfrce]

Originally Posted by hammer1234

Does it really matter which brand of oil?
Regarding what others say about bringing your own oil...I can certainly ask at the time of my 7500 service but would dealers really be OK with this?

Brand does matter, but do your homework... I used Castrol Synthec for the longest time and just now changed to Lucas Oil. Seems to be good and the shop I go to charges like very little.. As far as taking your own oil to a shop. You certainly can do that but some dealers don't like doing that ONLY for liability reasons. I used to work at one and we didn't do that because we had a client that had engine problems and when it was time with warranty work it was declined. We blamed it on her interval of oil changes being too long. She then tried blaming it on us and we threw it back at her. Long story short, we ended up eating that service ticket but decided "lialbility wise" not to do oil changes with peoples own oil........I would say, shop around different shop and she whom has what and at what price.. If the price of the oil change is a big issue to you then maybe you learn to wrench your oil change. It's def. Not hard to do. Personally I don't like to deal with it and just have it done....Good Luck!