How Oil Can Protect the Environment: Changing to Synthetic Oil

For most older cars in good condition with less than 60,000 miles, you can usually drain out the dinosaur oil and put in synthetic––and a new oil filter, of course––without any special precautions. Most oil manufacturers suggest changing the oil and filter again after a couple of thousand miles, because synthetic can loosen up some of the deposits left behind by petroleum oil. For high-mileage engines that were run on petroleum oil and have been poorly maintained, you’ll probably need to shorten the next two or three oil-change intervals.

For new engines, or rebuilt ones, it’s best to run petroleum oil for the first 1500 miles or so before switching to synthetic. This gives the rings and other engine parts time to bed in properly, something that’s harder to do with synthetic oil. After the 1500-mile mark a new engine will be as ready as it’ll ever be for synthetic. read more