I've been in the various discount stores and auto parts stores only to notice that the regular mineral motor oil versions are going the way of the dodo bird.

80 to 90 % of the products out there are 'high mileage', 'synthetic blends', or 'full synthetic.' Only a small amount of house brands still offer non synthetics.

I was under the impression that I needed to use non synthetics because the rotary motor burned a bit of oil as a normal part of operation. And using a synthetic would cause us problems down the road.

Is my impression wrong?

If not, what will we do when there are only synthetics out there?

 

hey OlatheRX8,
Yeah, the synthetic vs non-synthetic argument has been beaten to death but you do bring up an interesting point which is lots of oils are now moving towards synthetic blends.

One of the reasons people suggest using standard oil is for cost reasons. Our car's engine burns oil and regular 3k oil change intervals are pretty important so why waste money putting in synthetic and then having to potentially top off (more $$) in between oil changes. That's one of the reasons most people used standard oil for naturally aspirated RX-8's.

my advice: just keep using whatever you were using before.
I've been using traditional Castrol GTX for 15+ years with no issues. If that stuff goes away I might just move to a blend if needed.

honestly, don't over think it too much as long as you're doing regular oil changes and checking the level from time to time.

 

Thanks Jedi54.

My normally used original conventional mineral blend is no longer available on the store shelves. I get to search for a replacement. If it is indeed okay to use blends or full synthetics in the 8's engine then I have a lot more options to choose from. I'll search synthetics in the forums to get up to speed. I haven't thought of different oils for the 8 for many years. I find now things have changed and I get to do something different.