PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

pawoSD · #1 08-28-2006, 11:39 PM

I am coming up on my next oil change in a week or so, and I was wondering if I should switch from my have-always-used-year-round Shell Rotella-T dino 15w40 oil to a lighter synthetic for the winter time. During the summer I drive thousands of miles a month and 95% of it is freeway, so the Rotella is great for that, but in the winter I am only going to my job and school, both which are 5ish miles away, so its mostly city driving and fairly short trips. Cold Starts become a factor, since it gets down into the single digits and below here quite often in the winter.

I usually drive less than 5-6k miles in the entire "cold/school season", so I was thinking I'd use a better oil for the harsher winter/short trips time of year.

My ideal winter oil: Mobil1 5w40 Synthetic Turbodiesel oil + a dealer MB filter

My car has been running on dino Rotella-T and Hengst Filters up to this point, and has never seen synthetic before, it currently doesn't leak much if anything (no spots on ground usually or anything) and essentially none is lost/burned between 3k oil changes.

So my main question is: Should I switch to the synthetic Mobil1 for the winter season (about two oil changes worth) to benefit from better engine protection and cold starting, or should I just keep on truckin' with my dino Rotella like I've been doing the past 3 years...? I don't want any Oil Wars here, I named the two oils I am open to using, I simply want to know if it'd be a good idea to use the lighter synthetic stuff in the cold months.

Thanks.