catinmoon wrote:Realize it's been a while since this postk but want to hear more about the synthetic oil. I have a manual trans 2006 Legacy Wagon (last year they made the plain wagon, now all are the outback version). Would this be a good oil for this vehicle? Or any other synthetic oil? They always try to sell me when I get the oil changed, but I wasn't sure if it was useful, such as they try to sell you special air for your tires. I have approx. 140K on the vehicle. I have never towed with it and am hesitant since it is a 4 cylinder and I'm not sure how it would do. I used to use my friend's Tacoma (which was my Tacoma). Also 4 cyl and underpowered but got the job done. Thanks for any insights on the oil.
Stephanie
HandsOnHenry wrote:When shopping for our trailer the only tow vehicle we had at that time was our 2012 Outback 3.6R. We only put a little over 1000 miles on the trailer behind our Subaru. It worked decent, you definitely knew it was there, but the biggest hit was in the gas mileage. For anyone towing with a Subaru you might look into Rotella T6 5-40 synthetic oil, it has helped our car to have noticeably smoother power delivery along with a significant increase in fuel economy. Anyone interested in doing some research will find a lot of good info at Bobistheoilguy.com. We continue to use this oil even though we no longer tow with the car.
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That oil would be good for your car if 5w40 is what is reccomended. Synthetic oil is fine for high milage vehicles and 140k isnt that high. The leaking seals thing is a past problem. Synthetic can/does clean gunk and buildup which may be sealing your worn out seals though. But at 140k you shouldnt have worn out seals.
Towing with a 4 cylinder is fine, its ok to make an engine work, however some dont like to. I dont know enough about your car but it seems to be a popular car to tow with.
I have 2 different cars, a 15yr old car with 180k and a 115hp engine. Also a 24yr old car with almost 300k and a 60hp engine. The older car will pull a 5x5x8 covered u-haul trailer all day and night up big hills without an issue. The newer more powerful one overheated coolant and oil and blew the head gasket after a 50km drive on flat ground. Synthetic oil in it and it was well maintained. The older car has the cheapest oil and was poorly maintained.
Just the way it is, but like i said, it looks like your subaru is fairly popular for towing so it should work well.
My opinion on oil is as follows: either buy the cheapest conventional oil and do the oil changes the manufacturer tells you to or buy a good/name brand synthetic oil and go 2 or 3 times the distance on an oil change. Towing or racing shortens oil change intervals for both oil types.
Rotella T6 is a very good synthetic, easy to find. Other good options are mobil 1, amsoil, royal purple. For the price difference there is no reason to use anything else or to buy into the semi synthetic scam.
Pennzoil platinum is supposed to be a good synthetic but i switched to it from amsoil and it doesnt seem to be doing well. Gets way hotter, pressure is higher, discoulered quickly and is burning the oil faster than with the amsoil (0.5qt over 10k miles compared to none).
If you go longer on the oil change you need a good filter and may need to change it once without changing the oil.
With the synthetic causing leaking seals/ burning oil thing- my newer car with 180k miles, it had conventional its whole life until i switched to synthetic 23k miles ago. Did 13k on the first oil change and 10k into this one so far. Its burned 0.5quarts in that time, all in this last 10k on the pennzoil. It may have to do with my head gasket still being blown and everything running hotter though.
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