The private dealer that I bought this from said they put conventional in when they changed it last. I've established that 5w30 is what I'm going to put in the truck but I'm unsure if I want to do what this guy said he did or meet it half way with the blend. I don't want to **** up the seals and all that

 

I have the same truck and year you have and I'm switching all the oil over to valvoline synth power but I just have 46,9xx miles on,but even if you have more miles on I still would change over.

 

i have almost 96k on it. why the change over? any specific reason?

 

in a nutshell........synthetic lubricants turn off the "wear switch".
You can buy any brand but AMSOIL website has most information.

 

what is a wear switch

 

Conventional oil (dino oil) and blends part dino and part syn. will breakdown and "coke" inside your engine. that black hard stuff you see on the the inside of your oil cap or inside the engine. This is because the temperature that dino oil vapors at is a lot lower than syn. oil.
Ester based syn. oil has better resistance to heat and doesn't breakdown like dino oil does, therefore it protects your engine from wear a whole lot better "the wear switch".
I have seen engines go 400,000 miles with little or no wear of the bearing, journals, valve guides etc.
It is a myth that switching from dino oil to syn. oil will cause a high mileage engine to leak. If anything the syn. oil will help your old engine seals last longer and will help keep your internal engine cleaner.

 

I don't have your motor but my engine hated the blend. Truck ran a little rough for some reason. No one else would probably notice but I do since I drive it all the time. I wouldn't do it again.

 

valvoline makes a maxlife full synthetic as well which has soem additives to help seals n such and prevent leaking. there are other high mileage full syns too though.

 

I've been running syn. oils now for over twenty years and never bought into the name brand hype.
For years i ran Pep boys house brand and now run Wallymarts proline syn. Even with the extra added heat of a turbo I have put over 300,000 miles on a small 1.8 liter 4 cylinder Mazda motor hitting it's 8700 rpm redline consistently. Even after 200,000 miles when torn down to refresh the cylinders the crosshatching was still there and no cylinder ridge. Only replaced the seals didn't even tear into the head this motor has 317,000 miles on it now and runs as good and strong as it did new. "Note this motor does have a pre-lube system on it"
The only time I would use dino oil is to break a motor in and seat the rings after that syn. only.

 

ok I think you guys sold me on the synthetic now. i was just worried that the sudden change in oil at 96k miles would be to drastic for the motor. one of the main selling points of doing synthetic is that I wont have to change it as often because now I have 2 vehicles. Ok so what brand should I buy now. 5w-30 but again what brand? is AMSOIL really worth it? or should I just stick with motorcraft?

 

Personally what ever is cheapest, they're all good like I said I run wally mart proline I know Wally doesn't make oil so I am sure it is a name brand in a different bottle. When Pepboys had a cheap house brand on the label in small print it said bottled by valvoline so I am sure it was a valvoline brand just a whole lot cheaper. Wallys is about 18.00 for five quarts so a little more than three dollars a quart.

 

for $10 more I got five quarts of mobil1 full synthetic and a filter.