First, go full synthetic. Tests prove it doesn’t lose its viscosity over time. Second, there is no need to do “multiple oil changes” to switch over. Whoever told you that is an idiot. Third, you can increase your oil change interval from every 3000 miles to every 6000 miles, cutting your costs to the approximate equivalent of dino oil. Just make sure you buy a “high capacity” oil filter.
I use Mobil 1 and their associates high-cap filter. The price to me is about $50 for the oil and filter at each change. But again, I change at 6000 miles.
Concur - use Mobil1 here, also - been using it for over a couple of decades, IIRC. 6000K between changes. However, if you have a nose that is sensitive enough and can observe the color on the stick is not too black (dark brown), and can tell what you are feeling when you use your bare fingers to wipe some oil from the stick and rub carefully between your fingers - AND you are driving mostly highway miles, you can quite easily stretch the Mobil1 change interval out to ~10K miles.
As mentioned, the synthetic motor oils can cause valve cover seals, or oil pan seals, or rear main seal gaskets around rear pan area, etc., to drip
minor amounts of oil - not enough to leave a puddle, assuming those gaskets were in reasonably good shape to begin with - have several Mobil1 engines running in vehicles around the place that have 300K +/- miles, and none of them burn or leak any oil (typically getting 3.5-4.5K miles before adding a quart) - over the years, have had a couple of these Mobil1 engines apart, and they are clean, inside - no black goo or baked-on carbon deposits.
No worry if you decide to change from a dino oil to a full synthetic - the only fly in the ointment used to have to do with engines, when new, back 20+ years ago - it was recommended that the motor be broken in on regular oil for the first ~50K, THEN switch to synthetic - seems that using a synthetic in some of the 1990+-era new engines would not allow the piston rings to properly break-in/seat to the cylinder walls because the synthetic oil was simply too slippery - it was recommended to break in these older motors with a regular oil, which would properly "wear" the rings to a perfect matched fit in the cylinders - THEN slick it up with a full synthetic after the 50K break-in period. I have pulled apart engines with 120K+ and am still able to see light cylinder cross-hatch hone marks in the motors that have been running a full synthetic.
"Today's" modern motors (over the last, say, 15 years) are much "tighter" precision-fit assemblies, using the latest in material sciences on ring, piston, cylinder and bearing surfaces, and many come from the factory running a full synthetic.
Mobil1 is a full synthetic, and was one of the first to market back in the early 1990s, IIRC.
ETA - IMPORTANT NOTE - due to more recent EPA regs, ALL of the oil manufacturers have had to REDUCE the amount of zinc in their oils - zinc is a additive that is able to significantly reduce metal wear when two metal surfaces are rubbing together under mechanical pressure - both the synthetic and regular oil brands - across the board. This has caused a wear issue to develop in SOME older motors using flat-tappet valve lifters - particularly in performance motors, but can potentially affect all older-skool flat-tappet valve lifter motors - Fords, GM, Chryslers - any of the older motors using push-rod valve accutation are potentially at risk for premature flat-tappet valve lifter failure using any of today's motor oils - this is a dicey area of concern, as there are other mitigating mechanical circumstances involved in this issue, that are technical, that play into this warning - some of the pushrod motors don't really have a problem with the new low-zinc motor oils - while others can exhibit much faster wearing of the tappet surfaces - the BEST way to handle this is to either use a select few of the custom oils that are on the market, blended with the old zinc formulas/amounts (typically available at the speed shops or online) OR add a bottle of a zinc enhancer to any of the new oils when changing oil in the older motors.
intothegoodnight
