Motor Oil

A couple of days ago I filled out an online survey about motor oil. Completing that survey got me to thinking. Back when I was growing up I spent most of my free time at Miller's Garage. There were no gas pumps or grease rack at Miller's Garage, but we used a good bit of motor oil. A great deal of it was put into repaired vehicles or vehicles that came in and needed a quart added. Of course we did some oil changes as well, particularly for customers who came in to have some repair made and wanted their oil changed while the vehicle was in the shop. The oil of choice at Miller's Garage was RPM. I think it was a Standard Oil product. My daddy swore by it. He said it left the inside of engines nearly clean enough to eat off of. Naturally when I got my first vehicle I started using RPM. Some where during the years, RPM disappeared. I think it was replaced by some similiar Chevron branded product. I changed vehicles and although I had been raised to use the same type of oil in a vehicle and not be swapping brands, I was not too excited about one brand versus another. Over the years I've used Quaker State, Valvoline, Pennzoil and lord knows how many others.

Then in the mid 1990's I bought a used Astro van from my friend Wendell Pate. He and his family had bought it new and had named it "ole blue." It was like a family member and I think they almost cried when they sold it to me. One of the things that Wendell told me was that it had always had Mobil One synthetic oil in it. Now synthetic oil was a bit more pricey than what I was used to running, but that little voice in the back of my head told me to not be changing brands in midstream, so I opted to continue to use Mobil One synthetic in ole blue. The van had a lot of miles on it but the engine always purred like a kitten and never used any oil. I was impressed. So much so that when, in 1999, I bought a new Nissan Frontier pickup, I started using Mobil One synthetic in it. That was 13 year and 218,000 miles ago and the little Nissan still runs smooth and does not use any oil between changes. Who knows, I might have used reclaimed motor oil or re-refined oil as they called it at Miller's Garage and the Nissan might have done just as well but in the back of my mind that little voice keeps telling me use good oil and keep it changed and you won't be sorry. Sometimes I hear that same voice saying that the inside of that Nissan engine is nearly clean enough to eat off of.