Gents, Although I could have waited, I decided to go ahead and have my head gaskets job done next week. As you've probably guessed, it was due to oil and coolant leaks, both of which were only leaking on the outside of the block.

My question now is, since I've been using Mobil1 full synthetic after doing an ATF engine clean-up a few months ago, I was wondering, since I have the opportunity to kinda start from scratch, if I should keep on using full synthetic oil, or should I go back to normal oil ?!?

My service manager which has been with Rover for decades,said that Rover engineers use to saythat synthetic oil is too refined to not leak, because of the engine specs and build being of old design and therefore not as 'tight sealed' as newer engines. He even went on to say that not too long ago, in the D1 era, they would threaten to void your warranty if you planned on using synthetic oil.

So as I said, now that I will ( next thursday) have the chance of having a fresh start, should I drop the synthetics, or keep on using it. My goal here is to use the best oil possible, without the return of oil leaks.

Input please.

 

First of all, how many miles on your truck, is a dealer doing this work and what is the estimate for the repairs?
As for the use of synthetic, I would guess that over half of the Disco owners, who want to take good care of the engines, use synthetic, but not on long oil change durations, no more then every 4 to 5000 miles.

 

When synthetic oils first came out I would have agreed with
yourService Manager as the synthetic oils did not have the same
detergent packages as conventual oils.

Now we can also get better seals for our Rovers also.

If you don't want to worry use Mobil One High Mileage 10w30.
its made to help the seals as well as being a fullsynthetic oil.

Talk about having our cake and eating it to!!!!!!!

 

I've got 56000 miles on the truck, and I got heck of a deal for the head gasket change, due to a number of reasons. One of them being that they previously quoted me the intake manifold gasket and did the job which did not fix the oil leak. And since it has to be re-done, the price of the head gasket job will be approx. $900.00 which is why I decided to go ahead and have the job donenow instead of later.And the dealer will be doing the job.

 

CD $ 900.00 is a great deal (wich BTW is now US $900.00) [sm=smiley20.gif]

I have to add, after I have seen my DiscoIIengine from inside at 106K when I did my heads, using conventional oil for 80K and sinc. for the balance, I will never use conventional again. I have switched to sinc on all my cars and motorcycles since.[sm=goodidea.gif]

 

All right,getting ready for the job. The dealer said I could bring the oil I wanted them to use, so I got Mobil 1 5W30, since winter is coming and I only go maybe700 miles a month which would bring my next oil change sometime in March. So I'll be running this oil trough our cold canadian winter.

You guys think it's too thin oil for gaskets ??? remember that one of my main goal here is to run the best oil possible without running an oil that will enhance my chances of the return of the HG leak. But I also have to keep in mind that although we only get a fraction of the snow you get in the northern states like Colorado, we get minus30 to minus 40degrees more often than we like.

One of the things that got me wondering about my choice of oil, is that it says on the bottle 'newer vehicle formula'.

wadayatink??? I still have tomorrow to go return it and get another.