mpg/oil change

[Jeff V]

I don't know why, but I had my first oil change (10w30 at the dealer) at 2400 miles and since then my mpg went from 17.5 to 20, for the last three tankfuls. No other changes.

[kgdptblue]

Did you switch to Synth oil?

[dgc333]

FWIW my mileage has increased about 1.5 mpg with each tank full. I am just shy of 1000 miles and the last tank full was 22.9mpg.

Are you sure the dealer used 10W-30? The prefered oil is 5w-30 unless you operate in very high ambients. Even if you told them to use 10w-30 the guy outback may not have gotten the word.

Could the dealer have made some update to the ECM based on a tech bulletin without telling you? I had a Ford one time that started to develop a hesitation off idle around 8000 miles. I brought it in for the dealer to check. He tossed my K&N, said it was the cause of the problem and charged me $15 for a new paper filter (my wife picked up the car, by the time I got back the K&N was gone, likely in the mechanics car). Anyway, the service manager told me that if I brought it in every 5000 miles for service I would need to worry about the hesitation anymore, they would keep in tip top shape. I latter found a tech bulleten that describe the problem and the fix was to disconnect the TPS while the car was running, shut it off, reconnect the sensor and restart. A bug in the adaptive programing would cause the ECM to back it self into a corner and the sensor disconnect reset the factory defaults. They never mentioned this too me.

Anyone considering Syntetic oil in these cars I wholely endorse the use in a turbo engine. I put 240,000 miles on my first 2.2 turbo and it was still running strong when my son totaled it. My current 2.2 turbo 2 has 176,000 miles and I just had the head off for a gasket change and I still can see honing marks on the cylinder walls. This engine has been trouble free too.

I would recomend waiting to you have 7-8k miles before making the change though, just to make sure everything is broken in.

The other thing I have always done on my 2.2 motors (actually all motors) is try and cross reference into a larger filter. The 2.2 turbo motors will take the full 1 qt capacity slant 6, big block mopar, Ford v8 filter (Fram # PH8A), my 2.5l v6 Avenger will accept this filter too. The 2.4 NA motor calls out the same little tea cup sized filter as my 2.2 did, I noticed in the Owners Manual the 2.4 turbo has a differnt number so it may be a larger filter to start with but if there is clearance the PH8A size filter will be used.

[Jeff V]

The ticket says 10w30 and the change was free, so I doubt they used synthetic. My guess is they used 10 instead of 5w because the turbo runs so high and because the ambient temps will be higher in the summer. And they expect that before winter gets here I'll be back to change to 5w.

[OurPTGT]

quote:Originally posted by dgc333
my 2.5l v6 Avenger will accept this filter too.

OFF TOPIC but WooHoo another AVENGER owner! [?]Wasuppp! My '95 i4 has 227K on it and still kicking strong.[8] Well, until someone smashed out the back window last week. 227K all on dino oil. On another note: the SRT-4 comes with Mobil1 in them from the factory i think?[:I]