So there I was gazing into the engine compartment of my new GTS along with my sales agent when he decided to drop a little annoying bombshell on me.

Apparently, Lancers come shipped from Japan with Synthetic oil. Three words summed up for you. W-T-F!?. Oh yeah, I could hardly wait to pay friggen 13-14$ bucks a litre, lol

I mean we could argue one verus the other all day, but what I would like to know from someone smart is why they did that? Is is bad to switch back to regular oil? and any other info as well.

thx

Not sure it it would "damage" the engine, but if I were you, I'd use the Synthetic oil, or semi-synthetic at worst. Protects your engine and its better. I used to use a racing Synthetic for my 1.8L 4G93. Even that costed about USD $65 for a re-oil.

I guess you should have been prepared for this. As engine technology enhances, lubrication for the highest standards of protection will as well;)

Your sales agent needs to get retrained, cause the Lancers come with conventional oil from the factory :)

Although I switched to Mobil 1 synthetic at my first oil change. Only $38.99 for a 5L container, cant complain.

Have you noticed a difference with the synthetic?
Why do people use synthetic, instead of regular? (dumb question, but had to ask :) )

Synthetic oil was originally developed for high performance racing engines. Mobil tried to popularize synthetic oil for passenger vehicles back in the early 1970's. At the time, Mobil was promoting 20K or 25K oil changes with synthetic, but they soon backed down from this. Synthetic oil is a good choice if you have a vehicle with a high performance engine (in fact synthetic is required for many of these engines). It is also a good choice if your vehicle is operated in extremely cold climates. It has higher resistance to breakdown caused by heat and it flows better in extreme cold. Unfortunately for the synthetic oil industry there is virtually no advantage to using synthetic oil in a non-high performance engine that is operated in moderate climates. You probably could go a bit longer between oil changes with a synthetic, i.e. following the normal service schedule even if you fall into the severe service category, but I wouldn't advise this. In short, synthetic may give you the peace of mind of knowing that you are using an oil that is far better than necessary for your vehicle, but it won't reduce wear or extend the life of the engine. The mistake some people make it to wrongly extrapolate these benefits onto normal engines operated in mild climates, with the ultimate lack of any knowledge being manifested with statements such as "synthetics provide 'Peace of Mind,' or 'Cheap Insurance,'" or other such nonsense.

EDIT: Now, if someone could go to my thread and answer my burning question, of wheel size? :-) much thanks... lol

I haven't really tested the car out enough to see if there's any performance difference, because of the poor road conditions. But the start-up definitely seems a lot smoother since I switched. :57:

So why do people switch even if they can't tell the difference?
Wouldn't synthetic be a waste of money since technically our Lancers don't even need them?
I'm just curious as to your inputs, and your preferences.

I switched to synthetic for longer intervals.

GTS doesn't come with synthetic oil from Japan.

I know that as a fact.

I think it comes with 5W-20.
It even says it on Mitsu's site, under specs for the Lancer.

Why switch if you dont 'notice' a difference? You notice a difference when you change your oil and it comes out clean after 100k miles instead of dark brown/black if you were using conventional oil. Your engine is better protected thus will last longer. And you don't have to change your oil as much. In the long run - especially with a brand new car - go synthetic - If you don't plan on owning the car longer than say 5 years and your not worried about the long run and just the bottom line cost - go conventional

So I guess it's a preference thing. :)
I guess it's true that synthetic will make your car last longer, but more importantly, it's about how you drive your car.
So what I'm saying is that if the factory uses 5W-20, then I'm gonna stick with that purely because the Lancer doesn't need synthetic.
I had a Camry for 4 years, and always used conventional oil. Nothing happened to the engine. It operated the same as the day I bought it.

yep its 5w-20 conventional.

like i mentioned, i dont wanna go in to the dealership every 2 months(my round trip to work is around 80-90km to work everyday).

thats pretty much the only reason why i did synthetic,