Valvoline MaxLife oil = seal damage?!?

digital_shad0w · 06-01-2004, 12:03 AM

Hey guys,

Welp, I got me a new toy. 95 Dodge Neon Sport Sedan. Manual Transmission. Fun as all hell, but I had a question. I came across someone in the neons.org forums saying to stay away from MaxLife oil, as it makes the seals expand, soften and eventually blow. Now, if you may recall, I have an 89 Mustang with a blown head gasket, which had been using MaxLife. I never really made the connection, but it seems logical that the seal conditioning in the ML oil could have played a part in the blown head gasket. I changed the oil in the Neon two days ago with MaxLife 10W-30, and wondering if any of you have heard of similar tales? If so, please suggest an oil I should substitute. It's a 2.0L 4 cylinder SOHC Mopar engine.

Thanks guys!

KNTRDR · 06-01-2004, 05:20 AM

Another oil similar to MaxLife is Castrol GTX High Mileage oil. Both are for older, high-mileage engines. Interesting thing I learned earlier today is that MaxLife is a partial synthetic oil.

digital_shad0w · 06-01-2004, 05:41 AM

If that's true, then I'll bet that's where the problem came from. Old oil deposits could have been freed and the filter mught not have been able to handle it. This was after using it for a while.

I'm too afraid to switch the Neon to synthetic, as i need to be careful with this car. Can't afford to blow this engine. *shrug*

Oh well. Time to do my research on petroleum oils and find what looks to be the best.

KNTRDR · 06-01-2004, 06:20 PM

Why don't you just use normal oil? If you use normal oil and be religious about your oil changes every 5000km/3000 miles, your engine ought to run for a good long while.