Oil and filters whats the best ?

what are the best oils and filters out there ? I know in canada the oil and air filter at Canadian Tire Stores are all now being made in China.

I have been told Fram is crap ??

what do you people use ??

I use 20-50 Valvoline off street racing oil. It has good chemicals in it.

Fram and K&N HIGH PERFORMANCE filters. No standard fram stuff.

Same oil for Motorhome, race car, antique cars and trucks. It's the best!

I've had good luck with Quaker state oils and use AC Delco filters on everything and have had good luck there too. I recently found out from my local auto parts store though that AC Delco filters are starting to come from Mexico and the quality has went down the drain, so far my local parts store has a full stock of American made AC filters for the time being.

Bought a brand new 1984 Isuzu pup truck and had an issue with noise in the motor during cold start up. At the time I worked at the dealership that sold them. I used only Valvoline up to that point. The Isuzu zone rep stated that they are assembled with generous tolerances in the motor. Mechanics seconded the statement. Isuzu zone rep said I could try any oil I wished until the problem went away and he would cover it on the warranty. I tried every oil out there. Mobil 1 , Amzoil, trust me I tried all. I put in Castrol GTX. Problem solved. I have always used Napa Brand Gold oil filters since high school auto shop where they made us all bring in different oil filters for a home work assignment. Then we cut them all open. Napa Gold was the best for the price. I have done valve cover gaskets on some of my high mile engines and the engines that had Castriol in them all of their lives, never need the valve covers cleaned up in the parts washer.They were perfectly clean. I also never run oil over 3000 miles. All of our cars are driven hard but well maintained. They all have work history folders with receipts.

Like alot of things its preference. I have used everything from Havoline to wal mart brand with no issues, oil filter is the same way but prefer purolator. The only thing I have heard bad things about is Fram.

I like to use the Lukas oil, it is high with the zinc and lubes the valve train more and I use it in all of my vintage auto's the second best oil I think is the Quaker State. I have good luck with Wixx filters and this is my own personal recomendation.

I run ether Mobiloil Special, Mobiloil Delvac or Shell Rotella T in my vehicles. As for filters I run AC Delco. Use Mobilgrease for lube jobs. In the older coaches I will ad Lucas Oil additive to the crankcase as well.

Jeremy...that is what I was told to use in my 87 Eureka Cadillac 4.1 engine Rotella 10W30 or 15W40.... but I use Castrol GTX 20W50 in my Austin Mini because the transmission shares the same oil as the motor

and as for filters... I have been told Fram is crap and has really gone down hill since being made in China. Napa oil filters seem to be the best for the price.

I trust my car quest guy and he said for sure not to use FRAM and had comparison for me to look at.

Zinc additives

Remember,for those of us that have older cars,or you are breaking in a new camshaft after a rebuild,PLEASE get the zinc additive for your engine! Oils nowadays don't have the added zinc for older engines,like the caddy 472-500,and the Olds Rocket 350-455's, which many of us run. Just a reminder!

NAPA Gold filters are made by Wix. The "5" in front of the part number is NAPA's add on. For example, a 51348 NAPA is a 1348 Wix. I've also used Hastings in the past with good luck. AC Delco, well I work in a GM dealership and I use them on my daily drivers with no problems. GM has to make sure they are of a certain quality. Remember they have warranties in effect so they will not cut a lot of corners as engine damage would come back to bite them quickly. What I do not agree with is GM changing the PF35 which was the long (actually there was one, a PF932 that was longer, held about two quarts) version of the PF25, Chevrolet filter to the PF1218 about a inch shorter than the PF35 and the PF454, a even shorter filter than the PF25.

In my view, the more filter media, the better.

Oils are a real mess due to reductions in Zinc levels. Used to be that Diesel oil had a high Zinc content. Not today, even Delvac, Rotella and Delo 400 are reducing anti-scuff additives due to the harm done to Catalytic Converters by Zinc. I used to run Diesel rated oils in my collector cars but no longer.

My oil of choice in those is Valvoline Racing Oil.

Reduction of Zinc is especially critical during break in of a new flat tappet camshaft. The wrong oil can ruin a new camshaft in as little as twenty minutes, Comp Cams has done a lot of research on this due to a large amount of camshaft failures a few years back. Car Craft Magazine had this article:http://www.carcraft.com/howto/ccrp_0702_break_in_new_cam/post_lube.html that might be of some help.

The lack of Zinc in "older" engines is not supposed to be as "critical" from what I have heard, but in my opinion why take the chance. I have seen 50's and 60's collector cars with 5W-30 run in the engine. Why I don't know. The clearances were more "generous" back then unlike today's engines. When I first started in car dealerships, 500 miles per quart of oil usage was the norm.
Not today. At 500 miles the customer is screaming bloody murder and gets a engine job.

fleet service oil only and change the filter ever time. filter is a filter. some have more paper, some have a better spring set up. you cut them apart and they all look like crap compared to what you got yesteryear. fram is a cheaper one wick is better one but you had better check the last I heard they were all made in the same plant. change the oil often and the filter just as often. all you can do. besides drive your car now and then.

Now I was talking to a buddy's friend who worked for STP and he said that STP oil Treatment had ZDDP in it for the older engines ? I was on a Cadillac forum website and all the so called Cadillac guys say never run anything thicker then a 10w30 in a Cadillac 4.1 engine. they also said wix is the best filter out there.

The 4.1 engine problems are mostly cooling and not oil related...the engine gets too hot and blows the head gaskets.... so who knows?

also Kendel GT1 20W50 oil has ZDDP ( zinc) in it I use that in my Austin Mini Cooper

As Joe Rackov indicated Wix is also made for NAPA and the Gold filter is great! You can always ask for a silver NAPA filter as well. Kendall is defintely a second substitute for Castrol in my opinion. High performance race car proven.

I have always run Havoline 30HD in my older cars and am about to run out of my stockpile. While buying some Castrol synthetic for my BMW recently during Advance Auto's current sale I noticed that they only had Castrol, Pennzoil, and maybe Valvoline in the straight 30wt. When I looked into the zinc deficit in modern API/SAE oil service designations it looked like a toss-up in the per quart price whether you used one of the zinc additives or got one of the oils that still have an adequate ZDDP content. Since I already had a decent supply of oil I decided to use the additive. I've used the Lucas a couple of times, but a less expensive alternative is ZDDPlus (http://zddplus.com/ ). I got a few of these in a car show goodie bag a couple of years ago and recently got a box of 20 bottles. The price has come down from around 10 to just under 8 bucks per bottle (good for a 5 quart change). A warning about K&N filters: just prior to the Hudson meet I changed my oil at home instead of making the trip to my car barn 100 miles away. I had some oil here but no filter. Got a K&N at the store (in their part # for a 472 engine) which looked the same size as the Frams I've used for years. On start up after the change, oil was spewing out around the filter. The gasket was wider than that on the old filter. When I told Advance Auto the dilemma, they found a correct filter and gave me 5qts. of 30wt Valvoline and a bottle of the Lucas additive. Later that week in Hudson Gene Smith and I were at a Napa store in the community just north of the hotel where they had a cutaway display of Fram and Napa oil filters. There was lots more filter material in the Napa. The guys in that store were all middle aged or older and seemed to know their stuff. "Great case of marketing" was their comment about Fram oil filters! I probably have 8 or more Frams on the shelf but none are the Chinese versions. As Ed Renstrom said above, regular oil AND filter changes are the key. With that being said, I have two new Napa Golds on the shelf now for the Caddies I checked with a lubricant distributor here on Friday. They told me they keep a few cases of Havoline 30 on hand for a few people who use it. I may get some of that but am also considering switching to Castrol 30.

WIX/NAPA for me. For what it's worth, I found out about this oil-filter study site years ago (I probably posted it before). Even the latest revision is a few years old now, but I think it's still good reading.

For me, a valuable, objective read that dispels the bunk. www.ertelgiftshop.com Click on "Truck Books", then click on Page 3.

you have to love those studies. there is some good advice in there but mostly from people that are paid to give it. I had a uncle that brought a 70 ElCamino new. he would faithfully change the oil himself ever 1000 miles. never used anything but 10 wight pennzoil in the car. I swear the man would pull over on the side of the road and change it so he never went over the 1000 mile mark. he committed every day with the car some 40 miles to work. when he sold it at 125,000 miles on it there had never been and major engine work done on it. flat tappits, soft cams, poor valve guides not with standing it ran like it did in 1970. he claimed the wearing surfaces would only wear to the point that the oil world flow threw them. the 10 wight would flow faster then the heaver ones.
the thicker and heaver the filter material the more you get a drop in oil pressure. the less filter material you have the sooner it plugs up and oil by passes the filter. in the really cheap ones the bypass spring may never hold at all. but my 53 pontiac never came with a oil felter from the factory?

fleet service oil and change it often and the filter every time. use what ever you like. but if your trying to get by, change the filter add a quart is better then changing the oil and not the filter.

Every 1000 miles! kinda excessive. I do mostly all highway miles and change my oil and filter every 5,000 miles. ive heard you can go 7500 but that seems to long to me. I run 10w30 in all my cars.

Fram filters -WalMart Oil

I have driven my Chevy trucks with the cheapest oil and filter available.
The last 3/4 ton I built in 2009 went over 380,000 miles until a piston cracked.
I run 30w in the summer and 10-30 in the winter.
The truck I have now has over 300,000 and it gets the same treatment.
Have heard about Fram being bad, but run them anyway, without any problems.
Change oil AND filter every 3000 miles.
Had a 1962 Impala that went over 300,000 as well.
My brother used to use Royal Triton on a '57 Buick, until we pulled the valve covers and found all the sludge in it.
The oil always looked clean.....it was, but it wasn't cleaning anything.