The Hanover Collaboration

There are two types of motor oil: normal and synthetic.

Normal oil comes out of the ground and gets refined. A car’s worth of normal oil costs $11 at Walmart, plus $5 for a filter. Tom and Ray say that if you use normal oil, then you should probably change it once ever 5,000 miles. The total do-it-yourself cost of normal oil changes is thus $32 per 10,000 miles.

Synthetic oil is manufactured in a lab. Or a factory. I don’t know what they call it, but it doesn’t come out of the ground. It’s better than normal oil. It doesn’t turn into {not oil} in your car engine as quickly as normal oil does. It costs $22 for a cars worth at Walmart, plus the same filter as above. The boys say it’s ok to wait twice as long on synthetic. 10,000 miles. The diy cost of synthetic oil changes is thus $27 per 10,000.

Jiffylube costs $35 for normal oil, or $65 for synthetic oil. Those of you doing the math in your head have noticed something remarkable at this point. That’s right, you could pay full price for the normal oil change, and give JiffyLube 5 quarts of synthetic oil that you bought yourself at Walmart telling them to use that instead of their own normal oil and you’d still come out on top by $8 from what they would have charged you for synthetic oil, less whatever other way the figure out to rip you off that day.

You can find professional oil changes for $25, but not reliably.

The lesson? If you go to Jiffylube, then get the synthetic. It’s a huge rip-off, but over 10,000 miles you still net $5 over getting two normal oil changes, plus you get 1 {not a trip to Jiffylube} which I’d probably value around $10. It’s win-win. The Jiffylube guys think they’re taking you for a ride with their outrageously priced oil, but you still get the best of them in the long run.

But… now suddenly the Jiffylube versus do-it-yourself calculation has changed. Before when you thought about doing it on your own you were looking at saving $18 (plus manliness points) in return for getting all dirty and scrapping some knuckles. That’s a close call in my book. But now, on the synthetic program, you’re looking at saving $38 (plus manliness points) for doing it yourself. That handily tips the scales for me.

If any does get the Jiffylube synthetic, will you please email how many miles the sticker tells you you can go before you need new oil. I bet it’s still 3,000.

[Discaimer: My favorite tribologist uses normal oil.]