Uh oh, you just opened pandora's box. Oil is THEE most controversial subject on this forum. Well, that and how to drive stick.

 

Does the "R's" supercharger use the same oil as the engine or does it hold its own oil like GM's superchargers on the 3800 V6s? If the super has its own oil good conventional oil should be fine for you, your change interval is/should be determeined completely by your driving habits...lots of short trips/around town driving? Go with 3mos/3,000 miles. Lots of long high way driving or a commute that puts more than say 65% of your total driving at high/steady state speeds? You could easily push the interval to 5-6000 miles with conventional.

If you driving habits are like the first scenario just stick with conventional, if you're like the second scenario you could go with synthetic and probably change once a year.

 

Do you have the manual foryour S-Type R? I have a 2003 S-Type V8, not an "R". My manual states to use synthetic oil every 10,000 miles or 12 months which ever comes first.

The mechanic shop I use specializes in Jaguar and Land Rovers. They told me they recommend regular oil but I stuck to the manual and used the synthetic (Castrol). I know a lot of people have opinons on synthetic and which ones are truly syn. Also, I have been told to change the oil more often, but the manual states what it states! I'm not opposed to doing it every 6 months as I do not drive many miles. But before doing that I need to do it myself because the shop charged $125.00 to change the oil!

The local quick oil change place where I take my wife's Nissan Quest will do the Jag for $90 using Royal Purple Oil.

If you want to learn way too much about oil, check out this site: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

 

Synthetic oils are generally better. The rule of the tumb is that you switch over to synthetics once your engine is broke in. If your engine has high mileage, I would try a synthethic blend. This is do to the fact that engines with high mileage tend to have wore seals that may leak and or the engine mayburn oil.
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Momo, does that apply to all vehicles? I have a Nissan Frontier Pickup (2000) with 53K. I was thinking of going to synthetic on the next oil change.

 

The statement from Momo should have a couple of caveats. 1) you can switch to synthetic at any point in your engines break in period, it just may, possibly, might extend the break-in period of your engine a very small amount, but seriously conventional engine oils that carry the API SM rating are so good you won't really be able to tell the difference between them and synthetic until you start to push your oil change lengths out past 5-7,000 mileswith driving habitsthat are generaly easy on oil. Like I said earlier due to the way engines are calibrated you don't need a synthetic if you drive alot of short trips or do almost completely in town urban crawl type driving.

2) You can switch to synthetic (and back to conventional) any time in your vehicle's lifetime. You'll only have worn/leaky seals if you have a poorly maintained engine; there are a couple of "high mileage" synthetics that you could use in an engine if you experience weaping or leaky seals after a change to synthetic. Synthetics don't "cause" leaks.

reddrawf,

I would switch to synthetic if your driving habitsallow you to take advantage of synthetic's extended drain intervals. Amsoil, Pennzoil Platinum, Valvoline or Mobil 1 all offer great protection and when coupled with a high quality filter should let you do annual oil changes depending on your driving habits and mileage.

 

Thanks, that seems like good advice.