I believe you must use dino oil to break in but others will certainly chime in. 

Because of the moderate California climate where I have always lived I have always had good luck with good decent 20-50 and feel syns are a waste of money and I dont even run them in my porsche. 

Syns tend to be thin and in cold thats an advantage, extreme hot they hold up better too. They can cause leaks in engines which dont hold high fit tolerances. Many folks find leaks when going from dino to syn.  

some argue that new engines are designed for syns and have better filtration systems to allow you to use the longer life of the oil.  

In normal climates the vanagon does seem to require a decent weight of oil, it seems 20-50 works quite well. 

Doug

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jonce Fancher 
  To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 5:10 PM
  Subject: Vanagan rebuild dino or synthetic oil??

  Hi all
  im putting together one of the 1.9L vanagon motors finally and was wondering due to recent arguments on dino vs. synthetic oil. i dont want to start any fist
  fights just a simple question.
  the Rebuild is going smooth and im just wondering if synthetic should be put in and stay in or go back to dino and just stick with it. also what oil change
  increments can syn have over dino oil. Is there a better weight over another. Ive never used synthetic oil except in my sprinter turbo diesel and it only needs oil
  changes every 10k. is that what i should expect or even half of that for synthetic??
  any and all comments are welcome just no fighting! thanks Jonce

  Jonce Fancher

  57 Single Cab
  66 Sunroof Bug
  66 Variant Squareback
  71 Sunroof Bus
  75 911S Sunroof
  84 Vanagon "Godfried"
  85 Vanagon Westi
  2003 10 Passenger Sprinter

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