Valvoline Restore & Protect Full Synthetic 5W-20 Motor Oil 5 QT, Case of 3

This oil is, like any other oil, a good quality lubricant. It also has some chemistry that makes bold claims about cleaning your engine. As the kind of person who sends my oil off to an oil analysis company, I get to peek behind the curtain.The product stays within spec and performs as well as other top tier synthetic oils. I did notice a good deal more engine cleaning. After an initial spice of typical metals in the oil, the levels dropped much lower than is normal. I also saw an increase in compression, fuel economy and a slight reduction in heat production and noise.So, what's happening?The main failure mode for modern fuel injected cars is a combination of two elements. The first is the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) system recycling some exhaust into the air intake. This brings with it some soot and other hard deposits in an unburned oil/fuel mix that likes to sit on the back of the air intake valves. This causes seat wear, shaft wear and erodes sealing effectiveness over time. These deposits are very hard to treat/clean without physically removing trhe air intake and getting in there.The second element is that newer vehicles are starting to use lower compression piston rings to reduce friction against the cylinder walls. Finer machining tolerances make this possible, and fuel efficiency requirements make it necessary. Alas, this comes at the cost of reduced contact and a slight reduction in oil control. Over time, low pressure piston rings are more prone to allowing oil consumption in the combustion chamber and encourage deposits to clock up the rings. After typically 100-140k miles, even with perfect oil changes, the piston rings start to perform less well as they gum up with deposits. This starts a chain of events that causes cylinder wall scoring, ring wear, reducing compression, increasing combustion deposits entering the oil, thereby encouraging faster oil breakdown and mechanical wear elsewhere in the engine.This oil claims, and the oil analysis backs up, that the oil actively reduces these piston ring deposits. This has the effect of restoring ring functions of sealing and oil control. This prevents a whole group of secondary issues, while also improving fuel economy and reducing friction wear.I don't see a clear reduction in valve deposits, but I do see they have stopped accumulating. This led me to carefully clean these deposits away mechanically. A followup visual inspection after 7,500 miles showed no new deposits. Compression is up. Oil changes since switching to this Restore and Protect oil shows a reduction in combustion contaminants, reduced wear metals, improved acidity control, and a complete elimination of varnish. It's all gone....re-dissolved into the oil and filters or flushed away on the next oil change. Under the head covers, the top end is MUCH cleaner. I'm 23,000 miles into this oil on a well maintained 125k mile 3.6L V6 that shows wear well within manufacturer new tolerances.So yes, understanding how this oil works, I recommend it. There's a lot of bold claims, opinions and 'woo' out there. Lots of snake oil products and claims. This oil does what it claims.My only advice if you switch to this oil on an >75,000 mile car is simple and sensible: change the oil and filter, then after 500 miles just change the oil filter again. The oil will have released a lot of varnish containing trapped wear metals, grit, particles and waxes/gums. These will collect quickly in the filter over the first 500 miles. Swap those out with a new filter. They're cheap.Finally, as piston ring tensions drop, people need to reset their thinking on oil consumption. We're used to high tension piston rings that when working well almost entirely prevent oil consumption. We can go 10k miles on 6 quarts of oil and there's still 5.5 quarts in there at the end. Neat! With these new lower tension piston rings, the manufacturers are now accepting an oil consumption of as much as a quart per 2,500 miles. That's in a perfect condition clean engine. With today's extended oil service intervals of 7,500 or 10,000 miles (I have opinions, hoo boy do I have opinions!) it is quite reasonable and even likely that oil top ups may be required in these newer cars. Personally, I never go beyond 7,500 miles or 375 engine on hours - whichever comes first. I also check oil levels every 1000 miles regardless.So, yes, I'll recommend this oil for the above reasons, but also because it's a perfectly fine and usable full synthetic oil of high quality. It has a quality base and a very modern additive package designed for modern cars and older engines alike. It is currently the only oil on the market shown to have this new cleaning action. Until competitors catch up, this does seem to be the oil to beat if you want to baby your engine for 250,000 miles or more.Dave says: two thumbs up.

Great oil that does actually clean the entire oil path in a car's engine. I have a 2000 Toyota Avalon that was normally maintained. But this engine is known for oil sludge build up in the upper cylinder area. My used oil, after 3,000 miles was always very black. I watched some YouTube videos from The Motor Oil Geek and gave it a try. The first two changes with this oil were still dirty after 2,000 miles, but then when draining the third old oil I noticed the color was much lighter. So I refilled it a 4th time with good quality filters (Wa--art SuperTech filters were proven to be very good) and after another 2,000 I checked the dipstick and the oil looked as clean as when it was first poured in. I'm sold! Didn't noticed an increase in MPG. But the oil costs the same as any other top name oil

I have a very old Honda, it is almost 270k. It runs well overall, gets me around with a few quirks… one of the more troubling quirks being a leaky piston ring that causes compression & oil burning issues. I have not considered pulling the engine to replace it, due to the age of the car it just isn’t worth the cost. For about 3 years I’ve just been letting it do its thing, driving gently and keeping my oil topped has kept it pretty steady.The marketing on this oil intrigued me, especially coming from Valvoline. The claims are lofty, which can be a red flag from some companies… however I have used many of Valvoline’s products with great results, so I definitely trust the brand overall.Nonetheless I did some deep research on this product, and found that most people were having noticeable results, and more importantly no one reported any negative side effects. I also learned that Valvoline is one of the ONLY lube/ vehicle fluid brands that has an R&D lab for their products, which is really cool. So they perform a lot of experiments to create new products like this.After about 2,000 miles now I can say I am a believer. My low compression issue is virtually gone. I am burning oil at about 1/2 the rate as it was before, so that is quickly improving as well. I also noticed the oil is still almost clear at 2k, which is unusual (usually it is starting to get darker at this point). I thought it would be even darker, just due to the deposits being cleared, but I guess my new oil filter is putting in work. I did top off with about 1/2 quart when I checked ( usually I have already downed a quart by now and ready for the next one).One thing to realize is you will probably have a lotttt of smoke coming out the exhaust on occasion while it cleans up. This was happening to me for about the first 500ish miles. It seems to have subsided but just one thing to look out for, and not to be afraid of. That means it’s working.

I bought a used Honda pilot. It had about 100k miles. The car still had its cylinder deactivation hooked up when I got it and after reading about sludge buildup I decided to try this oil to remove the sludge buildup. The first oil change the oil came out black as night after 2k miles. It lost about half a quart. My next oil change was 3k later. It was better but still darker than I like. No oil loss. I’m on my third oil change now and still have 2k miles before I get to 5k. Looking at the dip stick the oil is looking great. Looks like new. If you have a sludged up engine that might burn some oil this could be beneficial for you. My Honda has been running great and doesn’t burn a drop now. I hope it works for you. It did for me.

engine seems to run smoother, to early to tell if it uses more oil . usually does a quart in about 1500 mills. 3.6 Cadillac. 85 000 miles. change 0il about 3000 miles because of mostly short trips, long intervals between changes.2006 sts.