This is not to start an oil food fight.... My SSEI has 80K on it and has been run on dino oil. Switching to synthetic introduces more detergents and I read that might not be too good if deposits have built up sealing gaskets etc.

So the question.... For those who use syn oil, is it too far along to switch to synthetic? Oil pressure is good and the gasket edges are all dry and clean. I do have reason to believe for the past 30k mi, oil hasn't been changed on a healthy timetable.

Absolutely not. I've never seen a single instance on this Forum where it caused a problem, including on cars with far more miles than yours. Our 3800'* are not oil pigs. We run sludge-free, even on relatively low-quality dino-juice.

I wouldn't hesitate.

I concur. I have switched to synthetic oil on three 3800'*(a 95 with little over 100K;98 with 60K;and a 99 with 80K) without any issues.

My oil pressure was great before I changed to synthetic at ~ 105,000 miles. I've run synthetic for the past year / 25,000 miles and my oil pressure is still 60 psi while driving. I'd change over without worry, though sticking to regular oil would be just fine if it'* changed regularly.

Yep, I agree with the others. You should have no problem at all. However, taking your question a bit further...from my investigations into the differences, the main benefit of synthetic over standard oil (discounting ecological concerns, and pseudo-science stuff) is longevity. Bill Boost had found a detailed test using Mobil One as the test oil. The test showed that it was still going strong at 8 to 10k miles, with occasional top offs. More surprisingly (at least to me) it found that changing it at the standard 3 months or 3,000 miles would cause more wear to the engine than running it longer.

I've run cars on standard oil that were still going without any major repairs for well over 200,000 miles.

still running dino juice here, at this point I'm staying with what works. Nothing against synthetic.

Like Archon said, The big reason for synthetic is longevity. I just dumped my first Synthetic which was put in when the Car had it'* first 1000 miles on OEM dino juice. That oil was pretty black. Sitting in a showroom for over a year may have not helped. At 7000 miles, the used synthetic was darker, yet still somewhat translucent. My oil monitor still read 15%. I think next ime I will let it go to 0%.

Good. I'm a fan of synthetic, and switched to it in the wife'* car as soon as we got it. Truth be told, I'm leaving the '95 to go on dino. It fires and reads out better than any SE I test drove with half the miles. There'* some symbiosis going on and I don't want to tip it. Call it superstition.

That'* interesting about changing the synthetic on a short 3K cycle. Good to know.

Thanks.

Here'* the article that Archon is referring to. http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/mobil1.html

Basically it states that "compulsive" oil changers may benefit from changing the oil every 5K as opposed to every 3K, as engine wear decreases the longer you let the oil change interval go. I used to change my Mobil 1 every 3,000 miles no matter what. But I have decided that it will last 5,000 miles just fine, and started changing it less often.