DodgeForum.com - Greetings

Greetings all. I have learned so much from the equivalent VW forums, clubb5.com and vwvortex.com, that I decided to give dodgeforum a try, as well.

I bought my third dodge, a 2003 Stratus SXT 4-door, about a year and a half ago, after my trusty 1989 Spirit was totalled by an errant pickup truck on a rain-slicked freeway. [:@] So far, the Stratus has been a great car. We went through the front brake pads at 17K miles, which seemed a bit premature, but my 20-year-old elder son swapped them out in well under 2 hours. (It's great when your kids grow up and can help out with car maintenance and home improvement chores. Since he had converted his car, my late mother's 1969 Chevy Camaro, from drums to discs in front, I figured I could trust him with the brake pads on the Stratus.)

So far, I have been using dino oil, usually Castrol GTX 5W-30, and changing it every 3K miles. Having read about sludge problems on Durangos with V-6s and V-8s, I wonder whether my DOHC 2.4L 4-cylinder should be on synth. (My other car is a 2001 VW Passat wagon, on which I now use Mobil 1 0W-40 excluslively.) Also, the last time my son changed the oil on the Stratus, he accidentally mixed up my stash of filters and discovered that the Bosch 3421 or Napa Gold (Wix) equivalent for the VW works fine in the Stratus, while slightly increasing the sump capacity. Has anyone else tried a slightly longer filter? The only downside is that the new filter might hang too low and strike an obstruction. I really appreciate the positioning of the oil filter; oil changes on this car are extremely clean, fast, and easy, thanks to my Rhino ramps.