Original oil for this car was API SG in either 5W30 or 10W30.

It's increasingly difficult to avoid 'upgrading' to fully synthetic oils, so last oil change I chose Castrol Magnatec 5w30.

Now Castrol are recommending the even more expensive Castrol Edge 5w30 and the usual consensus (forum recommended) oil is Mobil 1 (I imagine ESP).

The car does have a bit of an oil leak from the gaskets as a mechanic seems to have not fully tightened the heads after a cam belt change - so the gaskets are to be changed soon.

Question is I've come across the Ford own brand oils and started to think well the engine is the same as the Ford Probe V6 engine. I've asked a Ford garage and they suggested the E formula which is the semi-synthetic, but I was under the impression that it was not a good idea to go backwards to mineral or semi-synthetics once you have been using a fully synthetic oil. But I've also seen other people say it's OK.

I think I'd like to stick with the fully synthetic, so can someone in the 'know' tell me if they think the Ford formula F 5W30 would be a good choice for my car?

Also does anyone know who actually makes this oil? What it really is that I would be buying?

I've also been led to believe that the newer oils like the Magnatec now really have engine friction reducers in them, rather than being a separate entitiy (such as Activ8, Slick50 etc).

Does anyone know if the Formula F has these properties? Or would I be purchasing a more 'basic' fully synthetic oil? I suspect that the Formula F is a very well engineered oil in fact, but just need to be sure!

With many thanks in advance!

:)