Hey, it's a car maintainence thread. The more questions are asked, the more people will know when some jerk tries to rip them off
Synthetic is a lot more expensive, but it's also a lot better at being oil. Regular oil has natural variances in purity, size of molecules, etc. You wouldn't think that'd be a big deal but when you're talking about chunks of metal less than a few thousanths of a milimeter apart, flying past each other six thousand or more times per minute, lubrication qualities become a pretty big deal.
So yes, synthetic is much better than conventional oil. BUT:
Do we really need it in daily driving cars. I think this is the point where Mr. SD and I will diverge in opinion, but I don't think so.
Sure synthetic is a lot better at lubricating, but regular oil lubricates just fine. I'd compare it to replacing your lawn mower with a 5 foot wide professional ride-on mower. Sure the pro mower will bring more to the job, but it's not necessary.
On a pure cost-benefit analysis, regular oil wins hands down. And, again using my honda as an example, I've got over a quarter million miles on the thing, and it's never seen a drop of synthetic in its life.
All that said, and I know this doesn't apply to you Gilda, but it might for others - if you've been running your car on regular oil for a long time and then you switch to synthetic, you might discover that you have oil leaks. Buyer beware