Oil Changes: your .02 ?

[MorphDaCivic]

My Civic Hybrid has a display showing when to change the oil based on mileage and driving conditions. Below 30% and you should change the oil.

Honda recommends 100% synthetic, but apparenly the oil filter manufactures have changed (to a worst design), so I stockpiled a few of the older filters.

Jiffy Lube has public buffaloed on the 3K change theme.

Madison avenue magic

[Angmaar]

I use Napa Gold filters and Mobil 1 Synthetic oil once a year. I only drive about 5,000 miles a year so I could probably go longer. I think i'll make that every two years after reading this thread.

[Cxserver]

Lots of things can happen in theat 1 year oil change.What about fuel dilution? Randomly going 12000 + kms because the oil "can" go that far, seems odd to me. I would at least get a oil analysis to check if damage is not being done to the engine. One thing to save $ but at what cost?

I did look around bobistheoilguy.com and a bunch of 1 year analysis shows that different engines cant just go that far.

I just follow my manual. 8000 kms on regular oil i get on sale. Costs $15 a change.

[kir_kenix]

Originally Posted by Cxserver

Lots of things can happen in theat 1 year oil change.What about fuel dilution? Randomly going 12000 + kms because the oil "can" go that far, seems odd to me. I would at least get a oil analysis to check if damage is not being done to the engine. One thing to save $ but at what cost?

I did look around bobistheoilguy.com and a bunch of 1 year analysis shows that different engines cant just go that far.

I just follow my manual. 8000 kms on regular oil i get on sale. Costs $15 a change.

Valid point. I kind of touched on that myself in an earlier post here a little. I run various blends of ethenol...which is known to dilute oil to a greater extent then e-free gas. most of us that intentionally run ethenol blends know the risks and tend to adjust their oil change intervals accordingly.

Of course lots of other things in your fuel will make it past your ring and dillute your oil over time. Some of these things are suspended in your oil as a solid and filtered out by the filter. Some of them are not.

If you don't feel comfortable going past the service change on you car, then don't. It's just not worth the headache of worrying about it. I just hope that in the future the perception shifts (along with the engineering in the engine and oil) to such that everyone can go a loooooong way on one crankcase of oil.

Oils getting mighty expensive (no matter the flavor: synthetic, conventional, etc) so I want to get my full use out of it.

[Ford Man]

Originally Posted by Rusty Marina

Hold on there chief:

They used to say 7500 and 10000 miles even in the 1970s; but oil has got so much better and todays engines run much cleaner.

When my dad bought a new Mercury Montego in 1968 Ford recommended 6000 mile change interval, but somewhere along the way Ford revised their recommended change interval to 5000 miles, because that's the recommended change interval in my '88, '94, '96, 97, and '02 Fords. My dad also purchased a new Mercury Grand Marquis in '99 which also has a 5000 mile recommended change interval.

I bought a new Buick Regal in 1977 and at that time GM recommended 7500 mile change interval.

I Use different change intervals on my cars, using 3000 mile interval when they are new and the engine is still breaking in and may have some metal shavings from break in, then usually go to 4000-5000 afterward. My '88 Escort Pony with 516,000 miles uses/leaks a quart about every 1000 miles, so I strain and use the oil I drain out of the better cars for topping off oil in it and give it an oil/filter change every 10,000 miles. I've cut filters open even after 10,000 miles and have never seen one that appeared to be clogged. I use conventional oil in all my cars.

[Old Mechanic]

Mobil 1 every 5k and a new filter every 10k. I do it in the garage, both cars use the same filter. Engines are spotlessly clean and I only fill to the middle of the dipstick. Neither car looses any oil between changes and no leaks or I would see a spot on the garage floor.

I save the used oil and take it to my old shop where they burn it for heat in the winter.

Regards
Mech

[SentraSE-R]

I only accumulate 12,000 miles/year on my xB, and half of it is on long highway trips (including a 7300 mile cross-country trip, and 2900 miles in the last month). The rest is 20+ mile trips: light duty driving, in other words. That's why I feel comfortable stretching my oil change intervals.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Rusty Marina

Hold on there chief:

They used to say 7500 and 10000 miles even in the 1970s; but oil has got so much better and todays engines run much cleaner.
My old carbed FE powered Ford pickup has always had dirty oil at 2,000 miles (Even after I rebuilt it in 1990; it was even balanced with new valves) while my service van with a fuel injected engine still looks faily clean at 3,000 miles.
Friend bought a new Escort back in '89 and changed oil at 7,500 miles.
before it his 90,000 it was being rebuilt.
It sludged up the engine and the wear was so bad they had to bore it 040 over because it would not clean up at 030
Id think with todays oils it would have survived.
Also, modern engines have much tighter clearances; I could not imagine running 5W-20 in my '72 390 Ford. Get a micrometer/dial bore gage out on a 2011 car and compare it to a 1971 right off the assembly line

If we had a balance scale, with engines damaged by not enough oil changing on one side, and perfectly good oil thrown out by excessive changing on the other, what would it look like?

[Joenavy85]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

I save the used oil and take it to my old shop where they burn it for heat in the winter.

My dad takes his used oil to a friend who has an oil fired Live Steam Locomotive ( Bitter Creek Western Railroad (BCWRR): An S.P. Daylight is Loaded for the Trip Home )that he runs from time to time. Not as useful as using it for heat, but if he's going to burn oil anyway, might as well get some use out of it first.

[some_other_dave]

I let the last oil change go for ~12,000 miles in my CRX. The UOA showed lots of wear metals. In part, I blame the long interval. I think I'll be going back to 5,000 mile intervals.

-soD