Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Charlie
The shop I'm at recommends 3000 mile intervals across the board, but that's not to be evil, as such. It's more from a customer service perspective
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Pure rationalization on the part of the dealer. If customer service were so important the dealer would send a technician around every few months and offer to look at the car in customers' driveways. Dealer recommended oil changes at 3,000 miles to get the car into the shop is a service department sales tactic.
As for the original post, one oil I've seen with change intervals assigned to the oil itself is Mobil 1 Extended Performance oil. Mobil says it is
guaranteed to be good for 15,000 miles or one year whichever comes first. So one year seems to an appropriate interval for at least thinking about changing the oil. Given the OP's use of synthetic oil and very low yearly miles I might analyze it at one year and adjust the change interval up or down accordingly. It shouldn't be necessary to have it analyzed every subsequent year.
My belief is that Frank Lee is exactly right - the only reason for 3,000 mile oil changes in this day and age is inertia... as in "My Granddaddy used to do that and he had a great car". There is so much unnecessary angst about engine oil change intervals. It used to be that the life of your car depended on how long the engine lasted, but engines today are made so well that they usually outlast the rest of the car. I've linked to an recent article entitled "200,000 - The New 100,000":
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/au...C84682FE3AEBE4