Well i'm curious because my dad was a fleet mechanic, and swore by oil analyses, as of ten years ago (before he retired) he was still doing oil changes on everything every 2000-2500 miles religiously. What I mean is unless something radical happened in the last ten years he was still changing even 'newer' year 2001 era oils every 2-2.5k, period. Every vehicle he touched had a magically long lifespan (for instance my Saturn is "supposed to" be using a quart every oil change at it's 200k miles, it doesn't use a drop, i'm the only Saturn user with this many miles to report this according to the boards) because he said that around there was when bearing wear started to geometrically increase along with certain acids being deposited in the oil and.. other things I dont understand actually as I wasn't into cars at that time as much. It was still what "they" would call negligible until later but he stuck by his often oil changes along with other tricks and always had vehicles last abnormally long, and need far less than expected maintenance in other ways. When he was replaced by a bean counter who said factory intervals were fine, every single vehicle (the ones he was previously in charge of) returned to "normal" expectations of so many things breaking by X date, or wearing out, and similar. So it wasnt just a lucky run of vehicles.
Unfortunately I never learned all his secrets before he died.
Just the advice to change ahead of schedule. FWIW what i've spent on oil could have bought a rebuild, but...
I'm curious about whether there are other places where maintenance like this favoring extreme long life and low downtime are discussed and researched, and also people finding it unnecessary and getting the same results maybe with better than average filtration and such. Those of us that will happily drive the same car for 30 years and 500,000 miles to gather and talk. I have no intention of getting rid of my Saturn, I consider it finally broke in at 200k.
