Best Time to Change the Oil in a Newer Model Car?

[4more]

hello all more of a lurker but thought i post on this on and i think "funny" pretty much nailed it.
i used to work for a GM dealer as a tech we had a customer than delievered trailers he ran one ton trucks pulling trailers delievering cars,van.smaller trailes ect. he used gas and deisel engines and of course wanted to get the most life,power and economy he could.
i believe it was a 02 with a duramax that has such a oil life monitor, which does actually monitor driving habits and conditions.but he wasnt sure about it so we took oil samples and different milages, computers says 50% left,25% left 0 % left and sent them to a lab not sure where i wish i could remember but they came back within a % or 2 of the monitor this was using regular oil he would go 7-10,000 this was towing highway miles.
but i would agree on a new engine or new car to change it around the 1000 mile mark and early the first few times then follow the monitor. regular oil changes are cheap but of course we want to save oil and money.i am also a fan of synthetics

[solarguy]

Why would GM do such a thing (like recommend what looks like long change intervals)?

1. There are plenty of yahoo people out there who don't do ANYTHING to, or about their engine oil until something happens, usually bad. For them, this would mean changing the engine oil a lot.

2. Oil is a lot better these days, so some sort of engine analysis could be argued as very needed today.

3. In order for your engine to break in properly, a certain number of metal peaks must be worn down or smashed off, microscopically. So, SOME wear is not altogether a bad deal. Failure to wear in can be, in some ways, just as bad. So the engineers came up with some happy compromise number. Me, I would change every thou, for 3 thousand miles.

4. As a marketing tool, this is different. OOOOOhhhhh, must be something complicated and scientific! Marketing people eat that stuff up.

Finest regards,

troy

[Funny]

That is why i use the odd/unusual/strange changing interval, because of my previous work on engines.
I know that the majority of engine wear is in the first few hours of run-time on an engine, therefore I change out the oil that is getting filled with particulates. Then I go a little longer with a controlled particulate (Marvel Mystery Oil) to smooth the surfaces. Then I let nature take back over, but still change the oil more frequently to get the remaining majority of fillings out of the crankcase. Then regular oil changes with a good filter and good oil.

It just seemed logical to me, so that's why I did it that way.

[ATaylorRacing]

I opt for more often oil changes since I abuse the hell out of my stuff with weekly drag racing....even the Geo a couple of times. Oil not only lubricates, but also takes away impurities from combustion. I have always gotten 100,000 miles out of the motors of the cars I drag race by changing the oil at 1000 miles after purchase (if new) and then every 2000 miles with regular oil...or now every 5000 miles or once a year with FULL synthetic. Don't waste your money on synthetic blends because they are most often only 20% synthetic. My Geo Metro 3 banger and the wife's 05 4.0 Mustang V6 uses the least amount of oil of all.....in 2000 miles they use 1/4 qt of oil with regular oil and with 10-30 full synthetic they use 1/2 qt in 5000 miles. My 12 second SRT4 Neon uses 1 qt in 5000 miles. The old 84 Horizon is the least efficient...in mpg too....of course, the motor was given to me at the start of 06 with 235,000 miles already on it and it was using about 1 qt every 1000 miles, now it is up to 1 qt every 200 miles....but not smoking yet and a small leak from the oil pan sealing does not help. The Neon is near 70,000 miles as is the Mustang....the economical Geo is nearing 175,000 miles!

[bgd73]

sometimes the metal frags end up feeding it back at it. a combustion chamber is an amazing thing...it eveninvented a type of forging just by existing. (some compaines know how to use it- especially inline fours)


if worried about it, add a stronger filter. oil change needs trust in the chemistry...
castrol edge and other extremes claim 15k miles.

regular much less.

[Ptero]

Always use a quality filter ($$).
Change your oil at 800 miles.
Change again at 3000 miles.
Replace fossil oil with a synthetic blend at 6000 miles.
Again at 9000 miles.
Use pure synthetic at 12000 miles.
At 15,000, use pure synthetic again.
Change every 10,000 miles thereafter.
If you hypermile, your engine will outlive you.

[Thymeclock]

I recently bought a new 2009 Aveo. As soon as I brought it home I checked the oil. Good thing I did: it was a whole quart LOW. (The oil was new and so clean it was hard to see it on the dipstick. Needless to say, I added the missing quart.)

My use is all city driving, so I change the oil in my cars every three months regardless of mileage. You'll never go wrong by changing oil too often. It's changing it too infrequently that kills engines. And some engines eventually end up burning oil no matter what you do - but that's another story...

[Frank Lee]

Wrong.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Jammer

From what I can gather, I am unaware of any other brand of car using a computer to calculate the time to change the oil- Am I wrong here?

Yes, you are. BMW and Honda are two others that I know of, at least on some models.

As far as I can tell, they take "normal operating conditions" into account. They look at loads, temperatures, the time the engine is on, probably RPMs, and other stuff. I don't think they measure the oil directly in any way, so they don't take into account all of the stuff that accumulates in a new engine as it wears in.

I'm also more inclined to waste a little oil just in case it helps cut down on wear, so I would probably change the oil before the computer said to, until I thought the engine was "broken in".

-soD

[Funny]

"Full" Break-in doesn't occur until about 20,000 miles, depending on the break-in conditions (described at length and with much zeal above). That is the time on the engine that the seals will be the tightest and therefore the engine its most efficient. We Ecomodders are just looking to extend the "tightness" of the engine as long as possible.
I knew a lady that NEVER changed her oil in her cars, EVER. Not since she got it. She would always trade them in before 100K miles, because the thing was "not the same as when I got it". I told her that doing regular maintenance was important and she just kept doing the same thing she always had. Some people you just can't reach.

I on the other hand, would rather be safe than sorry.