This just in from Yahoo news regarding how often to change oil.

[Shop Rat]

Here is the link.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/586/the-3000-mile-oil-change-myth/

[Guest ken bogren]

The automatic alert system on our 2007 Chevy HHR seems to like 8 - 9,000 miles.

On the other hand, the alert on our 2008 Dodge Calibre popped at 2,100 miles, maybe because of the time lapse (5 months).

[DavidP]

That may be just something to do with Dodge/Chrysler Ken ...

I lost all respect for new car dealers when they modified their recommended oil change intervals for my 2003 Caravan from 5000 km intervals to 4500 km intervals immediately after I bought the van!

I'm probably not the only customer the dealer lost trying to squeeze 1 extra oil change out of the customer over the life of the car ...

[Guest Skyking]

2500 miles, oil & filter..............been doing this for years on end! I never rebuilt an engine in my lifetime.

[Ivan Saxton]

That is another good reason to use LPG or compressed natural gas in the intake air of diesl engines. The oil does not blacken with carbon because combustion is so clean. As for water in the oil, this is a problem of short running where the oil temperature does not remain at normal level long enough to get rid of moisture through the crankcase ventilation system; and if the oil is not black it is easier to pick up emulsion visually on the dipstick. The other advantages of course are that up to half of the fuel is cheap fuel, every skerrick of energy is extracted from the expensive diesel ($8.20/gallon here now), so you have much better running economy; there are no nasties in the exhaust from partial combustion, and you have more power. Ivan Saxton

[Jim Bollman]

I was a 3000 mile changer. Learned it from my Dad.

I started using Blackstone to analyze my oil when I bought my diesel, it takes 4 gallons of oil. I sent the first sample in after driving it 1500 miles home from where I bought it when I changed the oil. I wanted to see if I really got a good deal or a boat anchor, they said I got a good one. Once I get an idea how the oil ages with my kind of use, I will probably drop off to once a year testing to be sure I'm on track, right now I'm testing every 3000 miles. They have already said 6000 should be no problem with my driving conditions and maybe more. I probably will not push it much beyond 6000. Ford says 3000-5000.

I sent in a sample from our Honda Civic to check the built in computer. Blackstone and Honda were with in a few percent of agreeing on how used up the oil was. Based on that I am extending my oil changes on the Honda to 6000 miles which will still be well within the safe zone on the computer monitor.

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Using 2005 data, the Board estimates that Californians alone generate about 153.5 million gallons of waste oil annually, <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="color: #CC0000">of which only about 60 percent is recycled.</span></span> </div></div>

This is the part that I found shocking. Recycling oil is virtually effortless, and easier than trying to throw it away. Right now down my street there is a HUGE stain from somone who was too lazy to take their oil to the local garage who'll accept it for recycle (you can walk to about 5 or 6 places from here in 5 minutes). This genius put what must have been 3 or 4 gallons of waste oil out with the trash.

Guess what happens to bottles of oil when the garbage truck driver decides to compact the load!

If you recycle your oil, changing it more often then needed isn't <span style="text-decoration: underline">that</span> terrible an environmental sin. If you don't recycle your oil at this point in time you're probably too self-absorbed to care what anyone else is saying anyway. Maybe someday when my car has the same oil monitoring system as a $125,000 Mercedes I'll trust it to last longer. Until then I'm assuming the worst and covering my backside.

[ted sweet]

if you are doing 3000 mile changes you must believe todays oils and filters are no better than what we had 50 years ago.

[R W Burgess]

You guys ready for a shocker?

About 15 to 20 years ago(memory fails me), a diesel engine company (sorry, that memory thing again)tested their products with a sealed crankcase. That is, they ran their engines for test periods without ever changing the engine oil. It was normally available diesel oil. The trick was that they had a stand alone oil tank, similar to the Nascar guys, that would add oil to the engine as the level dropped below a certain point. They also devised a system that took a certain amount of oil out of the crankcase and fed it back to the fueling system. There was never any oil to dispose of. Of course, the filtering system was changed at certain periods of time, as usual. I realize I'm a little vague on this.

It was either Detroit Diesel or Cummins involved in this, as they were my engines of choice at that time period.

Don't they say that oil never wears out? It just gets dirty, which takes away its lubricity properties? An interesting idea. Wonder why it failed?

I've never thought anymore about this until now. Buying and changing engine oil was the least of my problems in the last 30 years.

Wayne

[rocketraider]

A good friend who retired as a GM Zone service manager once told me "oil is oil, as long as it's changed according to how the car is driven." Olds had a lot of "oil research" engines on the road in the 60s and 70s so at least one carmaker was into that.

Oil analysis is a good thing if you have simple access to a test facility. Time was we could send a car sample down to the corporate oil testing lab but the company Code of Ethics has killed that option.

I think most of us already realise our old cars are driven under "severe service" guidelines. My drivers OTOH are fuel injected and driven 30 miles one way to work, so they can probably get away with 5-6000 mile oil change intervals. I use mostly CH-4 rated diesel oil for the old cars, though I've found the K-car gets better oil mileage using it. Either way, it uses less than a quart between 4000 mile oil changes.

I'll admit to being leery about a lot of filters. I used to try to keep AC Delco filters on the Oldsmobiles and Motorcraft on the Ford truck, but I've read some unsettling things about those brands' current product. Any more I'm partial to WIX, NAPA, and Purolator. Baldwin is a highly rated filter too, but not easy to find around here.

I have a stash of old stock AC filters for the old cars which seems to keep them happy. They get oil changed once a year, and I take the used oil and filter to Advance Auto who recycles it at no charge.

But boy do I remember the stigma attached to "reprocessed" motor oil when I was growing up! Now that I understand vacuum and heat process oil filtration, I wouldn't be afraid to use it in an engine. We use it on large steam turbines with no ill effects.

[JFranklin]

My father built a filter he used on 2 cars ('40 ford & '48 chevrolet) that I remember when I was a kid and never changed the oil, he added oil when needed. The filter was a bypass but removed dirt, sludge, and water from the oil. the color of the oil stayed clear and I remember him checking the bearings occasionally for wear which was virtually none. I have his information on this filter and with the oil crisis I may produce them as a suplemental oil filter.

[R W Burgess]

J,

Sounds similar to the old "toilet paper" canister filter idea.

How inexpensive can you get? Just don't buy the Charming.

Wayne

[charlier]

My older vehicles get an Oil & Filter changes every 3000 miles due to the "severe driving conditions" they are exposed to.

My newest vehicles gets an Oil & Filter change every 5000 miles so that it complies with the manufacturer's maintenance schedule

and I avoid any "issues" with warranty claims.

FYI, the "computerized" systems some auto makers are installing in their vehicles will make it virtually impossible for

the "shade tree mechanic" (ie. car owner) to do simple maintenance tasks. For example, one auto maker's vehicles require that

the "computer" be reset when one replaces the brake discs and pads on their vehicles.

Unless the car owner has a scan tool that is compatable with that vehicle, the car owner has little choice but to take the vehicle

to a dealer or indy shop that has the equipment.

[R W Burgess]

What happens if you don't reset it Charlie. My wife says if we didn't have a blinking or constantly burning light in our regular cars, she wouldn't know how to act.

We changed out an engine in an '80 Chevy years ago. Put a carburetor on the new crate engine, but we had leftover unhooked wires all over the engine compartment. Of course on cranking over that new engine, the check engine light was on......all the time. That car went through 3 transmissions, numerous brake jobs, replacement tires, and other wearables. But, that stupid "check engine" light never burned out. Must have made out of NASA Space quality material. We finally set that wagon up after 300,000 miles, but I'll bet I can throw a battery in her and that darn light will still burn.

Wayne

[Matt Harwood]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R W Burgess</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> That car went through 3 transmissions, numerous brake jobs, replacement tires, and other wearables. But, that stupid "check engine" light never burned out. Must have made out of NASA Space quality material. We finally set that wagon up after 300,000 miles, but I'll bet I can throw a battery in her and that darn light will still burn. Wayne </div></div>

There's an easy solution to that: black electrical tape. The check engine light on my Dodge 2500 pickup comes on so often that I have come to ignore it. I moved my CD changer remote in front of it so I don't have to look at it anymore.

In terms of oil, as the article says, it never really loses its lubricity, it just fills up with contaminants. Most of these are too small (and soft) to do any real damage as long as the oil is liquid and not sludge, and the filter catches a majority of them. Although I use synthetic oil in my turbocharged cars, I still run them 5000-7000 miles without any problems. As you know, oil is the lifeblood of a turbo, yet I've never had to replace one. I guess frequent oil changes are cheap peace of mind, but it won't be cheap much longer...

My personal opinion is that anything under 5000 miles, no matter what kind of oil you use, is wasted money. Anyone notice that the 3000 mile "recommendation" showed up about the time quick change oil stores showed up? It was the oil companies' invention to get you to think your engine would self-destruct catastrophically if the crankcase wasn't full of crystal-clear amber oil. Anyone here had an oil-related failure on a modern car (say, one built in the last 10-15 years)? Although I'm sure someone will have an anecdote, I bet it is incredibly rare. Newer engines die because of other things--they don't spin bearings or score cylinder walls because of 7500-mile oil.

Heck, my roommate in college didn't even know she had to change her oil and filter. She ran her Chevy Cavalier on what I believe to be the factory fill for 53,000 miles before I told her she had to change it. She had merely been adding oil as necessary. Duh. It didn't smoke or make any bad noises, and she drove it for several more years without issue.

[Guest bkazmer]

The issue is not really the life of the base oil itself. The additives (detergents, viscosity modifiers) can be used up. For example, most multi-viscosity oils use synthetic rubbers as additives. Eventually the polymer chains can be "snipped" through engine used and the viscosity decreases. (Maybe you've noticed a small oil pressure increase after changing the oil?) So when you change the oil, you're really getting rid of the dirt and replacing the additives.

I lot of people use the "3000 mile and never had a problem" argument. As another poster said, the technology has not stood still. Do you still change your average tires every 20, 000 miles? No engine harm is done, though, just added expenditure and pollution.

[charlier]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R W Burgess</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What happens if you don't reset it Charlie. My wife says if we didn't have a blinking or constantly burning light in our regular cars, she wouldn't know how to act. </div></div>

I will ask a friend of mine who is a master mechanic what happens as far as brakes go.

I do know that if the Check Engine Light (CEL) is related to any part of the emissions system that is cause to

Fail the Pennsylvania Emissions Testing. Some people who have scan tools think they can just clear the codes and they

will pass emissions. What they fail to realize is that all codes have to show a "ready" type status in order to pass emissions.

After the codes are cleared with a scan tool it takes a certain period of time for all the codes to show "ready".

That is why in Pennsylvania a driver with a CEL that is on should not wait until the last day of the month for inspection.

Most garages will be happy to repair the vehicle but most/all will not do an emissions inspection until all the codes reset.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Matt Harwood</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Anyone here had an oil-related failure on a modern car (say, one built in the last 10-15 years)? Although I'm sure someone will have an anecdote, I bet it is incredibly rare. Newer engines die because of other things--they don't spin bearings or score cylinder walls because of 7500-mile oil. </div></div>

Personally, I have not had an oil related failure because of 7500 mile oil.

Related to oil failures.... A friend of mine who is a master mechanic sees engine failures due to oil issues from time to time

with customer cars. In the case of those vehicles, the failure is due to the customer not checking the oil level or changing it in a timely manner.

In every, single, case the oil is always overdue to be changed. IIRC the current mileage champ is around 22K miles without an oil change that destroyed the engine.

Either the engine has virtually no oil of the oil it has is so thick and sludged up it will not flow. In either case, the engine is either replaced or the vehicle is scrapped.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: bkazmer</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Do you still change your average tires every 20, 000 miles? No engine harm is done, though, just added expenditure and pollution. </div></div>

For the owners of a certain "Luxury SUV", changing tires before 20K miles is a reality for more than a few of them.

In their case however, the tires have simply worn out before reaching 20K miles.

[Guest bkazmer]

You can wear out high performance (soft compound) tires with hard but not abusive driving in 20k, but incidents like the SUV or the early version of a certain 3.5 L coupe that ate tires are car defects. That said a normal all-season tire now routinely lasts 40 - 50k instead of 20k "back when."