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Changing your oil


Guest GregTC

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Guest GregTC

I ran across this photo in my phone, I bought this car 4 years ago ( 1989 2.2 sohc)  last spring I had to replace the head gasket and been that coolant made it way in to the oil I decided to pull the oil pan to clean the pan and the lower end. if you look at  the photo you can see the old oil residue  in the pan and that was after soaking it for 24 hours in heated solvent, so keep that oil changed. 

20150906_095520.jpg

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This photo shows the pure and simple example of BLATANT NEGLECT. I will assure anyone that the oil pan on my 281 thousand mile TC is SPOTLESS!

And, I change my oil every few, that could be 2 to 3 years at between 10,000 and 15,000 mile intervals.

I do use Mobil 1 Synthetic and I do change the oil filter one time between oil changes.

So real frequent oil changes are not necessary, observation of the color of your oil on the dipstick is more indicative of the need of an oil change.

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If you want to get super serious about oil changes, you can send a sample of your oil off and have it analyzed to see how badly it is contaminated. There are only 2 reasons to change the oil. #1 is when the oil is contaminated to the point that it can no longer protect the engine from itself (that's where most of the stuff comes from), and #2 is when the additive pack has broken down to the point that it isn't doing its job. With synthetic oils scenario #1 is far more frequent than #2. The tactic of checking oil this way started with trains if I'm not mistaken as they wanted to see if they could extend the service interval to save money. This has extended to all kinds of fleet service.

 

BTW, the practice of not changing the oil out for years, especially if the car has been sitting, can lead to other issues, especially if the car is not stored in a climate controlled environment. Eventually condensation will build up in the crank case and the oil can actually turn acidic. If you have a car that's been sitting a long time, even if it hasn't run...change the oil!

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