3,000 mile paranoia. Who has it here?

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I put about 2,000 miles on my truck in 6 months. My wife puts less mileage than that on her Honda. I change the oil in both vehicles every 6 months, regardless of mileage. Both are running PYB right now, 10W30 in my truck and 5W20 in her car. We do a lot of short trips to the grocery store, bank, Walmart, out to dinner etc too so the 6 month OCI makes sense to me.

I work at home now but when I was commuting to the office 52 miles a day, 5 days a week, I could rack up 3,000 miles in 2 months. Back then I always changed my oil every 3,000 miles. I would not call it paranoia though. I watch for good oil and filter deals and usually keep a stash on hand. At $12.00 to maybe $15.00 or so per oil change, it's not paranoia. It's good maintenance and cheap insurance.
 
I did 3K changes up to about twenty years ago.
Since then, I'll run any oil 4K minimum, and usually 5-6K.
I know that even this is much less than I could run on most of the oils I use for the engines that I have.
 
It took me a while, but I kicked the 3k mile habit. I had to ease into at first, changing at 4k miles, then gradually started doing 5k changes. Now I'm scared to go past 5k on dino and 7500 on synthetic. Maybe over time I'll get over that too.
 
Originally Posted By: bullwinkle
Originally Posted By: Donald
What are people going to do when there is no more oil cause we wasted it changing it at 3000 miles?
Be sure to return your used oil to someplace that uses Safety-Kleen so that we can get more NextGen FAR!!


Corporations have huge vats that accept old engine oil...for free. The reason any corporation does this is to make money. The oil is recycled, into Nextgen, but also a great many other products. Used oil is sold and reused.
 
On my "older" 91 Land Cruiser, I stick to 3,000 mile oil changes. Mostly because I am nervous about going any longer on it and also the oil is pretty cheap ($13 a gallon). On our 02 Merc E320, I do 5k oil changes with Mobil 1 0w-40. In my mind, changing it that frequently is going to help the engine last longer.
 
Proof is in the pudding. I have done 3,000 mile oil changes will no ill effects. far as proof, had an old 1987 Firebird that had an engine compression test done on it and the two mechanics came and got me to show me that the engine had near perfect compression on all cylinders. Around 180,000 miles orignal miles.

The mechanics asked me what I did to the engine, I told them regular maintenance and 3,000 mile oil changes. In turn I asked the mechanics if they have seen similar engines with this many miles that had this good of compression, they replied, NO. This car was taken care of and driven fairly had at times.

I really get a kick when I see my neighbors, friends, etc... that buy expensive vehicles and then go cheap by extending their oil changes and other vehicle maintenance way out. Funny how big money folks will spend alot of money on a vehicle and are tight as h#&l about spending a single dollar on maintaining it.
 
Originally Posted By: Rob Taggs
Proof is in the pudding. I have done 3,000 mile oil changes will no ill effects. far as proof, had an old 1987 Firebird that had an engine compression test done on it and the two mechanics came and got me to show me that the engine had near perfect compression on all cylinders. Around 180,000 miles orignal miles.

The mechanics asked me what I did to the engine, I told them regular maintenance and 3,000 mile oil changes. In turn I asked the mechanics if they have seen similar engines with this many miles that had this good of compression, they replied, NO. This car was taken care of and driven fairly had at times.

I really get a kick when I see my neighbors, friends, etc... that buy expensive vehicles and then go cheap by extending their oil changes and other vehicle maintenance way out. Funny how big money folks will spend alot of money on a vehicle and are tight as h#&l about spending a single dollar on maintaining it.


Wow! You use 3 1/3 times more oil than I do per 100K.
 
Originally Posted By: Rob Taggs
Proof is in the pudding. I have done 3,000 mile oil changes will no ill effects. far as proof, had an old 1987 Firebird that had an engine compression test done on it and the two mechanics came and got me to show me that the engine had near perfect compression on all cylinders. Around 180,000 miles orignal miles.

The mechanics asked me what I did to the engine, I told them regular maintenance and 3,000 mile oil changes. In turn I asked the mechanics if they have seen similar engines with this many miles that had this good of compression, they replied, NO. This car was taken care of and driven fairly had at times.

I really get a kick when I see my neighbors, friends, etc... that buy expensive vehicles and then go cheap by extending their oil changes and other vehicle maintenance way out. Funny how big money folks will spend alot of money on a vehicle and are tight as h#&l about spending a single dollar on maintaining it.


No truer words!
thumbsup2.gif
 
With 3,000 mile changes I'm betting I have less metal particles floating around in my oil then compared to letting it go way beyond that, probably resulting in better compression. Take two identical vehicles and do 3,000 mile oil change on one and drag out the oil changes to today's advocated oil changes of 10,000 and beyond miles and I'd bet the one done with 3,000 mile oil changes has better compression and would be more mechanically sound, just an opinion.
 
My only vehicle (03'Ford Focus,2.3L) has seen only synthetic since I purchased it with 59K on the OD. It now has about 107K.

My OCI can vary depending on my driving habits. If I make a couple of trips down to Southern California (2000 R/T), I extend it out to 8 to 9K. Since I'm retired, and I don't do as much driving as I did when working, My OCI is about 7K +/-.....or one year, whichever comes first.

I use either M-1 0w20 or PP 5w20, and am confident that those two oils will easily do the above mileage.
 
Originally Posted By: Donald
What are people going to do when there is no more oil cause we wasted it changing it at 3000 miles?


3000 miles with 4 quarts equals ONE GALLON. How many gallons of gasoline were consumed in that 3000 mile interval--probably around 100 gallons. The 1 gallon of oil is (ahem) a drop in the bucket.

Why do I stick to the 3K OCI? Basically because if I do, I get cars that last 150K-180K miles and I never have to use the dip stick to know if there is enough oil in the motor. They never end up burning oil, consuming oil, or giving me (motor related) grief.

You could argue that I could run longer intervals, and use the dip stick (perhaps put in make up oil); you can argue that I could spend the money on oil analysis (about equal to an actual oil change), but when you get to the nitty gritty of having to change the filter at 3000-ish miles ANYWAY, why not just change it all?

But the facts are that I want my cars to last longer than the manufacture wants them to last. A 3000 mile OCI helps meat my goals. And is not all that costly compared to a car breakdown.
 
You could extend your drains by 60%+, out to 5K, and there would be zero impact on engine wear or life.
Where did you get the idea that an oil filter should be changed every 3K?
I'm as anal as they come, and the only time that I did that was when I did 3K OCIs.
150-180K is not that many miles, either.
I don't have to check the dipstick on our '97 Accord, now with 204K, with it having done 5-6K OCIs throughout its life.
The '99 Accord is in its prime after just under 153K, having run 6K so far on Edge, with virtually no consumption, so I don't really need to check the dipstick on it either, although I may have thought with mine in using Edge.
Engines are better machined today than they were thirty years ago, and oils are better as well.
What made sense then may be obsolete now.
Still, it's your money, your time and your engine, and oil and oil filters really don't cost all that much.
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Wow! You use 3 1/3 times more oil than I do per 100K.


Don't forget, tig, you're using a quality synthetic and have been doing so since before most people even heard of it.
 
I do 3k if it was all city- short trip driving on my older carb cars. That comes to once a year on my locally driven cars.
 
Forgot to mention I use G-OIL in all my vehicles and lawn equipment with the exception of a 2011 Silverado due to warranty concerns. So very little dependency on foreign oil and its animal and plant matter. Stuff works and its American made.
 
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It's easy to think of metal particles floating around in the oil as a big malevolent yellow cartoon Sun with seven arms swinging around knives and hammers trying to destroy anything they can reach. Isn't it the truth that in normal usage these are very small particulates that will rarely touch any metal except for the rare few that get caught in the filter?

/Use of Lucas HDOS isn't normal usage.
//Lucas users: yes, some of your metal particles do have seven arms.
 
Originally Posted By: Rob Taggs
Forgot to mention I use G-OIL in all my vehicles and lawn equipment with the exception of a 2011 Silverado due to warranty concerns. So very little dependency on foreign oil and its animal and plant matter. Stuff works and its American made.


But how does it taste?
 
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