3000 mi oil change scam?

[RWDIII]

I thought the 3000 mi oil change scam was a thing of the past.
Just got a new explorer and decided to change the first oil change at 6000mi and then
when the oil monitor says its needed.
picked up the car from the dealer and low and behold is the sticker saying the next
oil change is due at 9000 miles.Now the wife is all excited about that I said we should change once a year.
Her explorer gets driven 9000 miles and my old F150 gets driven 5500.
both use MC 5-20 blend.
Would it be better to use full syn?
Thanks

 

[fredf]

Follow the recommendation in the owner's manual. The dealer sticker is simply a money making suggestion.

Is this the first car you've owned?

 

[gathermewool]

3k is good for them, because it:

1. Makes them more money.

2. Reduces the risk of engine damage for those who have oil consumption, but do not check their oil between changes.

I can't comment on your proposed OCI, because it depends heavily on HOW you drive each vehicle.

 

[HangFire]

I don't understand the 3K scam comment, are you saying the 9K mile recommendation is a scam? Not a very lucrative scam. You yourself want to change it the first time at 6K and you're complaining about a 9K recommendation?

Really, my personal preferences, I don't like to run conventional oil beyond 5500 miles or semi-syn beyond 8 or 9K miles. For example Mobil Super 5000 (non-syn) is designed for 5K oil change intervals, and Mobil 1 has a guarantee for your engine as long as you keep OCI's under 10K.

Also I would want to get the break-in oil out of there much earlier than 9K, the dealer may have the same opinion.

Your first year or 10K miles is sort of your "golden" time for warranty service. Whatever it is, if it's broken inside that time, they should fix it, no questions asked. So it makes sense for the dealer to want you to come in inside that window, if he wants to take care of his customers.

 

[cp3]

6000+3000=9000....

 

[y_p_w]

I remember way back when name brand conventional motor oil could sell for less than $1 a quart and I could get a quality oil filter for $2. So throw in a quarter for a crush washer and it was pretty cheap. So for my car that took less than 4 quarts, I was looking at $6. Even with my '95 GS-R that got a steady diet of Mobil 1, I was finding 4-quart special bottles of 10w30 for $12 and a local target had Mobil 1 5w30 or Mobil 1 10w30 for about $3.25 a quart.

That was cheap, I knew a local recycling center with a big waste oil tank, and I felt good when I changed every 4K miles.

Now I'm looking at $3-5 a quart for common stuff like Pennzoil conventional or maybe $16 for a 5-quart jug at a discount store. These days I drive mostly freeway miles and I'm spending a bit more. Even for my wife's car, it's getting somewhat pricey. The oil is supposedly better than it's even been and my wife yells at me for wasting time working on these cars when I could just take them to a quick lube place.

I don't know if it's a "scam" per se unless they're not actually providing the service you pay for. Frequent oil changes are definitely oversold, and I've even read some suggestions that changing oils too often is counterproductive because the antiwear additives have a certain activation period. You're kind of balancing this with replenishing the additives as well as removing excessive contaminants. You're also replacing the filter.

 

[The motor guy]

lol. It puts the miles of the vehicle when you need to change it again.

 

[RWDIII]

The scam is after changing at 6000 miles,they want to change at 9000 mi.
the manual says to change when the oil monitor says,sometime
between 7500 and 10000.
as long as I don't go over that I will change once a year.

 

[hemitom]

Originally Posted By: HangFire
I don't understand the 3K scam comment, are you saying the 9K mile recommendation is a scam? Not a very lucrative scam. You yourself want to change it the first time at 6K and you're complaining about a 9K recommendation?

Really, my personal preferences, I don't like to run conventional oil beyond 5500 miles or semi-syn beyond 8 or 9K miles. For example Mobil Super 5000 (non-syn) is designed for 5K oil change intervals, and Mobil 1 has a guarantee for your engine as long as you keep OCI's under 10K.

Also I would want to get the break-in oil out of there much earlier than 9K, the dealer may have the same opinion.

Your first year or 10K miles is sort of your "golden" time for warranty service. Whatever it is, if it's broken inside that time, they should fix it, no questions asked. So it makes sense for the dealer to want you to come in inside that window, if he wants to take care of his customers.

No, he changed the oil at 6000 they want it back in at 9000, hence the 3000 oci.

 

[NO2]

My local Ford dealer charges $29 for Syn blend change, and $55 for the Full Synthetic. You are very unlikely to see any benefit of the Full Synthetic unless you drive under severe conditions (towing, sub 0 temps, etc.) or have an extended OCI (e.g. 10K). The MC syn blend is excellent oil, as are the MC filters. If you change your own oil, the delta is small so I'd use the Full Synthetic (MC Syn blend is $18/5q at Walmart, Full Synthetic like Pennzoil Platinum is around $25/5q).

 

[901Memphis]

The motor craft syn blend is fine for the length of the oil life monitor, if you want to leave a small cushion, change it around 15%-20% remaining.

The sticker should be completely ignored and is only useful for when you changed it last, and that's if they mark the mileage correctly, I've seen stickers with the wrong mileage before.

If you use synthetic, you should follow the olm down to 0%, but I would never pay for a shop or dealer to change with their synthetic, the price is outrageous. You should buy your own oil and let them change it.

 

[Merkava_4]

3000 miles is a long OCI for me. I change mine every 6 months which turns out to be about 2000 miles.

 

[901Memphis]

3,000 is an underutilization of the lubricant and a good waste of resources.

 

[Merkava_4]

How long does it take you guys to put 3000 miles on your car?

 

[Mystic]

I don't think a 3000 mile oil change recommendation is necessarily a scam. In my owner's manual that came with the car when I bought it new it says 3000 mile oil changes with the recommended quality of oil are required under SEVERE driving conditions. And then when you look at what is considered severe driving conditions it is just about certain you qualify for severe driving conditions. About the only time it would not be considered severe driving conditions was if a person was a traveling salesman driving in good weather without a lot of dust and not towing a trailer.

It also depends on the quality of motor oil used. If a person is using conventional motor oil that you can get fairly cheaply and doing your own oil changes to save money, it would not hurt to change oil frequently if you want to drive the car a long time.

The owner's manual that comes with the car and recommends a 3000 mile oil change under severe driving conditions comes from the car manufacturer and not from the service department at the dealership. I assume the car manufacturer has some idea of how often the oil should be changed.

I have heard of some new car manuals that recommend very long OCIs. That might be fine with synthetic oil but you need to check to see if there is a severe driving requirement. I don't care what anybody says I am not going to drive 10,000 miles with conventional motor oil. The oil is cheaper than a new engine.

 

[steve20]

The oil is cheaper than a new engine. [/quote]


That line of thinking went out years ago

 

[Merkava_4]

It's the possibility of getting varnish stains that keeps me from going a long OCI.

 

[Mystic]

I don't care if that line went out years ago or not. I am still not going to drive 10,000 miles with conventional motor oil. And if I bought a new vehicle I would check the owners' manual. If it said 7500 miles under NORMAL driving conditions but 3000 miles under SEVERE driving conditions, I would change the oil every 3000 miles. Motor oil has gone up in price but it is still fairly cheap and doing an oil change is still pretty easy.

 

[cp3]

A lot of cars don't say that anymore, they have some type of oil monitor, which a lot of people don't follow.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted By: Mystic
I don't think a 3000 mile oil change recommendation is necessarily a scam. In my owner's manual that came with the car when I bought it new it says 3000 mile oil changes with the recommended quality of oil are required under SEVERE driving conditions. And then when you look at what is considered severe driving conditions it is just about certain you qualify for severe driving conditions. About the only time it would not be considered severe driving conditions was if a person was a traveling salesman driving in good weather without a lot of dust and not towing a trailer.

3000 isn't all that common any more. It was always a matter of keeping it simple with the 3000/7500 dichotomy. In reality it was more complicated than that, and oil-life monitors sort of bridge the gap these days. These days it seems more like 3750/7500 is pretty common, and Honda even has 10,000/5000.

Most vehicles are probably somewhere in between. Stop and go driving or idling is far less severe than it used to be. I'd think that someone driving a car 15 miles to/from work every day isn't in the severe category, and then taking it on longer weekend trips really takes it out of being severe.