5000 mile Oilchange Intervals on Dino?

[Flimflam]

Couple of days back, I wrote out a reply to some Saturn fans in here. I mentioned a neighbor wth a Saturn with 200,000 miles on it, and still going strong, much stronger than many new cars with less than 4,000 miles on them. I now recall a couple of interesting facts about this guy and his Saturn.

He uses 10W-40 Castrol GTX mineral oil. Changes it every 5,000 miles. Does not change oil filter until the next oil change. That's right, 10,000 miles on the same oil filter.

Does this mean that those people who recommend longer drain intervals(than the popular 3,000 mile interval) are correct? Does this mean that dino is tougher than the slick syn ad's would have us believe?

Or maybe that guy lucked on to a freak, a real stud saloon that just happened to roll off the production line. I hope Saturns are not all like that. If they are, we'd have to go out there with silver bullets in our revolvers and wooden stakes and mallets. ***just kidding*** The above paragraphs are not a joke, though. They are true fact. The guy has the whole neighborhood shaking their heads in disbelief.

 

[Shannow]

My parent's Renault 16 did 320,000 km (before they sold it) on 20W-50 GTX with 10,000km oil changes).

It had a lot of "crust" under the rocker cover, but refrained from usng more than a litre per change until the last 20,000km.

 

[Ken4]

Was it mostly highway miles? 5000 highway miles = 2500 servere service miles.

 

[Shannow]

Ken, for the old Renault, that's a good point.
Daily driver for Mum to get to work in Adelaide (maybe 10 miles each way). Every 6-8 weeks, a 1,000 mile round trip to visit the relatives. for the first 120,000 miles.

Then it was city work (although Canberra is NOT what you in the U.S. would define as city driving), with a 3 monthly 1,200 mile round trip.

 

[Patman]

I think the new SL dino oils can handle 5k intervals pretty well. I'm going to try two intervals of 10,000km each (6k) with GTX 5w30 in my sister's 99 Civic, although she does a lot of highway driving so it should be a piece of cake for it.

Bob has proved that Schaeffer dino oil can easily handle well over 5k as well. It's all about the additive package.

 

[Eiron]

I agree with Patman. I think there's no problem taking a dino to 5k mile intervals. However, my personal observations with a particular Grp3 oil to 10k intervals would make me hesitant to go much longer than 5k or 6k miles with a full dino. Obviously, engines/revs/capacities/etc. all vary any application of any oil.

 

[Chris A]

I don't think it's a no-braininer that an SL dino can run to 5k. I do believe it is possible, but I believe more times than not, the oil will be done before 5k. I would not attempt it without analysis.

On my relatively easily driven 2002 GMC Yukon, the M1 syn oil was most probably done by 6k miles by looking at the vis increase. I don't think a dino would have made it past 3.5k.

On the topic of oil abuse, I had a co-worker with a Reliant-K who never changed the oil. She bought it new and traded it in after 5 years with 106k miles on it. It was still running fine.

 

[segfault]

I have noticed that recent model Hondas and Mitsubishis recommend only an oil change without a filter half the time. Example: 2001-present Honda Civic; 2003 Accord:

Normal service:
10,000 miles: Change oil.
20,000 miles: Change oil and filter.

Severe service:
5,000 miles: Change oil.
10,000 miles: Change oil and filter.

Mitsubishi (not sure of model years):

Normal service:
7,500 miles: Change oil.
15,000 miles: Change oil and filter.

Severe service:
3,000 miles: Change oil.
6,000 miles: Change oil and filter.

 

[segfault]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chris A:
On the topic of oil abuse, I had a co-worker with a Reliant-K who never changed the oil. She bought it new and traded it in after 5 years with 106k miles on it. It was still running fine.

---

Did the oil ever have to be topped up?

 

[mph]

quote:

---

Originally posted by segfault:

Normal service:
10,000 miles: Change oil.
20,000 miles: Change oil and filter.

---

Now nice of them to save owners 0.05 cents or so per mile.

(For comparison, my fuel costs are about 5 cents per mile, and mileage reimbursement for work is in excess of 30 cents.)

 

[sprintman]

10W40 and 20W50. Not a 30W in sight. There's your longevity answer IMO.

 

[Flimflam]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ken4:
Was it mostly highway miles? 5000 highway miles = 2500 servere service miles.

---

It was everything: highway, city, suburbs, mountain roads, dirt tracks. Any other car would have kicked the bucket the way that guy drove it. No warm up in Winter. He'd get in half drunk from the bar, fall into the driver's seat, turn the key, and floor the pedal. The 200,000 miles was done in just about 4 years.

 

[MolaKule]

Chris,

But, how about the poor schmuck who bought the car from the dealer?

 

[dragboat]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MolaKule:
Chris,

But, how about the poor schmuck who bought the car from the dealer?

---

Yep,a nice little one owner there!

 

[pedaltothemetal]

I think all the engines these days can go 200000 easy with proper maintenance. Changing the oil at 5000 and not the filter, is better than changing both the filter and oil at 10000 mi. I have some friends who are special messengers and drive 10000 miles a month, and have 500000 miles on their odometer. Most all of them had their trans go out before any engine problems. Their cars all burned oil, and their catalytic convertors were all burned out, but no major engine problems others than timing belt changes every 75000 miles. This is a testiment to how well built our cars are now a days.

Leo

 

[Chris A]

Molakule, would you ever buy a used car from a dealer with over 100k miles on it and not expect to have to rebuild the engine soon anyway?

segfault, I didn't ask, but I assume that it needed some added occasionally.

 

[mkosem]

well, ya see. saturns don't die. that saturn with 200k miles on it probably has plenty of life in it. my uncle's running a 94 SC2 with 320k miles on it and it's still running great. He runs 10w30 in the winter and 10w40 in the summer at 5k intervals. It doesn't even seem to burn much oil. I'm gonna try to get him to run some auto-rx in there also. As a quote from a saturn tech go's "Old saturns never die, people kill them."

--Matt