Any other short changers out there?

Joined
Mar 31, 2019
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32
Location
South Dakota
Growing up my dad insisted that oil is cheap, engines are not. He always changed at 2,000 miles when I was a kid, and his pickup to this day is spotless under the oil cap and valve covers - no varnish on anything inside. Before switching careers, I was an auto tech around the time manufacturers started switching to recommendations for 10k OCIs. I recall seeing vehicles come in with 50-60k on them with sludge buildup on everything metal inside the engine, including the dipstick.
I currently change all my vehicles between 4 - 5k due to short trips, cold weather, GDI turbo, and towing but I see a lot of people advocating 7,500 - 10k OCIs. With the availability of high quality oils and low prices these days, who else changes early and what's your reasoning?
 
I go early just because it’s cheap and I work 4 miles from home while driving one of 3 cars and 3 motorcycles. I like to stick with every 2/3,000 miles. If I drove 50 miles a day I would have no problem going 3/5,000 miles.
 
I'm switching to a time based OCI on my wife's 2008 Liberty vs. a 6K mile OCI. Due to drastic changes in how the vehicle is used since CV-19 I will be changing the oil in May and November, until the usage pattern changes and the vehicle is driven on more frequent longer trips. I might get a UOA to see how that works.
 
I usually go with a 6000 mile (10000 km) interval for our Honda, which usually sees a mix of short tripping and 2 hrs per week on the highway. I'll be going with a 3000 mile interval this time though. Our usual highway run doesn't happen very often now, due to the you-know-what.
 
I've been changing every 6,000 to 7,500 since about 1995 with mostly group III synthetic. Now, I follow the OLM on my Sierra (between 7,000 and 7,500) and 10,000 OCI on the S60. All of my engines have outlived the vehicles they were mounted in.
 
My wife’s Xterra gets 3500-4k miles and no more due to the timing chain issues these engines had. My 5.9 gas ram gets 2k simply because it hardly gets driven and is seeing a lot of blow by. I’ve never gone past 5k with my past vehicles but now that I daily a 2012 corolla i try to wait until 6-7500 but still usually change at 5k. I also just love to tinker in the garage so if something is close and I have nothing else to do it’s getting an early change.
 
The only time(s) that I change oil & filter early these days is out of convienence mainly due to season change(usually winter) or we have a long driving vacation coming up. Even if I haven't put my new normal time/mileage on a particular OCI...but it's close enough!

I used to be a 3 mo/3K mi changer then gradually moved to longer intervals(slowly) after discovering BITOG and reading through all of the UOAs. Then I moved to the 5K-6K mi(and often 7K-8K depending) OCI 3X/yr.

Now being retired, I am again at ~ 5K-6K mi but only 2X/yr. However with COVID-19, I could probably drop down to 1X/yr. until things change and we're back to normal.
 
I alternate between 5k and 10k. I like 5k towards the end of winter, after many cold starts. But 10k has been working ok for a while. But I do lots of highway driving, so, as they say, YMMV.

My old Camry though does get 5k, comes from a different era and I'm not sure about using 10k on it. I probably could, maybe I should, once COVID is over and I start going back to normal life. No timing chain to worry, after all. Then again, oil is cheap, as they say.
 
My vehicle fits the severe service criteria as defined by Subaru (2016 Forester). Gets done every 4 months which is 3-4 thousand miles.
 
My 4Runner specs 10K OCI. I do oil and filter on the 10K's and spill & fill just the oil at the 5K's.
The Honda CR-V I go by the maintenance minder. It usually prompts for an oil change at its indicated oil life monitor 15% around 7500 miles.
The Cobalt gets driven about 1500 miles a year. It gets an oil change every year or two, so about 3000 miles.
 
My wife has a 0.7 mile commute so she gets changes every spring and fall. end's up being around 3250 miles. Almost all her miles are short trips and it gets pretty darn cold here so to combat moisture and fuel dilution it makes sense to me to change early.

Plus this schedule allows me to avoid changing oil in the bitter cold.
 
I try very hard not to change oil too early, my goal is 10 000 km but i used to change it every 5000 km. I just enjoy trying different oils and changing it. To me, how easy it is do an oil change has a lot to do with the intervals. With my main car and other similar old Benz i had it is so easy, everything is extremely accessible and it's a very clean procedure. I don't have to jack up the car either, i like to let it drain for an hour but otherwise it's litteraly a 2 minutes procedure. I used to drive 50 000 km each year and that wasn't an issue, 15 minutes, oil + filter = 20 bucks. However i realized that there are more pressing matters and that such short oil changes are a total waste of ressources and environmentally irresponsible.
 
Wife's car that gets driven over 23k a year on a long commute daily gets 9000 mile changes. Multiple UOA I've done with ultra premium oil and also "average" oil showed much lower wear material / mile then those following the 6K factory OCI. Also good TBN retention was reported.
Now, I'm going to have to think about my situation in my new Ford that might get 5000 - 6000 per year with very short trips, lots of idling in cold weather as we have a five Month "Winter" up here in So. New Hampshire.
I'm Thinking Spring and Late Fall OCI. Or maybe Ill do just Late Fall, that way I'll have killer TBN and spec MRV at the start of Winter.

I may only do 2 OCI before I sell the car and get a Hot Rot so I'm not going to fuss about it. I'm old and its time for the "killer car" before I am too old to enjoy it - and I'm creeping up on that place already.
I did try to get a Camaro LT1 with the 6 speed but there was something wrong with the shifter on that one. To bad they were blowing it out for mid 30 's brandy new - then there is that 455 HP killer engine in there.
 
I do 5k on my Malibu and the wife's Trax. We drive almost all highway but with both being turbo GDI I'm playing it safe. My 04 silverado doesn't get driven all that much, so it's been changed a few times over 2-3k miles. I bought it used so I'm babying it a bit, trying different oils and filters.
 
My wife has a 0.7 mile commute so she gets changes every spring and fall. end's up being around 3250 miles. Almost all her miles are short trips and it gets pretty darn cold here so to combat moisture and fuel dilution it makes sense to me to change early.

Plus this schedule allows me to avoid changing oil in the bitter cold.
She needs to get a plug in E car or to walk to work. That's not a commute, and thats killer on the car.
How does she end up being so close to work? My Nice works at 1211 6th Ave at 30 Rock for FOX and use to walk to work from her apartment - but she moved out of NYC to Ct and takes the Rail now.
 
My Accord had a less than 3000 miles OCI this past time, because I only drove that far in 1 year. 1 year is my absolute limit before changing it out.

We put more miles on the Jetta and it gets 6 months / 5K mile OCI's.
 
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