Early new car oil change or not?

[svtrit]

I ran a fleet of new trucks for 5 years and we never changed the oil early. These abused trucks were all fine later in life, some with 200,000 miles of salesperson abuse.

5000 miles is what I would do in your situation, as I did with my new F150's.

 

[Hermann]

I'll be going with my 2-3K plan on the new Venza, then do the once a year which probably be 7-9K. Has worked well for 50 years of driving.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

$50,000 car.
$20 in oil.

Change it early and often.

 

[DwightFrye]

My new Jaguar has a 16,000 mile or 1 year recommended oil and filter changes. No way will I go that far before changing it. I plan on doing the first change soon, which will be around the 2500 mile mark. The good news is that the warranty covers scheduled maintenance so I can have the dealer do it yearly which will likely only be around 5000 miles. But I'm going to get that factory fill out long before that point.

 

[Zee09]

$50,000 car.
$20 in oil.

Change it early and often.

No no no
That's not green

 

[UncleDave]

Leave it in -the factory fill contain the moly from the assembly lube. Your engine will never again see oil like the FF.

If you have a canister snap a few mags on it.

If you just cant stand it anymore dump early but more like 7-8K.

MB isnt the only manufacturer to recommend a full interval on the break in oil - Honda does the same thing.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Hi all, we bought a 2021 Mercedes C300 (4 cylinder turbo) late August this year. 1st "scheduled" maintenance is 1 year or 10K. We'll never have this much mileage on it in a year, probably 6-7K max. With new cars, I've always done an early 1st change and was thinking of doing one at 1K miles along with the filter. I realize probably no one else does this old school stuff anymore. I then plan on doing change #2 in August 2022 which will be 1 year after purchase. Anyone on my side with this?

NO! At least 2K and more at 4-5K miles. You have a good filter and good synthetic oil in there along with assembly lube goodness, its likely the best oil that will ever be in there. Being ancient, I've broken in over 70 new car engines. Early change didnt help in fact many ran much worse and I regretted it. Most recently with My lease jetta 4 cyl turbo.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

No no no
That's not green

Multiply this time 276 million cars in the U.S. and dats a wot of earle !

If you do do it, do It for Chevron and Exxon and Conoco and Marathon - they will love you big time.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

Multiply this time 276 million cars in the U.S. and dats a wot of earle !

If you do do it, do It for Chevron and Exxon and Conoco and Marathon - they will love you big time.

Those cars were only new once. Figure about an average of 1.5 gallons of oil each on a preliminary early change. 50 gallons in a barrel, so a barrel covers 33 cars; 276 million cars and some math gives us 8.4 million barrels of oil.

US oil consumption is about 18-20 million barrels of oil DAILY. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/oil-consumption

So, the 8.4 million barrels of oil figures we're talking about represent oil consumption from about breakfast until dinner on any 1 day.

 

[930.engineering]

NO! At least 2K and more at 4-5K miles. You have a good filter and good synthetic oil in there along with assembly lube goodness, its likely the best oil that will ever be in there. Being ancient, I've broken in over 70 new car engines. Early change didnt help in fact many ran much worse and I regretted it. Most recently with My lease jetta 4 cyl turbo.

Alright... If you don't mind I'd love to hear you explain why
and how engines ran worse after early oil changes. Thanks.

.

 

[MolaKule]

Hi all, we bought a 2021 Mercedes C300 (4 cylinder turbo) late August this year. 1st "scheduled" maintenance is 1 year or 10K. We'll never have this much mileage on it in a year, probably 6-7K max. With new cars, I've always done an early 1st change and was thinking of doing one at 1K miles along with the filter. I realize probably no one else does this old school stuff anymore. I then plan on doing change #2 in August 2022 which will be 1 year after purchase. Anyone on my side with this?

I have always driven a new car out of the stall like I stole it, and then changed oil and filter at 500 miles, then turned it over to my wife who thinks she's a NASCAR driver.

One car, a 2003 PathFinder, now has over 320,000 miles on it with good compression and no oil consumption, so it works for me. I have always used synthetic oils after the first oil change.

 

[Danh]

Those cars were only new once. Figure about an average of 1.5 gallons of oil each on a preliminary early change. 50 gallons in a barrel, so a barrel covers 33 cars; 276 million cars and some math gives us 8.4 million barrels of oil.

US oil consumption is about 18-20 million barrels of oil DAILY. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/oil-consumption

So, the 8.4 million barrels of oil figures we're talking about represent oil consumption from about breakfast until dinner on any 1 day.

A barrel contains 42 gallons. And only a small fraction of the 200+ million cars are new in any one year. And, if people are responsible, used oil is recycled and put to a use that substitutes for fresh crude.

 

[Oillover]

The oil capacity on that engine (with filter) is 7 quarts for the RWD and 6.3 for the AWD models.

ANY engine built within the last 3-4 years would need to have a SERIOUS mechanical issues that would justify changing that much oil early.
I'd venture a guess that there's substantially more than 70% life left in it, considering the amount of additives still left in the oil given the capacity.

If the OP is concerned with wear-in metals contaminating the oil, why not simply change the filter alone and top up the oil?

 

[Eddie]

About 1/2 the normal service interval or 3,500 miles. This in not your grandads old Buick time. Ed

 

[madeej11]

Hi all, we bought a 2021 Mercedes C300 (4 cylinder turbo) late August this year. 1st "scheduled" maintenance is 1 year or 10K. We'll never have this much mileage on it in a year, probably 6-7K max. With new cars, I've always done an early 1st change and was thinking of doing one at 1K miles along with the filter. I realize probably no one else does this old school stuff anymore. I then plan on doing change #2 in August 2022 which will be 1 year after purchase. Anyone on my side with this?

I would do a 6 month OCI in your case so 3-4k miles.

 

[Skippy722]

I went 5,309 miles on my first oil change. 2nd change was 8,582 miles after that. It’ll either blow up and I have an excuse to shove a 6.4 into it or it’ll live a long healthy life.

 

[madeej11]

$50,000 car.
$20 in oil.

Change it early and often.

Yes, that's about the going rate for a Mercedes Benz oil and filter change..

 

[930.engineering]

If the OP is concerned with wear-in metals contaminating the oil, why not simply change the filter alone and top up the oil?

What about particles smaller than 1 µm, 5 µm or even 20 µm? All, most,
many are passing that oil filter. Oil changes are the way to get rid of that.
.

 

[Oillover]

What about particles smaller than 1 µm, 5 µm or even 20 µm? All, most,
many are passing that oil filter. Oil changes are the way to get rid of that.
.

Full oil changes get rid of most of the particles, but not all.

I suppose the answer to these questions depends on the long term plans the OP has for this vehicle.
Only they can answer that question.

 

[doublebase]

I usually don’t buy new cars but the last one I did I changed it at around 1,000 miles.

Then again at around 3,000 miles. Then 5,000 mile intervals after. Wish I could say “never a problem”, but I can’t. Oil consumption, misfires, stutters. Then again it was a 2018 Silverado.

I did run into a Chrysler tech that said to me...I never want to dump factory oil early, it’s loaded with moly for the break in purpose, you want to keep that good stuff in there so it can bed itself into the cam lobes and stuff. Not sure I agree, but I think I’d feel very comfortable going at least 2,000 miles on a factory fill from now on. But 5,000 OCI’s is all I’m willing to stretch any direct injected engine nowadays. Port injection? Yeah, I might be ok with 6,500-7,000 but why bother? 5,000 miles is fine, give or take 500 miles or so.