Finally, proof for the 5K mile oil change, or something to laugh at/BITOG fodder

[Bjornviken]

Another nothing burger
I change my gas every 300 to 400 miles

hahha

 

[TiGeo]

Junk science, 3k OCI's are safer. Fight me.

View attachment 219354

2,873.4 is safer than 3K.

 

[The Lube Guy]

Another nothing burger
I change my gas every 300 to 400 miles

Pfft... we pass gas every day.

 

[The Lube Guy]

2,873.4 is safer than 3K.

You track your vehicle, you should change the oil after every track day, otherwise your engine might be compromised.

 

[cptbarkey]

2,873.4 is safer than 3K.

Indeed, but 2,658 is safer than 2,873.4

 

[wpod]

Whatever helps one sleep at night. I kinda like changing oil so I'll keep on doing it a little more often than called for. Cheaper than golf.

Changing oil is more fun than Golf.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

That's really depends on oil quality and engine type.

...... and type of driving.

 

[We're Metals]

It is kinda funny....It used to be that everyone thought that the oil industry and car makers colluded with the 3k OCI to make money.

I completely believe they did. But than the consumer got wise. Now whos laughing HAHAHA

 

[gfh77665]

I have advocated for 5000 mile oil changes and filter every other time (at 10K's) for a while now. Easy to remember and its probabaly the best protection/cost + time & effort ratio you can find.

 

[TiGeo]

I have advocated for 5000 mile oil changes and filter every other time (at 10K's) for a while now. Easy to remember and its probabaly the best protection/cost + time & effort ratio you can find.

For most folks, yeah, this really is the way to go. A few changes a year. The long ones that are OE recommended are harder for average people who don't really know much about cars to keep up with....opps...been 20K, better get the Altima's oil changed hahahaha

 

[Redhawk454]

I change my amsoil signature series in my 6.7 CTD and my ru every 3k miles

 

[Redhawk454]

Fast forward 20 years. We have seen shops report back that they are seeing increased oil sludge and engine failures from high oil change (10,000) intervals. The author of this piece had his Mercedes Bluetec engine seize due to oil sludge (it was running Mobil 1 at the time and had a 10,000 change interval, exactly as the manual specifies). Special thanks to Chris Sunday who has been reporting issues for years – so we delved deeper into the problem. We didn’t want to report “change this often now” without it making sense.

I quoted part of what I did read, and I do have some questions about the issue with Mobil 1 and a 10,000 mile OCI

1) How many miles were on this Engine
2) How many miles did this get driven in a year
3) Which Mobil 1 was being used
4) Was the owner of this car the Original Owner
5) Was this a short tripper
6) How often was the PCV Changed

A local full service mechanic shop says the same thing.. issues with extended oci’s

Sludge

Blown turbos

Premature engine wear (this one’s harder to gauge)

 

[tiger862]

I have seen more engines in my life than alot of these oil change specialists. Seen 3k engines sludge up that ran all interstate on Castrol GTX and seen clean engines doing 10k on Synthetic with mixed driving. Sludge should not happen in a modern vehicle that is maintained. If you do nothing for 20k on conventional yes it's going to turn to jelly. Don't run you vehicle with check engine light on as this will affect the balance of what engine needs to run efficiently. The. 3k engine had an EGR problem that customer did want fixed cause it still ran great. Toyota had a problem and so did Dodge with certain engines that sludge no matter what so that was an engine design failure not oil failure. Oil change interval won't fix a manufacturers defect.

 

[ltslimjim]

How many hundreds of thousands of miles does my Honda Fit need to pile up before it sludges and fails? I bought it used with 156k miles already on it in 2015. It has since been running anywhere from 8,000 - 15,000 miles between oil changes with various synthetic oils. It’s sitting at over 325k miles on the original engine. Is this car and engine the exception? I’ll hang up and listen.

Just joking really, but like all these attempts at blanket statements the truth is: It all depends. Do your due diligence on your vehicle, it’s service conditions and oil selection; get a few UOAs before extending intervals, and determine then what works for that particular vehicle. Blindly extending can wind up with issues like in the linked data.

In lieu of research and compiling of data for any particular vehicle, a safe bet of 5k miles is best for “average Joes” and is likely repeatable, but as others have indicated even that won’t solve a design flaw. It doesn’t fix fuel dilution dropping oil out of the recommended grade. It also doesn't mean extending the interval isn’t possible or automatically is a bad idea. Rather, know what you are doing.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

On the book of face today in a group I mod....there you have it folks, it's right there. 5K is best b/c "science".

Updated Oil Change Intervals – Cascade German Parts

www.cascadegerman.com

Thanks very much , Mr Emmit FitzHume! Thanks a bunch for posting a very interesting and also a very real dose of reality some bean counters and even some cheap or lazy people would really rather not know the truth about. Common sense, the truth as well as scientific data/proof along with scientific realities should dictate what we do as far as how the lengths of oci in the present and future.

 

[Sedin26]

How many hundreds of thousands of miles does my Honda Fit need to pile up before it sludges and fails? I bought it used with 156k miles already on it in 2015. It has since been running anywhere from 8,000 - 15,000 miles between oil changes with various synthetic oils. It’s sitting at over 325k miles on the original engine. Is this car and engine the exception? I’ll hang up and listen.

Just joking really, but like all these attempts at blanket statements the truth is: It all depends.

This is science! You have 1700 miles left. I recommend you immediately get a quote on a new long block!!

 

[The Lube Guy]

My favorite part about the article was how it's written without any supporting data. I suppose Infineum, Afton, Lubrizol, Mobil, Shell, and so on, are no longer practicing science as they all reached the peak of performance and protection with full-SAPS formulations. These days they're just giving us watered down versions of what once was "the best" under the disguise of low and mid-SAPS motor oils that are supposedly better in every way than everything else that was before. Please, give me a break.

 

[GMFan]

I’ll admit that I used to be on a 7500-10,000 mile OCI. I had confidence in UOAs and the oil. However my perspective changed when I watched The Car Care Nuts engine tear down on the 180k mile Camry burning oil due to stuck piston rings as a result of 10k OCIs.



He talked about how no UOA test or results look inside an engine at the piston rings, and cost of engine rebuild versus an oil change. Some vehicles can get away with it, but the risk is greater. Maybe engine cleaners like HPL or other products will make this a non-issue, reliably cleaning piston rings swinging the pendulum back. Time will tell.

 

[picklyrickly1073]

It is kinda funny....It used to be that everyone thought that the oil industry and car makers colluded with the 3k OCI to make money. Now that they recommend 7k to 20k OCI's (especially the oil industry with the 20k change) everyone thinks it is a conspiracy the other way and they don't trust it.

BITOGers have clearly been outsmarting real engineers for decades. Whatever “the man” tells you is wrong, you should listen to randos on a forum instead

I’ll admit that I used to be on a 7500-10,000 mile OCI. I had confidence in UOAs and the oil. However my perspective changed when I watched The Car Care Nuts engine tear down on the 180k mile Camry burning oil due to stuck piston rings as a result of 10k OCIs.



He talked about how no UOA test or results look inside an engine at the piston rings, and cost of engine rebuild versus an oil change. Some vehicles can get away with it, but the risk is greater. Maybe engine cleaners like HPL or other products will make this a non-issue, reliably cleaning piston rings swinging the pendulum back. Time will tell.

You’re really going to listen to some YouTube “mechanic” instead of people here? Would you take people here more seriously if they had a YouTube channel?

That’s what I was told anyway when I brought up Ahmed’s videos

 

[buster]

Just joking really, but like all these attempts at blanket statements the truth is: It all depends. Do your due diligence on your vehicle, it’s service conditions and oil selection; get a few UOAs before extending intervals, and determine then what works for that particular vehicle. Blindly extending can wind up with issues like in the linked data.

In lieu of research and compiling of data for any particular vehicle, a safe bet of 5k miles is best for “average Joes” and is likely repeatable, but as others have indicated even that won’t solve a design flaw. It doesn’t fix fuel dilution dropping oil out of the recommended grade. It also doesn't mean extending the interval isn’t possible or automatically is a bad idea. Rather, know what you are doing.