How many of you choose not to extend OCI and why?

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Originally Posted By: RamFan
For those of you who do not extend due to warranty. Do you plan on extending once the warranty has expired?


Depends on the vehicle. Verified by UOAs I've increased my Corolla from factory OCI of 5k to around 7-8k on Conventional.

Truck is OLM. Sticking with it or 6 months. (Its more time than miles) Contour is 6 months. New vehicle once its out of warranty will stick with OEM recommend.

Bill
 
Originally Posted By: Bill in Utah
Originally Posted By: RamFan
For those of you who do not extend due to warranty. Do you plan on extending once the warranty has expired?


Depends on the vehicle. Verified by UOAs I've increased my Corolla from factory OCI of 5k to around 7-8k on Conventional.

Truck is OLM. Sticking with it or 6 months. (Its more time than miles) Contour is 6 months. New vehicle once its out of warranty will stick with OEM recommend.

Bill


Not bad with the Corolla. With my 07 Civic EX i've extended from the factory 6-7k to around 10-12k but that's with a synthetic. (not sure if the OEM Honda brand oil is a semi-synth or not) I'm sure i can go longer and will experiment doing so with the upcoming OCIs.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is with warranty. Doing extended OCIs, backed by UOA with a new-ish vehicle will not cause it to automatically VOID the warranty.

I've had my 98 Camry and both my 07 Civics in for warranty work and not once was i asked when the last time i changed my oil or what brand it was.
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EVEN if for some unknown reason you do go in for engine related warranty work, its usually a recall on some part and your lube of choice doesn't matter in that case.

With a good quality oil, seeing as they keep engines spotless, even with extended OCIs, will the manufacturer really know that here you are going 3-4k over the factory spec'd OCI??? I doubt it.

If i could go back 4 years ago when my Civic EX had JUST finished breaking in with around 25k or so, i would have started doing 10k OCIs with synthetic oil and just call it a day in regards to engine lube, all while saving some coin on maintenance and being ECO friendly at the same time.
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I live in a very dusty area, and I do a lot of spirited driving. So 3-4k OCI with M1 is the usual for me.
 
Outside of warrenty I would probably not want to go more than 5K miles with conventional and 7.5K with synthetic.
 
Originally Posted By: Artem

I honestly don't see what the big deal is with warranty. Doing extended OCIs, backed by UOA with a new-ish vehicle will not cause it to automatically VOID the warranty.

I've had my 98 Camry and both my 07 Civics in for warranty work and not once was i asked when the last time i changed my oil or what brand it was.
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When I had my head gaskets go (the first time) on the Ford they DID ask for both the log and receipts for every oil change. And I watched them as they looked for type and interval before they ended up paying for the repair. (the 2nd time they did not want to know me and refused)

I don't want ANY chance of hassle IF I have a problem. If I have a warranty issue it will be fixed since I follow the manual.

Take care, Bill
 
According to the manual my 2011 Ford V6 Mustang has 10K OCIs and comes with a 6 quart sump to achieve that end. The car also comes with a synthetic blend and an oil change monitor which adjusts the interval according to driving style. I'm sure it won't be long before all new cars are similarly specified, synthetics can easily go 7500 miles for daily driving, and longer OCIs ultimately are less expensive & greener.
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Oil and filters are cheap, once every 6 month's for me. That works out to about 7000 miles, 95% highway. Why push it? I don't see the reward in it either. I've been running Mobil 1 of various flavor's since I've owned my car.
 
Originally Posted By: RamFan
For those of you who do not extend due to warranty. Do you plan on extending once the warranty has expired?


Not on a bet.
 
Well, in my 2003 Saturn Ion's owners manual it says to change the oil every 3 months/3000 miles for SEVERE conditions. If you look at what is considered severe conditions the only people who don't have severe conditions are travelling salespeople always driving on the highway with ideal weather conditions and not a lot of dust, and no extreme heat or extreme cold.

Conventional motor oil is pretty cheap. So is an oil filter. And used oil gets recycled if you return it to the proper places. So what is wrong with following what is stated in the owner's manual? The engine should stay cleaner.

Where I live there is a lot of dust. Temperatures can be over 100 degrees in the summer and I have seen 28 below in the winter.

I am trying to follow what the owner's manual says. But some people here insist everybody take that $12.00 worth of conventional motor oil (5 quart container) and oil filter that costs a few bucks and go at least 6000 miles with it. When did it become wrong to follow the owner's manual?

Now I admit that it gets a lot harder to change an expensive synthetic motor oil frequently.

I have seen people spend $50.00 or more in a bar in one night. That would buy four of those 5 quart motor oil containers. I prefer to buy the four containers of motor oil and skip the booze.
 
I won't even extend it to the factory recommendation of 10k/1yr in my wife's VW. My rationale is that I don't believe that VW's 10k/1yr OCI takes into account driving that consists mostly (90%) short trips in town. They don't have a separate severe/normal service interval or a description of what their drive cycle consists of for the recommendation they make.

The little bit of info that I have managed to scrounge up on the net on the topic suggests that at the "worst" the 10k cycle is based on a 50/50 of what would be listed as normal/severe.

For the VW I stick to 6k/6mo which usually ends up working out to 6mo because the wife never gets close to 6k in a 6mo period.
 
All these replies and I never even posted for myself
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Charger: Under warranty so 3k mi/3 mo in winter, 6k mi/6mo in summer
Sebring: Extreme short tripper so I will be doing a UOA to see if the recommended 6k mi/6 mo interval ok or if it should be shortened
Ram: 6k mi/6 mo (normal service) if the UOA returns ok, (3k mi/3 mo is severe service)
 
Had too many years of experience as dealership tech seeing these engines torn down for warranty work all sludged up doing "extended" OCI's.

I will run dino's to 4 or 5 thousand miles as a general rule. Past that, I think the saying is YMMV.......Of course, I am referring to my area(New Orleans/ Baton Rouge) heat and a good deal of traffic congestion.
 
For the most part for me extending an OCI is not worth it. Two of my vehicles see a 6 month OCIs based on time not miles, following the OM. I'll stretch them based on how they were driven during that 6 month period, if most of the trips were more than 10 miles each way I might push the 6 months up to 9 months or a year. My Aerostar sees an OCI based on miles. In my Aerostar I drop the oil every 5,000 miles no matter how it was driven, since it sees pretty much the same use all the time it doesn't matter to me.
 
My 2002 F-150 has been getting 5,000 mile OCI's for the first 6 years of it's life, which was usually in ~6 months. It's always been with Motorcraft 5W-20 & a Motorcraft 820S oil filter. Now I'm down to once a year OCI, which is 5000 or less. I also use faithfully LC20 & FP60. The oil always comes out mildly dark since new, never nasty. I know this is no indicater of oil quality but it's not worth it to check UOA at this point. Other than the usual rotten exhaust manifold bold and accompaning noise the engine is quiet and runs great.

My 1996 Contour has gotten Mobil 1 5W-30 early in it's life and again after a 2 year run of Castrol 5W-50, big mistake about the 5w-50 though. About 6 years ago I started using Schaeffer's Blend 5W-30 SL, again with LC20 & FP60 for up to 8500 mile OCI's. This car is the "vacation" car & spends NJ's winters in a heated garage. I can see into the valve cover and the valve train is like new inside. I'm on my last change of Schaeffer's & will not reach 5000 miles/one year OCI until into the second year. By then we'll be on our way to Key West and back in the spring. I'll change it then, when I'm back, it's all highway miles in warm temps for the trip.

In my youth I loved to change oil & work on the cars. Now my body is old & failing me and my ability to work on vehicles is limited as well as my time.

Don't judge us too hard
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.

Whimsey
 
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I have a 7.3 Powerstroke, so far as I can research it it makes most sense to stick w/5K OCI because of the injection system. If I had a GM or Dodge diesel, I think I'd do 7.5K OCI w/dino oil.
 
Another thought is that you can always extend a drain, but you can't un-extend it.
For example, let's say I make sure everything gets changed before the end of the year, before the really nasty weather becomes the daily forecast in this area.
If it is desirable to extend beyond 5k, to maybe 6K or 7K, just to avoid a lousy weather change, I know that the synthetic oil I always have in for winter will allow me to do so safely, given that none of our cars are typically short tripped.
However, if I'm already at 7K around Thanksgiving, and I plan on 10K, I can count on a lovely cold weather change, with melting frozen delight dripping in my face as I lie under the car.
I wouldn't have an option to extend beyond 10K on most oils in most applications, but I do have the option of extending beyond 5K.
Just a thought.
 
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