How often do you change your oil?
- Thread starter Patman
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About every 4 months give or take a couple weeks.
That usually works out to 1500-2000 miles on my wife's Forester, and 3000 on the WRX. That might seem very low mileage for Mobil 1 and Redline, but it's 90% city driving, only 10% highway.
Plus I have this compulsive need to always see clean oil when I pull out the dipstick--must be another symptom that characterizes us oilaholics!
That usually works out to 1500-2000 miles on my wife's Forester, and 3000 on the WRX. That might seem very low mileage for Mobil 1 and Redline, but it's 90% city driving, only 10% highway.
Plus I have this compulsive need to always see clean oil when I pull out the dipstick--must be another symptom that characterizes us oilaholics!
I take care of 7 cars and I'd say a good average of all them is 7K or one year. All except 1 get synthetic and the one that doesn't, gets about 3K or less a year. I feel 100% confident with this frequency and on one of the cars I'll usually go 10K + since it does mainly highway and gives good results with UOA's at 11K miles.
I think the real value of UOA's is that you can get an accurate feel about the oil and the vehicle.
I think the real value of UOA's is that you can get an accurate feel about the oil and the vehicle.
So far 68% change at 5k or less.
6,000 miles or 10,000km. Mobil1. The car gets driven hard, a lot of high revs at 6-8K rpm.
I use 0w-20 in my wife's truck, which is a great oil. She drives 70 miles to work and 70 miles home. Since this is easy driving I still have not changed the oil 9500, I plan to change it at 20,000
My wife's 2002Exploder gets a change every 5,000 miles. Just did a UOA of the Motorcraft 5W-30, which was ok, but for peace of mind I'm going to switch to Schaeffer's 5W-30 blend. My 2002 truck get's 2,500 mile oil changes with Motorcraft 5W-20. Will stick with that for now, lots of local driving and oil changes are cheap($22 @ Ford with bottled Motorcraft 5W-20 oil). My 1996 Ford 2.0L Contour is using Mobil 1 5W-30 at 5,000 mile or 1 year intervals. Also going to use the Schaeffer's 5W-30 blend since I'm ordering it for the wife's Exploder.
Whimsey
Whimsey
I used to be lax about changing oil (even checking oil level) until I ran into this group. Now I'm monitoring my mileage and preparing for the next oil change. I have to instill in my brain though that I still have to check oil levels and make sure that there is enough oil in the car. One time I had Wally World do my oil change and they had me sign this paper stating that the oil level in the engine was too low to check. Now I'm more careful about these things. Thanks to you guys.
Now to find more of that german stuff.........
Now to find more of that german stuff.........
I used to be a 3k-4k miles - Castrol GTX/Pennzoil guy until shortly before I found www.bobistheoilguy.com. Now I am running a full synthetic (currently around 7,700 miles) and plan on running it until 8-10k miles, when I plan on doing a UOA. This will decide for me how long the next interval will be.
3,000 miles at most on Castrol GTX 10w-30 in a '94 Taurus SHO that gets driven more like a Mustang than a Taurus
Still about 68% @ 5k or less.
[ August 06, 2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: GROUCHO MARX ]
[ August 06, 2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: GROUCHO MARX ]
I change every 3 months, which is usually less than 3K. I am using Pennzoil dino. Even with synthetic, I am not sure I would want to go over 3 months on the same oil and filter. For those that put a lot of highway miles on their engine, going more miles with a synthetic might make a lot of sense.quote:
Originally posted by GROUCHO MARX:
Still about 68% @ 5k or less.
I think most of us here are wanting to give our engines good care. I fall on the not spending more than needed to do that side. I am also following my interpretation of the warranty requirements.
Patman
Staff member
I thought that any member can post polls, but I'll add that poll on here also.
On the old cars (1979 Ford 200-6 and 1971 Chrysler 383) 6000 or one year.
On the 2001 Jeep, every 6-7500
http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000646
On the 2001 Jeep, every 6-7500
http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=000646
In more than a few parts of the country, "severe service" is the norm. Here in southern California, we have lots of stop and go driving at "rush"(?) hour, and the average daily temperature where I live has been in excess of 95 degrees F. for two months now. Would you call that "normal service"? (Your owner's manual doesn't.) I have a feeling that if drivers bothered to read their owner's manual list of what constitutes "severe service", they'd have to conclude most of their driving does qualify as "severe service". It's NOT whether ALL "severe service" factors are present, it's whether ANY of them are applicable at least 50% of the time. For folks who see "white" 4+ months of the year, THAT's "severe service", too. The high milers are free to maintain (or not) their engines as they please. But, since I'm paying the freight for my transportation costs, then so am I, and I reject your patronizing and arrogant implication that high milers are the repository for the holy-grail of engine maintenance knowledge.
My wife's RX300 has oil changed every 5K miles with M1 5W-30 and original Denso filter.
My bimmer has seen 3 changes every 5K miles so far but I will likely extend to 7.5K miles. BMW synthetic and OEM filter are used.
Although I do quite a lot of highway driving both cars are treated as used in severe conditions.
[ August 07, 2003, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: F1Crazy ]
My bimmer has seen 3 changes every 5K miles so far but I will likely extend to 7.5K miles. BMW synthetic and OEM filter are used.
Although I do quite a lot of highway driving both cars are treated as used in severe conditions.
[ August 07, 2003, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: F1Crazy ]
Ineresting, 3 of us admit to 20000+ miles between changes....wonder if all 3 have a bypass oil filter?...Last time I went 20000..and cracked the drain plug for the heck of it....have gone 30,000 and the oil still tested good.
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