MODIFY OCI? Huge Change in Driving

[serious II]

I am in the midst of changing jobs. I used to do a MINIMUM of 80 mile a day ( all highway ) and often 100 or 120 per day. My new job is 11 miles from home, and will involve no extra driving at all during the day, so figure 22 miles per day ( all highway as well).

I had been doing 6-7K OCI's. Am I now stuck back ay 3,000? Or should I just say a prayer and trust my GM Oil Life Monitor ?

 

[kloppilt]

I would go with 5k changes on dyno oil.

 

[bighead]

I would think that as long as the highway miles were steady and not bogged down with traffic, then why not change per the OLM? It might end up being around 5K, or around 6K... Going 1-2 miles down the street to work and never letting the car even get warm (let alone up to operating temp) would justify the 3K OCI moreso than your current situation.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

I would change at 4-6 months.

 

[Ugly3]

OLM is a good start.

 

[Cutehumor]

If you were doing 80 miles a day all highway, 10k interval with syn. 11 miles one way 5k dino no problem

 

[Gary Allan]

Well, why not just do a % of what the OLM says? Just draw your line where you feel comfortable.

What did your OLM read when you hit 7k with your old commuting profile?

 

[serious II]

It read 10% ( oil life remaining). Maybe I should aim for 20% just to build in a margin for safety?. The milage consensus seems to be 5,000 miles on dino. ( I usually went 55/45 dino/synth, but that might now be "overkill")

 

[Gary Allan]

Why should this 10% be any worse than that 10%? It's using the same data to calculate the %.

I mean the OLM will discount the mileage accordingly. Just see where you're at when it hits 10% once. If it falls in otherwise recommended norms ...why change it out early?

 

[MN Driver]

From what I've read from manuals about the GM OLM on cars that don't say a percentage is that once the light turns on it should be changed within 500 miles of when it had turned on so that there is a chance to get under there and change it or to schedule an appointment within those 500 miles to get it changed. The OLM is designed with a conventional oil in mind, except for ones that require synthetic as per the owners manual, which in that case the OLM is set up for synthetic.

I've trusted mine with conventional for the first 36,000 miles with the OLM intervals, after the 36,000 is when I changed to synthetic and extended the miles beyond that. I still change the filter when the OLM goes off though and continue to reset it every time I change the filter or both the filter and the oil. The second oil change with synthetic and everything is shiny-clean under the valve cover. I have no plans to ever Auto-RX the car or to flush it because it seems to have cleaned itself out.


In my short summarized opinion: The OLM is fine, it will probably tell you slightly less mileage due to more time per total mileage spent driving with the engine warming up.