My Opinion on New Car Oil Changes

[LeakySeals]

Originally Posted By: Indydriver
Toyota is even worse now. They are specing 10,000 on 0W-20 with no MM. My Accord VCM V6 indicated an oil change was needed at 6300 on it's MM. I tested the oil and it was loaded with metals (does 253ppm cu give you the willies?) and the TBN was down to 2.0.

Toyota still has a 5k severe service OCI in the Warranty and Maintenance Guide. From my dads 2012 v6 Camry:

5,000 miles or 6 months

Replace engine oil and oil filter if:
- Repeated trips of less than 5 miles in below 32 F weather
- Extensive idling and/or low speed driving for long distance such as police, taxi, or door to door delivery use.

Looks like a 2012 Sienna in your sig, check your Warranty and Maintenance Guide. Have a look at page 38. Also other pages in the guide detailing why to go with 5k vs 10k maintenance cycles.

 

[K20FA5]

My Nissan also said in the owners manual that you didn't need to change the factory fill until the 1st scheduled OCI, which is 3,750 severe or 7,500 normal.

Both our Honda and Nissan, I left the FF in until the 1st OCI. No issues what so ever on either of them.

 

[TuBon_gRips]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: exranger06

And did you suffer any reliability or wear problems because of it? Again, why can Hondas do it no problem but other makes can't?


Well I'll never buy a Honda again. No horsepower. [censored] quality. Window motor broke, alignment is thrown off just by looking at it, absolutely zero noise insulation etc.


Seconded for my wife's Civic, but my Accord was rock solid, even when it was rusting to pieces from 20 years in the rust belt.

 

[alwayson]

Originally Posted By: K20FA5
My Nissan also said in the owners manual that you didn't need to change the factory fill until the 1st scheduled OCI


Did the manual say it didn't need to be changed, or explicitly warned against changing like Honda does?

 

[oggb]

My Subaru manual made it very clear that I was to drive the car at varying speeds and below 4000 RPM for the first 1,000 miles, and I was to change the oil at 1,000 miles.

Ran fine.

 

[supton]

alwayson, where was the metal? In the oil, or in the oil filter?

 

[alwayson]

Originally Posted By: supton
alwayson, where was the metal? In the oil, or in the oil filter?


Oil.

 

[Colt]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: exranger06
Did you wait until the recommended interval on your CRV, or did you follow your routine?


I folllowed the manual, because the Honda language was pretty adamant.


I changed both my Hondas oil at 1500-1800 miles.
The Civic has 103K trouble free miles.

 

[alwayson]

Originally Posted By: Colt
Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: exranger06
Did you wait until the recommended interval on your CRV, or did you follow your routine?


I folllowed the manual, because the Honda language was pretty adamant.


I changed both my Hondas oil at 1500-1800 miles.
The Civic has 103K trouble free miles.


There you go. Even on Hondas, you can should do early oil changes.

 

[hattaresguy]

On what engineering data are you basing this assumption? Because every manufacture disagrees with it.

What were the size and composition of the metal particles seen? At what point do they become detrimental to the engine, and what parts?

The manufacture of whatever new car that was has this data, and has determined that its fine to run to the normal interval. If their were concerns about potential wear they would specify a shorter interval. This would benefit them because its another excuse to get you into the dealer so they can up sell you on injector cleaners and the like.

 

[alwayson]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
On what engineering data are you basing this assumption? Because every manufacture disagrees with it.

What were the size and composition of the metal particles seen? At what point do they become detrimental to the engine, and what parts?

The manufacture of whatever new car that was has this data, and has determined that its fine to run to the normal interval. If their were concerns about potential wear they would specify a shorter interval. This would benefit them because its another excuse to get you into the dealer so they can up sell you on injector cleaners and the like.


[censored] the manufacturer.

 

[Kestas]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Just because you saw some metal particles there does not mean they were doing any harm in the long run.

Not some. A LOT.

If you saw a LOT of particles, a number of thoughts come to mind:

- the particles are under 10 or 20 microns and are too small to do wear damage
- you emptied the old oil filter contents into the drain oil
- the oil filter failed

 

[alwayson]

I didn't even remove the filter, because we couldn't pull it off.

Secondly, this is frequently reported. I've seen it mentioned at Camaro, Ford forums etc. This is common knowledge.

The core problem is that a lot of you have never done the first oil change yourself.

Even at 500 miles, people report a freaking amount of metal.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
[censored] the manufacturer.

Yup. The MFG knows absolutely nothing about the products they make. On the other hand, you know it all.

 

[alwayson]

On this issue yes.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

Based on what?


Like I said, personal experience.

Changed oil at 1,000 miles on an Infiniti.

Even my Dad was shocked by the metal particles, and hes seen it all.

If you want to argue that a ridiculous amount of metal particles don't effect anything, please go ahead.


Originally Posted By: alwayson
Originally Posted By: exranger06
Did you wait until the recommended interval on your CRV, or did you follow your routine?


I folllowed the manual, because the Honda language was pretty adamant.


So I gather that, unless Honda's factory fill had no metal particles from break in, Honda engine will be ok with metal particles in the oil, but every other engine will not be?

I just can't grasp that logic.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: alwayson
The core problem is that a lot of you have never done the first oil change yourself.

Yeah, and as a result we all had to take our engines to the junk yard long before they hit 100K miles.

 

[supton]

I take it you did an analysis to determine that there was metal in the oil? Seems odd in this day and age to "need" to do an early oil change. I wonder if maybe it was stuff that had settled into the pan that you saw? Large chunks unlikely to get sucked up by the pump, and if they were, extremely likely to be filtered out?

I ran the FF in my VW to its scheduled 5kmiles, then did 10k OCI's until, actually I don't remember now. Maybe 100kmiles. Been doing 12k and on occasion 14k OCI's. Knock on wood, 254k, runs strong, same turbo and camshaft. Pulled the valve cover at 200k, and absolutely nothing under the cover, except shiny metal where the pitch black oil had drained from. [Wanted to verify no undue camshaft wear.]

Pretty sure the wife did the same in her '01 Civic, except I think it was either 5k or 7.5k; we only had that for 173kmiles before trading off.

 

[alwayson]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: alwayson
The core problem is that a lot of you have never done the first oil change yourself.

Yeah, and as a result we all had to take our engines to the junk yard long before they hit 100K miles.



Simple question. Have you done a first oil change yourself?

 

[Dakota1820]

any other time anyone sees any sort of metal particles in their engine oil its a big deal and people start to panic. but when the engine is new it ok to have metal floating around for the full regular cycle before an oil change? someone want to explain the logic to me. i agree change the oil after 500 miles then a 1000 after that i would just do the regular amount though minus the 1000 so if i was changing it every 5000 i would change it at 500mi 1,000 and 5,000 and the 10,000 and so on.
when my mom bought her new focus that's what i did. there was break in metal. both times. and we can argue all day that small pieces of metal wont hurt anything. but at the end of the day chunks of metal do not lubricate and cannot do any good. maybe they don't do harm either but they darn sure don't do any good so why keep them in there?