Never change oil again, just add!

[Flimflam]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kompressor:
I worked for a guy that bought a Nissan pickup brand new (mid 80's model) and ran it for over 80K miles without ever changing oil or filter. Still ran OK when he traded it in, they'll go alot farther than you may think. My dad was another bad one for this, he had a '72 Buick Riviera (455 engine) that went well over 250K miles, and I bet you could count the number of oil/filter changes it had on one hand.

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In my family, we had a Toyota Celica from 1975-1979 approx., we only changed the oil when we felt like it. I cannot even say if the oil changes were frequent or infrequent. But more likely, it was....very infrequent! But the thing ran like a Rolex watch. Handed down to Cousin Vinnie, it is still going great guns today.

Kind of makes one wonder why we worry so much about getting the latest 'n greatest in motor oil. Maybe it is something in human nature to get the best possible solution to any situation.

 

[JD Green]

Patman,

I'm with you on this one. If you ever win the lottery, you buy the car and I'll buy the oil. I beleive that many of us would indeed be VERY surprised at the results. My parents used to deal with this insurance salesman who drove a Caddy. Beleive it or not he actually told my parents that he NEVER changed the oil. He would however change the filter (not sure at what interval) and top up. I beleive he had 150 to 180 thousand KMS on that thing and it did still run great. That's about 90 to 110 thousand miles.

Hmmm!

Added: An oil analysis could be done at every filter change just to confirm what was really going on inside the engine. This would be the greatest experiment ever!

[ November 07, 2003, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: JD Green ]

 

[Bror Jace]

Just because some machines will tolerate being abused doesn't mean anyone should make a virtue out of doing so.

"the microscopic worn metal particles suspended in the oil actually provided excellent lubrication and cushioning for the bearings and other moving parts. The metal particles turned into little "ball-bearings" which provided the lubrication & friction reducer."

I'll take a stable base oil and moly over microscopic shrapnel anyday.

--- Bror Jace

 

[Kompressor]

From an economic standpoint, using a decent inexpensive oil like Chevron Supreme and a decent budget filter like Super Tech changed at 5K miles would result in no significant reduction of long term engine life, and represents a far better value. That would be 40 oil changes in 200K miles at $10. per change for a grand total of $400.!
Why am I trying synth now? Completely out of curiosity and nothing more, I am interested in learning more about oil for MY benifits, not my cars. For example, GC vs. M1 matters a whole lot more to board members than it does to the cars they drive IMO, either oil will more than accomplish what its designed to do. Now, if GC is better than M1 (only using this as example, no intention to change thread direction) how many additional miles will the car see, and will you still own the car when those extra miles occur. Sorry for the rambling, just think we need to be objective about our motivation for "splitting hairs".

 

[novadude]

I'm sure eventually, you'd get to apoint where that engine is so sludged up, those "mini-ball bearings" will just stop flowing.

Personally, I think this is BS. Look inside a neglected engine and tell me if YOU think it is OK to never change oil.

 

[Al]

Seen it first hand. My neighbor had a Ford Windsor in his Pickup truck. He did this trick for I'll say60K miles. The engine was 100% shot. Ever part was worn down to the nubs. Obviously with better oils and enough frequency on the filters you will have enough "feed and bleed" to give reasonable life. But whats the point

 

[Weatherlite]

Ummmmm....I guess I'm guilty of already doing this!

I have an 85 Bronco with a 302 V-8 fuel injection. Gears are 4.56 on stock tires (previous owner was a farmer who used it to pull hay trailers) It's a stick with no OD. So, going 65 MPH he turns about 3200 RPM. Now, this is the second engine in him. I changed the oil twice after installing it. Once for initial break-in and then the second time 1000 miles later. Both times I changed the filter. Since then I haven't touched a thing except for topping off as needed. I use ST dino and it has an ST filter.

So far I have ~135,000 on that engine with no oil or filter changes except for the two I mentioned. No engine noise whatsoever. I've never done a UOA on it though and was thinking about changing the oil and filter before winter hits really hard. Maybe I'll do one then?

Anyway, most of the miles are highway miles >65 but averaging around 75-80MPH. We're talking well over 4000RPM for sustained periods of time. Come to think of it, the only real problem I've had with this truck (other than the original engine having a rod knock at 150,000-which is why I changed it) was the PS. On a road trip to Florida I was asleep and the wife driving. I woke up and she said that the truck was steering a little funny. She said it was a little stiff. I asked how long it had been and she said "ohhh, about the last 200 miles or so." So, we pull over at the next exit and check. Zero PS fluid. Hmm...I take a little closer look. The pressure line off of the side of the pump had BLOWN OFF! Tore the threaded portion right off of the hose. So, we replaced that, topped off the fluid, bled the system and continued on. Haven't had a problem since.

Maybe it's the truck, maybe it's luck but with minimal maintenace this Bronco has more than repaid me for what it cost-with the replacement engine I paid a total of 4500 and have gotten ~200,000 miles outta him.

Anyway, just sharing my story and experience with not maintaining a vehicle.

Mikie

P.S. I don't change the oil on my 2000 Ford Excursion V-10 either! I do have a bypass filter though!

 

[Hasbeen]

Back in the mid seventies I was an Amsoil dealer, There was a similar test that had been done by another dealer on the Amsoil of that time! A Chevrolet suburban, I beleive to be a 350 CI, In a logging crew vehicle They call them a Crummy). After the initial breakin they did just that using the Amsoil filters! If my memory serves me right they ran it way over 100,000 Mi and then tore it down just to look it over! Seems it had some problem that turned out not to be oil related! They found almost no wear at all! Everything was still within factory tolorences!

Hasbeen

[ November 07, 2003, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Hasbeen ]

 

[Mystic]

I am with Kompressor. One of the best posts I have seen. Most of us, when you really stop to think about it, do not need synthetic oil (unless you drive something like a Corvette). We can get by fine with conventional motor oil, like Chevron Supreme. That Chevron oil costs about 1 buck a quart. A superTech oil filter costs about 2 bucks. 7 bucks for an oil change and four oil changes a year equals $28.00. This is high finance?

What would be the point of never changing oil. I would be afraid never to change oil. Why chance it, even if you can actually get away with it. What would be the point-you can't afford $28.00 worth of oil changes? You want to prove some point? Too much work to get under the car/truck four times a year? One less trip to the bar and you can afford an oil change.

If I really wanted to go a year on one oil change, I think I would install a bypass oil filter, and use Amsoil oil. Just add oil whenever necessary and add oil when oil filters are replaced. Actually some people have driven vehicles 100,000 miles doing this kind of stuff.

But trying to drive 100,000 miles with no oil changes, no bypass oil filter, maybe only adding oil if the level is low? What is the point? A point not worth proving.

My Dad was a mechanic. A good mechanic. He taught my brother and me to do oil changes. Four oil changes a year is cheap.

 

[TR3-2001SE]

My sisters neighbor did not know she needed to change oil when she purchased a 1960 MGA at the same time my sister purchased one. I got the sisters MGA which lasted past 100,000 when it was sold and the neighbors MGA engine died at 50,000 miles on the original oil. This was with the poor oils we had in the early 60's.

 

[dickwells]

Monitoring of oil discussion groups has lead me to believe that the "over/under" on engine life without any oil maint. is a little over 40K miles. You have to remember this is a distribution and some cars will be out on the upper tail, still running at high mileage but they only comprise a small fraction of the distribution. So if you are a gambler, you may beat the odds. Mostly I use synthetic as an insurance policy in case something goes wrong.

 

[CAtedster]

I buy Chevron for my Honda @.69 and filters for $1.99. I need 3 1/5 qts. Cost me 5.14w tax for oil change.Plus I have half qt top off oil that it doesn't use. Sometimes I get puralator filters for 1.50 that equals 4.60w tax to change oil.Less than 1 qt of GC. What can you buy for less than $5

 

[TC]

Couldn't agree more with Mystic, Kompressor, and CAtedster. I guess I'm just a bit cheaper...as in way, way into Cheap Bast*ard territory. With 36 cent/qt (after rebate) Citgo oil and $1.99 (on sale) STP filters, that equals $4 per oil change, or $8 per year. I blew more than that at Denny's the other day for lunch. So why NOT change oil???

I'm trying to find a "car talk" article in the L.A. Times from about two years ago which talked about the rumored (at the time) Toyota sludge problem. The reporter interviewed a Valvoline engineer who told him what typically starts to happen to motor oils at given low/no-maintenance milestones (7,500 mi, 10,000 mi, 15,000 mi.). I seem to recall him saying that any conventional oil can go 10K miles before it starts to seriously deteriorate due to contamination and additive depletion, and by 15K miles one can expect gelling, sludging, and other engine-threatening conditions. (This is with a stock, neglected filter as well.) Keep in mind that many bypass valves might only flow around 3 gpm, so if a factory type filter is clogged due to neglect, ony minimal lubrication will be realized, even if bypass is fully opened. So in talkin' "old oil" ramifications, maybe we're missing a bigger problem -- old oil filters!

[ November 07, 2003, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: TC ]

 

[JohnBrowning]

No way!!! as a Tech. I have seen the insides of too many neglected engines to buy this one!!!

As a young aprentice I remember a youg officer comeing into the shop with a FOrd Taurus Wagon. It had around 50,000 miles on it and it would barley run. He had never changed the oil and was just toping off. He did not know that oil had to be changed. THe valves were so carboned up they alot of them were not able to fully open or close.

I had a friend that inheirted a nice Corisca from his mom. the car was about 4 years old. He asked me to take over maintence for him. I talked him into all synthetic fluids. I followed the logic of the day and added an engine flush to the cold engine and then ran it at fast idle for 15 minutes. When I drained the oil out I put it in a container to show him. It came out with the consistency of ketsup(sp) and was black. A forman a few bays down say me puting it in the hold tank and came over and asked me how I managed to get gear lube to turn that black! He about fell over when I told him it was used oil. The car still had the factory installed oil filter!

 

[Jim]

My son bought a Mercedes diesel that was neglected. The engine had almost no compression and would not start if it was colder than 40 degrees F. The engine was shot at 150,000 miles. I have the same model car and the engine is perfect at almost 300,000 miles. I use good oil and change it every 5000 miles.

 

[Rick in PA]

quote:

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Originally posted by Speed racer:
...BUT apparently the military DID do this test on various types of vehicles just to see what would happen if the oil was never changed. The results were amazing; the microscopic worn metal particles suspended in the oil actually provided excellent lubrication and cushioning for the bearings and other moving parts. The metal particles turned into little "ball-bearings" which provided the lubrication & friction reducer....

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This sounds like pure fantasy to me. Bearing manufacturers like SKF, Timken, etc. spend millions and millions of dollars on bearing grinding machinery, instrumentation, etc. to take high quality alloy steel and turn it into balls, cones, rollers and races of a precision we can't imagine. I just don't see this magically happening with trash debris inside an engine.

 

[Speed racer]

O.K. did anyone hear Click & Clack's radio show where this guy called in and indicated because of smashed bodywork, he could never change the filter and he couldn't get the drain plug off of his 86 Colt?
This lead to a discussion of what would happen if you never changed the oil but just change the filter and added oil over the life of the car.
One of the brothers was actually doing this as an experiment on his dodge colt beater. He wanted to see how long it would last before biting the dust. (I never found out the results)
BUT apparently the military DID do this test on various types of vehicles just to see what would happen if the oil was never changed. The results were amazing; the microscopic worn metal particles suspended in the oil actually provided excellent lubrication and cushioning for the bearings and other moving parts. The metal particles turned into little "ball-bearings" which provided the lubrication & friction reducer.
(They surmised this is why maybe those cars that are owned by people who don't know that you add oil to a motor much less change the stuff; are still driving those beasts for 100,000 miles.)

OKAY now this was a radio discussion so I don't know first hand nor have seen any data on this type of "matinence" but I thought maybe someone here has heard of this.

 

[Patman]

Believe it or not this is something I've always wanted to try! One of my many ideas if I ever win the lottery, is to buy one car brand new and try out something like this. I would do a full oil change early on just to get the excess wear metals (if there were any) out of there and switch it to full synthetic, but then from that point on, I would just change the filter every 3k.

My goal would be to prove that this type of setup is very similar to the bypass filters that claim you can go years and years on the same oil. I think this would have virtually the same effect.

 

[Mystic]

No thanks. I will just keep on changing the oil. How much does it cost to change oil-you could buy oil on sale for 69 cents a quart and a SuperTech oil filter for 2 bucks. Is that really going to break the bank? How much would it cost for four oil changes in a year-thirty dollars?

With a bypass oil filter, more oil capacity, and very good filtering of oil, air, and fuel, maybe you could drive a year on one oil change, just adding oil whenever necessary and adding oil after replacing bypass oil filters and the regular full flow oil filter.

 

[Kompressor]

I worked for a guy that bought a Nissan pickup brand new (mid 80's model) and ran it for over 80K miles without ever changing oil or filter. Still ran OK when he traded it in, they'll go alot farther than you may think. My dad was another bad one for this, he had a '72 Buick Riviera (455 engine) that went well over 250K miles, and I bet you could count the number of oil/filter changes it had on one hand.