Newbie question: When to do a UOA

[RobWest]

At what mileage should a UOA be done? At oil change? At a certain mileage? I see guys doing it at very different intervals and was wondering which would give me the best overall indication of the condition of the motor. It only has around 5000 miles on it after my rebuild. Should I wait a little longer to let it break in?

 

[TR3-2001SE]

I think it depends on the oil and how far you expect to go before a change. I would like to go 7500 miles between changes using Mobil 1 but will probably test at 6000 to get an idea if this is a reasonable thing to do. If all is well at 6000 I can go to 7500. If bad report it gets drained and I try again.

 

[giant_robo]

Good question, I'd also like to know the answer to this.

I have about 1600 miles/4 months on some cheap Kendall dino oil. I want to pull a sample and send it in to check if things are ok with the engine, and also in order to get an estimate of how far I can take this oil. I'm hoping 4000mi or so, since I already paid for an oil analysis, I at least want to take advantage of this knowledge and take this oil as far as it will go.

Can an oil test tell you whether the oil is going to be good for at least another 2000 miles? How about 3000? How can you estimate how much further your oil will go?

Since the oil kit has arrived, I'm a little impatient (and I don't drive much), so I want to pull some oil soon, say at 2000 mi (which is midway to my target of a 4000 mi OCI). Should I wait even longer or what?