What's the deal with that engine? I've had two neighbors with it that had an amazing amount of oil usage. Seems like a good candidate for Valvoline R&P, but maybe it goes beyond that.
Oil Change Intervals 3k vs Longer with full synthetic
- Thread starter JAWAR326
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It goes beyond any oil. It’s to the point that anyone who purposely buys H/Ks don’t deserve sympathy when hard parts decide to spontaneously dissociate
Yep! And not because of the cost of oil (cheap!), but because of risk avoidance.
As oils have improved, most engines have become harder on oil. It’s an arms race. I’m now often not comfortable telling someone how long they should run an oil. I would feel terrible if my suggestion caused problems later on. We’ve lately seen quite a bit of evidence of big brand synthetic oils failing in the deposit category.
It largely depends on engine design and type of driving you do. A Hyundai Theta II or Nu driven 75% city miles, I don't think you could change the oil frequently enough to keep the rings from sticking. A Toyota anything with dual injection (MPI and GDI) and 75% or better highway miles., I would not be concerned with 5000 - 6500 mile oil changes.
Well from what the lab told me if you're showing 0% fuel then the equipment is broken. Even my VOA showed slight fuel.
Patman
Staff member
I can assure you that Wearcheck doesn’t operate like that. They use the GC method to calculate fuel and aren’t the type of lab that would allow for broken equipment. It’s likely that they saw 0.3% fuel and simply rounded down on the report.
My tuned 3.5 EcoBoost at 14.4k on HPL Euro No VII had fuel <1% on GC as well. To me that’s also basically a rounding error, not anything of concern nor a failure of the equipment.
On the other side of the coin, my Ascent FA24 had 6% at 7300 miles. I’m seriously wondering if a tune would bring the fuel down on the Ascent.
Be honest I don't know but you notice you don't see many older vehicles around with those motors they all crapped the bed by not checking oil level between changes.
Patman
Staff member
When I had my 2006 Civic I was having some problems starting when it sat for about 8 hours or more. It would take a lot of cranking to get it to fire up. I suspected that one of the injectors was leaking down. My Wearcheck UOA showed 7% fuel! So I gave it a few doses of Gumout Regane and almost immediately the starting problem went away. My next UOA after that showed 2% fuel and then the one after that showed none.
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Curious, were you using top tier fuel?
I throw in a bottle of Amsoil fuel injector cleaner every 4000 miles.
Patman
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I was using mostly Top Tier fuel back then as well as running a bottle of Gumout once a year. I did more short trips with that car back then though so that might account for the injector issue (which never returned after I solved it)
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Yup, short trips.
Does anyone know the timeline of oil change interval recomendations through the years? My earliest recollection would be 3k and that was probably early 80's. That was before plastic bottles, synthetics and fuel injection. I would think a carburetor that has to be pumped a few times to set the choke every morning is going to dilute the oil with just the startup procedure. And then the carburetor vs efi efficiency aspect. When is the last time you heard someone say that their motor is flooded? Anyone have a used oil analysis from the 70's, 80's or 90's?
yes when i bought it in 2015 i had no clue about gdi but quickly learned after researching it
I kept hearing pinging under light throttle took it to hyundai of course nothings wrong that's normal for that engine was the claim
No it was pinging/detonating under acceleration at less than 50,000 miles it already had carbon building up on the valves
that was when i started doing oil changes every 3k miles and i also spray crc gdi intake cleaner into the motor every oil change to help dissolve some of that gunk off the valves it usually smokes like a diesel for a few miles after i do it but no more pinging and average 45 mpg still at 129,00 miles now i feel bad for the people who bought gdi cars and have no ideas about the design flaws or extra maintenance needed with them and their engines are going to fail early due to oil consumption and carbon buildup i know some manufacturers combind gdi with port injection which was a slightly improved design
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Did you get any engine codes when you had that problem?
That’s pretty severe carbon buildup.
What is NOT severe?
My driving is not severe. Lots of highway cruising, just a little over the speed limit. I guess that's why the maintenance monitor recommends such long intervals for me.
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Patman
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Same with me in my Civic. It’s never short tripped, it spends 90% of its time on the highway and I stay close to or slightly over the speed limits (generally no more than 10 kmh over) That’s why my oil life monitor hits zero at around 10,000 miles.
Sometime short OCI’s makes sense.
The Hyundai gets seasonal changes (spring/fall) due to all short trips. Typically it’s only driven a few miles at a time which equates to approximately 100 miles each month.
I don’t think I’d be comfortable going 30 or more months with all trips. Yeah it’s a beater but it’s still in decent condition. I don’t want to ruin the engine just to be an oil tightwad.
Now I could do some UOA’s however the cost is suspiciously similar to that of oil changes. So why bother.
The Hyundai gets seasonal changes (spring/fall) due to all short trips. Typically it’s only driven a few miles at a time which equates to approximately 100 miles each month.
I don’t think I’d be comfortable going 30 or more months with all trips. Yeah it’s a beater but it’s still in decent condition. I don’t want to ruin the engine just to be an oil tightwad.
Now I could do some UOA’s however the cost is suspiciously similar to that of oil changes. So why bother.
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