OIL Life monitor on a 2020 Chevy Trax

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Apr 10, 2005
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Middle Tennessee
I changed my oil in this vehicle using Red Line 5 W 30. The good stuff. I do drive a lot of short trips but with the monitor showing 20% left the car has only gone 2800 miles. That does not seem right. I'm almost tempted to reset the monitor when it gets down close to zero and go a while longer. The oil is not black yet. What do you think.
 
GM programmed the OLM to hit 0% (plus some safety margin) with a basic oil meeting the Dexos spec (the lowest common denominator, if you will). It's pretty sophisticated technology, and has far more inputs than changing based on mileage alone. Your car is assuming that you're using a 5w30 meeting Dexos spec (synthetic or a robust blend) and its calculations are pretty good with that assumption. Is Redline better oil than what they programmed it for? Sure. But it's difficult to quantify by how much. And there's also the question of contamination vs breakdown (ostensibly, better oil will resist breakdown for longer (thanks to some combination of more additives and a more robust base oil) but will still be susceptible to being contaminated with fuel, moisture, etc.)

Your being on track for a bit over 3000 miles puts you at less than half the optimal mileage case as per GM, meaning that you really must be short-tripping it pretty hard or something (7500 miles has been the "ideal conditions" maximum mileage with GMs for a while now) - you're losing 1% per 30-35 miles or so, on average, and in ideal conditions you'd lose 1% per 75 miles or so.
 
The average temperature of the engine, average RPM, the time spent idling, trip length and other factors are taken into consideration by the OLM, not just the number of miles driven. If it's been really cold where you are lately, that can have a big impact, especially if the car has been sitting in the driveway with the engine running to warm the interior up before trips.
 
Has it been like 9-10mo since you changed the oil? Some OLMs do degradation strictly based on time if you're travel very little miles.
 
. . . Your being on track for a bit over 3000 miles puts you at less than half the optimal mileage case as per GM, meaning that you really must be short-tripping it pretty hard or something (7500 miles has been the "ideal conditions" maximum mileage with GMs for a while now) - you're losing 1% per 30-35 miles or so, on average, and in ideal conditions you'd lose 1% per 75 miles or so.
My driving conditions in the '16 LaCrosse must be less than ideal (as if I needed an OLM to tell me that). I'm seeing about 1% every 48 miles.
 
I'd run a severe service interval, change the oil and get a UOA. Since the vehicle is new [if under 20K miles] ignore things like wear metals and focus on tbn, air filtration, fuel dilution, and if coolant is getting into the oil. Let the tbn help determine how long the oil can go, and ignore the OLM going forward.
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If you have a pump to extract oil for sampling via the dipstick you can sample it w/o changing it too. Then change it if needed when you get the UOA results. Then you can use data vs. an OLM or opinions to determine your OCI.
 
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I changed my oil in this vehicle using Red Line 5 W 30. The good stuff. I do drive a lot of short trips but with the monitor showing 20% left the car has only gone 2800 miles. That does not seem right. I'm almost tempted to reset the monitor when it gets down close to zero and go a while longer. The oil is not black yet. What do you think.
My buddy has a Trax like yours and his driving is similar to yours. His does the exact same thing. The Trax has a 1.4 engine so it has to strain a lot more then a V6 or larger engine. He lets it go to 5% before changing.
 
My wife has a 16 Trax. We drive all highway, at 5k miles the OLM is in the 40s. I still change it as the 1.4 seems to be hard on oil.
 
Has it been like 9-10mo since you changed the oil? Some OLMs do degradation strictly based on time if you're travel very little miles.
That would be my question as well.
My mother in laws'19 Trax was at 0% with only 440 miles on the vehicle, but 14 months since she bought it ( (200 in the first week she bought it).
I just reset it.
 
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