Recommend regime for low mileage Subaru Forester XT

[JJ Johnson]

I bought a new 05 Subaru Forester XT at the end of December 04. The engine is a turbocharged 2.5L Subaru 4 cyl. boxer.

To date I've put on a grand total of 1540 miles in five months. I live about 3.5 miles from work and drive each day in the winter & spring. Most other driving has been around town, with the occasional joy ride in the foothills. For the next five months I expect to be mostly walking or riding a bike to work and I expect my only driving will be errands and weekend trips. I also plan a 3500 mi, mostly highway, round trip this summer. Still, I think I'll be hard pressed to put 8000 miles on the car in a year unless I were to find another job or take a couple more driving vacations.

My current plan is to do the first oil change now at 1500 mi using dino, then again at 3000 mi, then switch to synthetic, probably Mobil 1, at 5000 mi and use 5000 mi change intervals.

I should add that I'm at about 5000ft elevation, just east of the foothills in Colorado and I do some driving at altitude. I know the 3.5 mi work trips are rough on the engine, so sometimes I'll take a little ride just for fun on the way to/from work.

Any particular advice you can give me regarding oils, change intervals, etc?

 

[Drew99GT]

I'd personally run just conventional in your ride with that kind of low mileage driving. I'd run 10w30 of your choosing for the upcoming change and continue with 10w30 for March through say, November, then go 5w30 for the winter. That kind of short trip driving, especially with a turbocharged engine, will produce a tremendous amount of fuel dilution, so frequent changes will get that stuff out. Change interval? Hmmmmmmm. Perhaps twice a year is in order unless you've accumulated some more miles than you normally do in a 6 month time frame. If your afraid of conventional in a turbo engine, I ran nothing but Valvoline 10w30 VR1 through my turbocharged Talon, which ran high 13s at Bandimere in Morrison, so conventional will stand up fine. The motor was always spotless upon inspection and I put around 50K worth of racing type driving through a brand new larger size turbocharger. No smoking/shaftplay/coking what so ever and that bad boy had some stress put on it.

 

[y_p_w]

I'd say Mobil 1 5w30 year round, especially if you can find it cheap at Wal-Mart in 5 qt jugs. Twice a year sounds about right to me with your usage, although miles on the oil might be an issue with your planned summer trip.

 

[JJ Johnson]

Wow. I did the first oil change tonight. The oil was surprisingly thin, black, and smelled a bit of gas. I'm thinking that if/when I'm putting primarily short trips on the car, which will likely only be during Nov-Apr, maybe 3 month changes might be in order.

 

[y_p_w]

quote:

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Originally posted by JJ Johnson:
Wow. I did the first oil change tonight. The oil was surprisingly thin, black, and smelled a bit of gas. I'm thinking that if/when I'm putting primarily short trips on the car, which will likely only be during Nov-Apr, maybe 3 month changes might be in order.

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I wouldn't worry about the smell. All used motor oil smells like fuel, even after only a few hundred miles. I've had used oil analysis with oil that I thought smelled like fuel, but came back with less than the lab's threshold.

BTW - use the Subaru turbo filter at the dealer.

 

[JJ Johnson]

Thanks. Yep, I'm using a Subaru OEM filter and plan to stick with them.

Does the "break in" oil from the factory tend to be on the thin side?

 

[y_p_w]

I don't know if the oil is different, but my 2004 WRX (made in Japan) had 5w30, or that's what Blackstone told me. It was close to the low limit for a 30 weight after 3000 miles although that might have been due to shearing. It also had an ungodly level of molybdenum (894 PPM).