Severe Operating Conditions

[JavaMan]

I was looking for information of what constitutes severe operating conditons. I found this link; http://www.filtercouncil.org/consumer/intervals.php
Using this information my oil change interval now changes from 10,000 miles to 3,750. Of course I take this with a grain of salt, but, what do you think?

 

[Starbreaker666]

Sounds like the "filter Council" would like you to buy more filters...

 

[OMCWankel]

Almost anywhere in Texas qualifies as severe operating conditions

If you read your Owner's Manual carefully, most of the qualifiers on that site are mentioned as qualifiers for severe operating conditions in the manual, so the site is not feeding you bogus information.

And by the way

 

[LarryL]

I wonder if the system of letting anyone to test drive a new car, that is beat it for 10 miles and park it for a few days and do it all over again automatically puts the car into the servere use category?

 

[JHZR2]

My mother drives 5 blocks to and from school, car filled with books and papers, and does it about 6x a day. Add in the occasional supermarket run, and then of course the occasional weekend 200 mile trip, and for the most part its severe service -

lack of warm up, frequent short trips, stop and go, lots of AC use, etc.

We have found that with M1, based upon UOA, that 5k is very doable. Dont know how that would drop by using dino oil, but Id say that it would.

IMO, driving in any way in a warm climate is easier than in a colder one - the oil is closer to operating temperature to begin with, so there is less lack of flow at startup, and a vehicle with a properly operating cooling system will see more or less the same oil temperature during normal driving anywhere, so long as the abmient temperature isnt well below 32F or well above 100F.

JMH

 

[Gary Allan]

My owners manual states (I'm paraphasing) that if you "routinely" do certain qualifiers (dusty, towing, etc.) or if a % (50% maybe) falls under the other conditions (sustained high speed driving in ambient temps above 90F) that you are to use the severe duty schedule. I guess you have to look at them as "risk factors". If too many are above a minor level ..then you go with the severe schedule.

We can be assured that these risk factors don't just automatically reduce your oil's resilience by 50% ..so we can reasonably assume that if you "float" between the two as your risk factors elevate, that your getting the most out of your OCI without undue insult.

 

[Doug Hillary]

Hi,
this is interesting as the more sophisticated in-built oil monitors provide a good insight into reality

Last week I covered 4k kms in my little Benz - mostly high speed (110kmh+) and long "legs". The calculated distance to the next service actually increased!

In city trucks I have found that the manufacturers' stated OCI of 4kkms(2.4k miles) can be safely extended to an annual OCI which is about 35kkms (22k miles)
This is "very severe use" for a heavy (500hp) truck as it involves many gearshifts and a lot of idling and accelleration. Of course I established this interval over some years and via UOAs. Soon I will publish a typical 9 months UOA in the diesel section for UOAs

It is a case of the Manufacturer prescripting for the lowest common denominator - those owners who simply don't give or know a d...!

Regards
Doug

 

[widman]

We drive through blinding dust with the fog lights to try to keep the road in view. Dust like talcum powder 10 inches deep on the road. Daytime temps sometimes in the 130 to 145 F range.
Does that qualify.
I change between 6,000 and 7,000 km, currently have over 600,000 km on the pickup that sees the worst of it at 90,000 km per year loaded with drums of oil.

 

[John_E]

I live in a congested suburban beach community and subject my cars to lots of stop-and-go driving. 3K miles or 6 months, whichever comes first, seems reasonable to me. The Dodge Stratus gets dino, whereas the VW Passat gets Mobil 1 because of its oil-cooking Audi 1.8T engine.

 

[AndyH]

quote:

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Originally posted by widman:
Daytime temps sometimes in the 130 to 145 F range.

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Are you joking or is that a typo? Daytime ambient temps in Bolivia sometimes are in the 130° F - 145° F range?

I just did a Google search for Bolivia temperature and found a site that talks about the climate in Bolivia http://countrystudies.us/bolivia/27.htm and they state Bolivia's highest maximum temperature was recorded in Chaco and was 47° C (116° F).

 

[TallPaul]

The reference states that severe service includes "Driving on steep hills or mountains on a regular basis." Therefore, I would think that the guy who always has his foot heavy into the pedal and likes to frequently mat the pedal and bump redline is also a severe service category.