short tripper, 4k mi on SP, OC for 1k trip or not?

[08sienna]

so my 04 corolla is for my commute/lunch - 4 times 3 mi travel a day, highway trips on weekends. now about 4000 miles on synpower 5w30... I plan to drive 480mi each way trip next week - should I have fresh synpower in my pan or not? I think the last change was in fall 2011.

I thought it's a reasonable OCI because the synpower in my sump went through hundreds of cold trips, and the manual recommended OCI is overdue.. (5k mi or 4 months)
Please advise. TIA.


---------
oil consumption: ZERO

 

[rk1407]

I'm sure its not necessary since you are running Synpower which is a good full synthetic. If you plan on keeping the car a long time and have the money go ahead and baby it!

If you do change it I would change at least one day before the trip in case something happens your not out on the Interstate trying to troubleshoot things.

 

[rjacket]

I think your weekend highway drives are offsetting the short trips.

Given that, given you've got synthetic and you're not too far from the recommended oci in both miles and time, I would feel comfortable using the synpower for your long trip, which itself will be easy on the oil.

But even if you changed it, that long highway trip would have negligible impact on your new oil.

The only caveat would be if you have a cheap filter and were cleaning a sludged engine.

Btw, I had a similar driving pattern. In fact even less miles and no weekly highway trips. 6 month oil changes with syn blend were fine.

However, the performance deteriorated steadily. I realized it was a combination of carbon build up and non top tier fuel. Cleaning the TB and PEA cleaner (Gumout All In One in my case) did wonders to fuel economy and performance.

 

[Caliberguy]

get your money's worth and change oil after the trip!!

 

[toneydoc]

Well if it was me and I had a nice, kinda warm day out, I would change it just so it had fresh oil for the trip. It does get cold in MA and you have many runs where the oil never warmed up. Since it is your daily drive and it sounds like you take care of and want to continue using the car, I would vote for an oil change. The cost is not much and it will help the motor last a long time. Cheap insurance in my opinion, fwiw.