when to change oil filter, time vs mileage?

[ziggy]

Okay, when apparently its the right thing to do, if you drive 3,000 miles o 3 months with less than 3,000 miles and re use oil filter... lets say i drive 7,000 miles in a year, and use a filter like Frams extend guard, rated as the 7,000 miles filter, but do oil changes every 3 months...
would it b okay, if i use the same filter then, for a year, if doing 3 month/7,000 miles a year?

 

[Gary Allan]

It always "depends". If you're doing 3 miles a day for 250 days...then you're changing it out every 3 months with a filter. The internals will degrade and the miles per warm up cycle are just too few.

Just my opinion. I'd use a cheap filter since you really can't get the utility out of a premium one.

At that type of mileage I think that the years will take as much toll as the service. If from new, you're looking at 13 years for 100k, while most will be at about 175k. Assuming that they're maintained, the stone chip damage may be the defining difference.

 

[ziggy]

SO you saying to use a new cheap filte fo evey 3 month change? I mean me personally i get about 2,000 miles in 3 months... so that made me think.. i can use a 7,000 mile fram extend guard, for about 6 months then, 2 oil changes.
Using the smae filter for a year, and only 7,000 miles is not a good thing? The filter may degrade?

 

[Gary Allan]

Again, what type of daily drive does your engine endure? In a four season climate, with that limited mileage, I wouldn't use an expensive filter.

You may very well be able to go with 6 month OCI and filter changes. It's mainly, imo, determined by your event duration. You can't drive 3 miles a day (your average is 2.22 miles per day for 90day/2000 miles) and ever warm up your oil ..or most likely even your coolant. Now your engine may indeed warm up very quickly ..but there's no way the oil does. Even exchanged aluminum engines take about 9 miles to reach par with coolant temps.

For the oil, the only real way to determine how it's doing is with UOA. If your oil can manage to retain integrity over 6 months under that service, I'd suspect that the filter will too.

 

[ziggy]

OK! So if i do 7,000 miles a year, and change my oil and filter 2 ro 3 times, but use the smae filter, for the year, do you think the filter should be able to do it? Again, its a fram extend guard. How about other filters, like stp, wix, ac delco Bosch? With that same OCI?

 

[Gary Allan]

I'd be reluctant in that type of service to do that, ziggy. You've got to be encountering some moisture retention with that level of service in almost any except the most arid of climates. Oil filter medias tend to degrade in the presence of moisture.

..but I could be wrong. Again, I'd recommend just one UOA, preferably in the Spring OCI (whichever is after the Winter service) and see if there's moisture and fuel in your oil. I'd tend to think that there would be.

About the only alternative that works in my head is if you had a tp bypass filter. The 3m change out would probably handle your moisture condition (which I only speculate exists). That would probably keep moisture from effecting the ff filter media.

..BUT..I doubt that one year of this is going to alter your ownership experience here. So, don't worry about trying it. At the end of the year, if you're so inclined, cut the filter open and take a look-see to how the year effected the media. That's the wonder of modern engines, they can take a few good hits and still manage to deliver 100% service in most cases.