Originally Posted By: sangyup81
It's a 5 year old car. With 400k miles and 30k OCIs, he's changed the oil 13 times. That's more than twice a year. Big deal. Just shows we make too much out of miles and too little out of the time between Oil Changes
I agree. When I was younger, broke and less concerned with maintenance, I took a 92 Cavalier to over 150k on 10 oil changes or less over a 9 year span. Most were whatever house brand dino was on sale, and a few Maxlife OCI's at the end. Gave it to my brother who was worse on maintenance than I, and he traded it in at 192k. Car still had all original fluids other than oil, original clutch and tranny, and still got 27MPG and started everytime. I hated that car, but drove it because it was a wife hand me down, but I wish I would have kept it as a beater just to see how long it would run.
I think we sometimes overthink this OCI thing as well. I want to keep my cars running strong, but so many out there do so little to their cars and they still go with no problems. I'll take the guy at his word, and the car is probably running okay with that many highway miles. But on this board, if he took the valve covers off, we'd probably all freak out due to a few sludge deposits or some varnish. Doesn't mean the car isn't still running good as an everyday driver.