You Can't Change Your Oil Too Much!

[demarpaint]

To give a one-size-fits-all answer to this question is a fool's errand; it solves nothing and just confounds the issues for those who are noobs to the topic. In fact, this is just the flavor-de-jour at BITOG. It used to be about thick/thin lubes. Before that it was about filter efficiency. Many people on BITOG have a habit of trying to summarize something into a single consumable bite, and the reality is that the world is much more complex than that.

The problem in giving good advice here isn't because of a bad answer; it's the result of a poorly considered and constrained question.

+1 An old favorite blanket statement often posted here was: a good dino oil could go 5K miles, and a good synthetic oil can go 10K miles. Driving conditions never mentioned, along with climate, or miles driven each trip. I posted pictures of down the fill hole of a meticulously maintained 2000 Buick Century given to me by my father who owned it from new. That car tossed that blanket statement right out the window, with oil changes every 3K miles on dino oil, looking like hell in the pictures. One size fits all, and blanket statements can get someone in trouble.

 

[billt460]

Yep that's my philosophy as well. Don't like changing in the rain or the freezing snow. So its early October and April. Its worked very well for over 20 plus years.

I do the same thing to avoid the heat of Summer.

 

[CKN]

This all depends on your engine and driving conditions.
My commute is 2 mins to work. Sometimes in minus 20 for months. Even in our port injected vehicle the oil stinks of gas after 2months and 1500kms.

There is no real blanket statement for OCI's. Different engines, climates, and driving styles.

No-IMHO even for those motors anything earlier than 5,000 miles is a money flush.-JMHO.

 

[Ihatetochangeoil]

5 vehicles? But why?

Kids? Sounds like a parenting/responsibility training opportunity.

Car #1: My go to work beater. Ugly, about 186K, mechanically sound, everything works, no one looks twice at this car in bad neighborhoods where I sometimes work, but this car has survived both kids learning to drive, hence dents & scratches & stained interior & buckled dash, in fact, I guess this one looks like it is owned by broke hillbilly and sometimes that is an advantage.
Car #2: My weekend vehicle. Nicer, clean, well maintained, PPG paint protection, Leather interior, I have parking lot anxiety with this one. Stay AWAY from other cars on lots. I will park 500 ft. from the store entrance and take 2 parking spaces near the garbage dumpster.
Car #3: My wife's car; mostly a garage queen. She can drive it anywhere, anytime she wants, but rarely does. I think maybe it's had 3K on it last two years. Last oil change 3? yrs ago.
Car #4: My daughter's car, driven ~30K per year. She is recent college grad but still at home. Dad takes care of her car until she meets Mr. Right???
Car #5: My son's car, the car and my son are both a labor of love in progress. Yes, this one is in training, but I have no hope or expectations of my wife or daughter ever changing oil. My daughter DOES know how to air up a flat tire, hook up jumper cables and she has AAA. My wife is a good woman and she has attractive qualities that are beyond the scope of this forum, she just doesn't lift the hood.

 

[wxtech]

Car #2: My weekend vehicle. Nicer, clean, well maintained, PPG paint protection, Leather interior, I have parking lot anxiety with this one. Stay AWAY from other cars on lots. I will park 500 ft. from the store entrance and take 2 parking spaces near the garbage dumpster.

glad to see im not the only one with PLA. i will walk 1/4 mile out of my way from the end of walmart parking lot to avoid a potential ding. random shopping carts scattered around an empty parking lot also gives me anxiety. yesterday while taking my wife to hobby lobby, the lot was rather empty. carts were everywhere. the parking lot is on a slight incline so here i am trying to figure out the best place to park to avoid a wind driven collision with any one of the 20 carts scattered about while im shopping. my wife was like... just park already! some ppl just dont understand

 

[Sonny88]

I have a different belief. I believe that oil(lubricants/fuels), engines, emissions, fuel economy, power, quality and on & on, have indeed changed a great deal in the last 50-60 years. It's called progress!

Um ok

 

[dbias]

I change each of my vehicles oil by how they are used. The new Grand Cherokee is four months old and just passed 2,000 miles and olm says 75% oil life left. With it being mostly short tripped as I’m retired I will be changing it at 5k miles no matter what the olm says.
The transit connect has over 205,000 miles and doesn’t use any oil btwn 10k oci. When it was being used a lot I was doing 12 to 1,500 miles a week. Obviously I was doing 10 to 15 k oci as it was 99% highway miles. Only repairs it’s required out of warranty has been a wheel bearing at 120k miles or so and a water pump at around 180k miles. Plugs at 100 and 200k and still running the original coils and other maintenance on schedule.
I’m 59 now and have changed points and adjusted carbs on my vehicles and back then 3k mile oil change was good practice. With the precision that fuel injection and ecu provide anything btwn 5 to 10k is good considering how it’s being used.

 

[Bill7]

You Can't Change Your Oil Too Much!

Or at least this was the conventional wisdom when I was a kid back in the 70s. I have followed this for all of my adult life and I can say that it has always worked for me.

If a vehicle's recommended OCI was 4k miles, i would almost always change it before 3k. If oil was on sale and I was doing one vehicle, I would sometimes change multiple vehicles just to take advantage of the sale.

These days it's not unusual to see recommended OCIs of 8k or 10k miles... I have a hard time believing that oil and engines have improved that much.

Apparently there's an idea floating around out there now that frequent OCIs can contribute to engine wear due to the additive package not being allowed to dissolve or break down sufficiently.

With racing machines, it's fairly common to change the oil after every race. However racing vehicles aren't intended for longevity, the goal is speed.

So is it still true? Is it possible to change your oil too often? Or is this marketing malarkey from engine manufacturers?

Or both?!

I focus on engine cleanliness with frequent oil changes: "4k miles / 6 months which ever comes first" with a low priced full synthetic 5W-30. I also like to do a LiquiMoly engine flush during the 1st 2 oil changes for any used car I buy (to clean up after previous owner's possible lack of maintenance.

I've seen oil changes with cars that have had 10k+ OCI where the oil is dirty/sludgy/lumpy/clumpy, and wondering
what benefit there is to this oil being in your engine causing sludge/varnish/stuck piston rings and oil control rings.

UOA's don't measure how dirty or overwhelmed the oil is and how it might be causing sludge/varnish/gummed up piston rings.
There are so many posts on BITOG of people doing extended oil changes. When they switch to an Ester based oil that starts the long process of cleaning up their engine, their oil filter gets filled up with crud.

My goal is to prevent the crud in the first place by doing short oil change intervals with a low priced full synthetic oil.
I prefer not to leave the oil in the engine long enough for that to happen.

I buy the 5 quart jug of SuperTech full synthetic oil for $18.97 (19.97 - $1 cash back with the 5% cash back Walmart credit card), and the Fram Extra guard filters for $3.50 (with 95% efficiency at 20 microns), so it's so inexpensive to do 4k/6 month OCI's.

 

[simple_gifts]

I spend $30 every 5,000 miles for M1 synthetic and a factory filter.

Other people spend $30 for each oil change and another $30 for a UOA with every drain so they can figure out if they can save $3 on oil and $1 on a filter.

Not sure if you are indicating people are extended OCI as some sort of cost savings. I do not; I do it because i safely can.

Probably painful for some to accept that fact that my OF will have about 25K on it when i remove it this fall for the OC that will get me thru the winter.

-T

 

[SavetheRimBrake]

Not sure if you are indicating people are extended OCI as some sort of cost savings. I do not; I do it because i safely can.

Probably painful for some to accept that fact that my OF will have about 25K on it when i remove it this fall for the OC that will get me thru the winter.

-T

Impressive, I don’t have that many on my OnlyFans

 

[billt460]

No-IMHO even for those motors anything earlier than 5,000 miles is a money flush.-JMHO.

You wait that long on some of these new "improved" Honda engines, and you'll be doing a gasoline flush.

 

[CKN]

You wait that long on some of these new "improved" Honda engines, and you'll be doing a gasoline flush.

What does the manual say?

 

[billt460]

What does the manual say?

The same thing the dealers says. "It's normal".

 

[TiGeo]

The same thing the dealers says. "It's normal".

The bear of it is....it may actually be just fine...does anyone know/have issues b/c of it? The dealer will never do anything they won't get paid for so "normal" is the only thing they can say here. Yes, this seems WAY excessive to me but again...have there been any documented regular failures/drama with these engines due to excessive fuel in the oil? How many of these are running around on the road with owners that never check their oil/go about their day/have it serviced at the dealer/quick lube? A bazillion.

 

[CKN]

The bear of it is....it may actually be just fine...does anyone know/have issues b/c of it? The dealer will never do anything they won't get paid for so "normal" is the only thing they can say here. Yes, this seems WAY excessive to me but again...have there been any documented regular failures/drama with these engines due to excessive fuel in the oil? How many of these are running around on the road with owners that never check their oil/go about their day/have it serviced at the dealer/quick lube? A bazillion.

Exactly. It's Only an issue on here. If it was an issue-it would have been a 3,000 OCI listed in the owner's manual. Enough said on this one.

 

[billt460]

Who cares what the dealer says or thinks? Do you honestly think a crankcase diluted with over a quart of gasoline, is helping the longevity of said engine? Or, that such a condition is "normal"?

 

[dnewton3]

UOA's don't measure how dirty or overwhelmed the oil is and how it might be causing sludge/varnish/gummed up piston rings.

Sir - you are mistaken.

UOAs (depending on service) may offer info like oxidation, soot, or insolubles. Those are direct parameters indicating how "dirty or overwhelmed the oil is". UOAs can indicate if the oil is lightly or heavily loaded with other contamination such as fuel, coolant, silica as well. UOAs can show us how much base (TBN) is active which can help understand the ability to clean (in the case of Ca and Mg).

I don't know where your viewpoint comes from, but it needs to be adjusted because your statement if flat out wrong.

 

[BAJA_05]

Everybodys situation is different in life. I am in the belief --- buying a used car with 100K or more on it justifies the first couple oil changes 3K or less. Not everyone keeps a maintenance log like I am sure alot of us BITOGers do for each vehicle. Just gives me a piece of mind and thats who it matters to in the first place.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

glad to see im not the only one with PLA. i will walk 1/4 mile out of my way from the end of walmart parking lot to avoid a potential ding. random shopping carts scattered around an empty parking lot also gives me anxiety. yesterday while taking my wife to hobby lobby, the lot was rather empty. carts were everywhere. the parking lot is on a slight incline so here i am trying to figure out the best place to park to avoid a wind driven collision with any one of the 20 carts scattered about while im shopping. my wife was like... just park already! some ppl just dont understand

My wife finally learned the lesson about why you (and me + we can bet others) park like we do. She went shopping in her nice beautiful pearl/white car that we are OCD about keeping clean inside and out and shiny. A strong windy thunderstorm hit the parking lot and a plastic shopping kart put a nice soft ball sized ding in the fender. She gets it now why we park like we do. I am going to try and pop
it out as one of my nephews did body work and has a lot of the tools he once used for just that thing. No paint scratched or anything just that dent. I tell wife , come on, no moaning. Be thankful its not a lot worse.
Back on topic: never forget back before the USA had the oils rated for 7500 mi and then even 10,000 a big discussion broke out in the auto media world. The question was put to major oil makers about "why is there oils available that you all make in Europe for consumers to use that is rated for long life / oci like 7500 mi or more and the USA can only aquire your 3000 mi rated oils?" Those clowns were caught flat footed/red handed and almost choked trying to justify with any kind of answers. The one that made me LMAO was one of these characters actually said "you see, uh you folks simply dont get it. The American motorists have been trained to do the 3000mi oci
since the early days of motoring in the western world and they would not take kindly to someone telling them to extend their beloved
3000mi oci they are so accustumed and enjoy doing to maintain their beloved vehicles!" "you all just do not understand how Americans
hold their vehicles in such high esteem they will never go for above 3000mi oci!!!" It still makes me laugh to this day! Soon after that foolishness all the oil companies bombarded the USA and North America with their new "magic 7500mi oci rated oils and beyond. LOL

 

[OVERKILL]

The bear of it is....it may actually be just fine...does anyone know/have issues b/c of it? The dealer will never do anything they won't get paid for so "normal" is the only thing they can say here. Yes, this seems WAY excessive to me but again...have there been any documented regular failures/drama with these engines due to excessive fuel in the oil? How many of these are running around on the road with owners that never check their oil/go about their day/have it serviced at the dealer/quick lube? A bazillion.

I mean, there was a class action lawsuit in Canada and intervention by the Chinese government, it's not like it's a total non-issue.

Honda Oil Dilution - McKenzie Lake Lawyers LLP

This class action is brought on behalf of all persons who purchased or leased a 2016, 2017, and 2018 Honda Civic equipped with the 1.5 litre turbocharged engine and/or 2017 and 2018 Honda CR-V equipped with the 1.5 litre turbocharged engine in Canada. UPDATE: November 2020 On November 4, 2020 a...

www.mckenzielake.com

http://www.hondaodcsettlement.ca/media/3096300/v8_hoq_notice_110320_final.pdf

US Class Action:

Honda Oil Dilution Lawsuit Includes Accord, Civic and CR-V

Honda oil dilution problems have caused a lawsuit that alleges the Earth Dreams 1.5L direct injection engines are defective in 2019-2021 Honda CR-V, 2019-2021 Honda Civic and 2018-2021 Honda Accord vehicles.

www.carcomplaints.com

And the previous one mentioned in that above article:

Honda Oil Dilution Settlement Preliminarily Approved

A Honda oil dilution settlement has received preliminary approval after CR-V and Civic customers alleged the oil levels increased due to fuel mixing with engine oil. According to the lawsuit, the 2016-2018 Honda Civics and 2017-2018 Honda CR-Vs are equipped with 1.5-liter Earth Dreams...

www.carcomplaints.com

Consumer Reports:

Honda Extends Warranty on Troubled Turbo Engines

Consumer Reports shares details of the Honda warranty extended for owners of CR-V SUVs and Civic cars with troubled turbo engines where the gas can mix with the engine oil.

www.consumerreports.org

NHTSA:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2018/MC-10152402-0001.pdf

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10158743-0001.pdf