How many months does dino oil last?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Messages
175
Location
Ontario, Canada
I am maintaining a car that doesn't clock high mileages per year, 98 with only 100k km. The driving condition is as follow:

Daily short trips. < 5km each trip
Cold weather start ups. < 30F on average during winter months
Stop and go traffic. < 10% highway

What should my OCI be for this car? Mileage obviously isn't the deciding factor.

I don't want to switch to synthetic because of cost and the mileage on the car.

The oil will be Pennzoil High Mileage; should I just use the regular Pennzoil? Filter will be Napa Nascar Select Spin-Flow; is that better or worse than Napa Silver?
 
My mom & dad (65 & 73 years old) drive about 4,000 miles a year, sometimes less. They have an 01 and 05 Civic LX and I just change the oil once a year.
 
Go with Castrol GTX and a good non-Fram oil filter and change it every 6000kms.

I live in Ontario too and I wouldn't be paying the extra money for the Pennzoil high mileage.

The Castrol GTX is as close to synthetic without going to synthetic and the cost is great.
 
I change mine every 3 months regardless of milage. Perhaps when these oils take a big price hike, I may change my habits. It's one of those "better safe than sorry" type things.
wink.gif
 
I use Motorcraft synthetic blend every 6 months, since it takes at least that long to clock 5K miles. I'm not comfortable with more than 6 months on a dino or blend. I suggest you try a 5 to 6 month interval and do a used oil analysis to get some factual data instead of a guess. I would use regular Pennzoil. I like Motorcraft and Purolator filters, I don't have any experience with Napa, but many members here use Napa gold.
 
Why not spend the extra $2-$3 per quart and do an annual change? My wife has 160,000 miles on her Cavalier and I started runnings Mobil 1 at a 6 month interval at the 130,000 mile mark. If you go annual OCI with a syn rather than 2-3 dino changes you would be saving some money.

just my .02
 
quote:


Originally posted by zimmerDM:
Daily short trips. < 5km each trip
Cold weather start ups. < 30F on average during winter months
Stop and go traffic. < 10% highway


Sounds like severe to me. I wouldn't leave any oil, dino or synthetic, in that car for extended OCI. Go with good quality dino,and change every 4 months.
 
I disagree with some of the advice given here. The type of driving you describe is classified as "severe service" by probably any car manufacturer. "Severe Service" is most often accompanied with a 3000 mile(5000 Km)/3 month oil change interval.

Based on that, I do agree that synthetic oil is a waste of money. I would use decent dino oil and change the oil/filter every 3 months (or 5000K). You won't be changing oil because it's sheared down or the ad pack has been used up. You'll be changing it because of fuel dilution, water/acid contamination and potential sludge.
 
Follow what the manual says. You are clearly in the "most severe" category of driving. I suspect that means OCI's of 3-4k miles or 3-4 months.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top