Technical Oil change frequency

Here is a report from a vehicle I’ve had done a few times. It’s OT, but answers the question. You pay a little extra for the analysis related to oil life, and I don’t see that result on the current sample (TBN), but it gives you an idea of what’s in the results from this company. Their narrative goes into detail for your sample(s). In this case I had just replaced head gaskets on a diesel due to an antifreeze leak.

John

 

That brings up another thing, greasing! A lot of cars are ruined by inexperienced “ greasers”! I know you are not, by some shops may have them. Not sure when it started but I know my Dads 1953 Ford had the ball joints that had the rubber “ pouch” around the joint. The right way to grease….or not grease was to feel or look at the rubber pouch to see if it had grease in it. That rubber pouch was designed to use it’s elasticity to keep the grease crowded into the working parts of the ball joint. If greased properly that ball joint would last almost for ever!
BUT, in many shops , inexperienced workers keep pumping grease into that pouch untill it bursts! Totally ruining the design of the joint.
Other places on some cars are like this, also. Then some areas need the old grease pumped out with new grease.
Also king pins need to be jacked up and the wheels turned back and forth while greasing to spread the grease and make sure some of the grease gets into the thrust bearing and the pressure side of the king pin!


Just thought I would touch on greasing practices!




Bones

 

I worked at Poop Boyz several years after I retired from my 'real job'. (Yeah...counter monkey & delivery guy!)
I had an old guy who SWORE he never changed his oil!! JUST the filter every 5000 miles and topped off the oil he lost during the change.
His argument was...."a filter FILTERS the crap out of the oil and since oil doesn't wear out why swap-it- out for new oil?" He claimed 100.000 miles on his engines and no smoke!
I'm just tell'in ya what he said!!!!
6sally6

 

3k on the 355 Chevy. I use top quality oil filters like Wix, Moroso or the long AC Delcos.

For grease, the Ford manual says every 1000 miles. I do it with the oil changes, did a drag link adjustment on the last one. The upper a-arms, key to keep those happy and lubricated. My big sway bar has fittings... watch those on concrete parking lot stops... I do more often.

 

Many moons ago there used to be a company that sold a "filter" can. Perfect fit for a roll of Tpaper, which was the element. Claimed you never change the oil, just the filter and it was super cheap so you actually saved a ton of $ and your engine ran cleaner than ever since the TP was so much finer filtration than any regular car filter. I guess you could use it afterward also.

 

It’s a Frantz. They do especially if you send your oil out for testing which I did 4 times. I had it on a 65 283 I put 140k miles on over 11 years and it was by far the cleanest engine I ever had inside. I changed the TP at 1000 miles and added a qt. I ran Castol 10-30 at that time. I also changed the stock oil filter once a year. I think I changed the oil 2 times while I owned it. I also used on a 400 SBC in a pickup I owned for a time. They are installed as a bypass only and a screen in the bottom kept any paper from getting in the engine.
I still have it and use in on my parts washer. I run the fluid thru it for an hour or 2 before prior cleaning engine parts.

 

Not typically done with engine oils. Particle cleanliness code is usually done with an optical device and the darkness of the fluid makes this impractical. You could do it with a machine that measures the reduction in flow through a filter with different size openings, but that is not commonly used in most labs. In any case, it would be filthy, wouldn't really tell you much. Even a very clean used engine oil sample would be off the charts compared to a hydraulic fluid.

If you suspected something was wrong you could run a filter patch test, where the oil is flowed through a very fine filter patch, like .8 microns, and then it is flushed with a solvent to remove the oil and the patch is put under a microscope and viewed; or ferrographic analysis where the sample is run over a glass slide that is positioned over a magnetic field so that farrographic particles are distributed along the lines of magnetic force and non magnetic particles remain randomly distributed, or a more automated process like ferrous density meter. But these kinds of tests are rarely used on engines. Not that they can't be, it just is not part of routine analysis. They would be done as part of a troubleshooting process on an engine that is suspected of having problems; or part of post failure analysis. And typically that would be a large (expensive) commercial engine, in power generation, earth moving equipment, railroad or marine applications.

 

And BTW, the whole particle counting test has very poor reliability IMO. Repeatability and reproducability are very poor. The same sample run multiple times will have different results each time. I've done a lot of testing of hydraulic and other fluids. The truth is, the entire process is subject to influence from outside contamination. You have to use Super Clean sample bottles, and all your sampling equipment has to be kept absolutely clean, and how you draw the sample is critically important, and these things just are not done well in the field, by poorly trained technicians. Even opening the sample bottle to attach it to a vaccume pump could introduce enough contamination into the bottle to influence the particle count (it's looking at particles smaller than are visible to the naked eye).

I did a study once to compare the effectiveness of filters on the output of fresh oil tanks. We measured the cleanliness of the oil in the tanks and compared it to the cleanliness of the oil after being pumped through a pneumatic pump through the filter and out through a hose and dispensing nozzles, and the reports showed the oil was just as likely to be dirtier coming out of the nozzle than was in the tank. There was no definite pattern, very random.

The best use of that technology is with live particle counting with the oil running through a meter that measures the cleanliness in real time with the oil in motion. But the technology of pulling a sample and getting a perfectly representable sample, and then having it process perfectly in the lab is a gamble at best. It's best used as a trending tool, not for measuring absolute cleanliness.

 

That's a nice report. I like how it gives the unit averages, plus the averages for all like units over on the right. That's a cool feature. I also like the flash point is included, that's good info to have. Note the Iron wear, the last sample is double to average, and almost 6x the previous sample, with close to the same oil age.

 

My OT daily driver only sees 12-1400 miles a year ( yes I should get out more ) and it runs full synthetic. I'm at 2 years and the oil life is still at 54%, I used to change it every year out of guilt, now I just check the level and run it until it's ready for a change.

 

I'm curious how you know the oil life is at 54% Or how you know when it's ready for a change. Can you explain?

 

Depends on driving conditions I suppose.
I have always tried to change oil between 2500 and 3000 miles. But that could change depending on the situation. For example if I was going coast to coast I was probably not going to change oil until i got there. LOL

This may sound extreme but when engines typically went 100K and needed to be overhauled if I could get my hands on a vehicle with realative low miles I could easily squeeze another 50K out of one without packing it. Oil used to be cheap and my time used to cost money. LOL

I do not know about oil life percentage. Mrs PK'n'Beaner has her own way of telling when its time to change the oil, it is based on fuel consumption and engine sound, and what her gauge reads. After many years with her I had determined that she is normally correct and when you check the elapsed miles she is always within a hundred miles or so.

 

My ‘03 Cevey PU has a that in the convenience thing.

 

So what kind of TP? There’s that poofy softy girly stuff, then Charmin, and then there’s Scott 1000, or even the LightHouse for the Blind government issue single ply, with splinters. Lasts a long time, but I doubt it would pass oil in a filter application. (Sneak a roll into the ladies bathroom for Quality Entertainment.)

The TP rolls today are also fully 1” narrower than standard. If you look at the typical TP holder it’s obvious. Does a modern TP roll fit the Frantz properly?

 

Pretty simple actually, you push this little button that says info on the column and scroll until you see oil life %. When it gets to 10% or so I'll change it. It's reset at the dealer after an oil change and is based off of mileage. You would be the perfect guy to ask, it is my understanding that synthetic oil doesn't break down over time like conventional does, true ?

 

Ahhhh, the electronic oil life monitors on new cars, OK. I believe those work by monitoring the miles since the last oil change, and things like the number of starts, operating temps, fuel mileage, etc. There isn't any kind of actual testing of the oil involved, it's an algorithm plugged into the ECM.

Yes it's true that synthetic oils resist degradation a lot longer than mineral oils do. They still do "break down", just at a slower rate than mineral oil.

 

Hello,

When I was the maintenance guy for my brother's 1951 Oldsmobile and the 58 Chevy Impala, I learned that older brothers can be devious. But, for all the work I did, I learned that it did give me rewards. One, I learned a lot about cars and auto mechanics. Two, I learned that whatever I did, I got to go places that a lot of my friends could not attend… like Lion’s Dragstrip and other older teens houses that had cool hot rods. I was a tag along until my brother could drop me off at my destination.

But, the frequency of oil changes and filters was puzzling. At the time we changed the oil at around 3-5.000 miles. The oil looked like it did when we put the greenish stuff in the engine. My question was ignored as to why take out clean oil and put in several cans of new oil? It looked the same.

The answer was that the factory recommended changing the oil frequently. It never crossed our minds that the statement was just another big factory item tied into the oil industry coffers. So, like good teenage auto mechanics, we changed (I changed) the oil and filter, when it was time.

Jnaki


As we got older, the oil still stayed the same color and now, it was really questionable to keep doing the change over at 3-5,000 miles. As the miles kept getting piled on, sometimes it went to 8-10000 miles between oil changes. What did the oil look like? The 58 Impala had clear greenish oil. The 65 El Camino had black oil from the month after we put in the greenish oil. So, that was a questionable factory installation.

Both cars ran well, they were tuned to perfection and we never had problems with either the Impala or El Camino. The El Camino needed a water pump at 120k, but the new oil exchange at the sale time was green then black, upon the sale at 125k miles.

Jump up to today’s cars. The service requirements are controlled by the usage and computers. So, it tells us in dumb lights when an oil service is necessary. My wife’s newish car had regular oil. Technically, the factory suggests a 3-5,000 mile interval before oil changes. But, the computer light does not come on until it is time for the factory installed computer to analyze all driving techniques and mannerisms to pop up an “oil service needed” light to warn us. That warning came around 10k.

So, the dummy lights have a couple of old folks doing factory service demands to keep the warranty in place. The odd thing was that once, the factory had a limit set at 15k between oil changes. Now, they are wavering between 10k and 15, with the latest favoring 10k. What gives? YRMV

 

I really should get this oil tested when I do indeed change it. Probably would be educational and maybe a little piece of mind.

 

I’ll bet that Bones and Blues4U both remember the big, old Lubrifiner filters on older trucks. I think we still have a cartridge for one on the filter aisle at work. I’m also amazed that guys still come in to work and think they can tell when oil on a truck needs to be changed by looking at the dipstick.