Technical How often do you change the oil?

Worked with a guy years ago who commuted in an econobox of some sort. His philosophy was not to put a dime into it, just drive it into the ground. No oil changes, ever. I just shook my head. No idea how many miles he got out of it but until the day I quit he was still driving it.

 

I got a car from my sister in the late 80s, it was here boyfriend/husband's car...had 60k miles on it, and the engine was worn out, because he never maintained it, at all.

 

I remembered something about Consumer Reports doing a study on length of time between oil changes, so I did a quick internet search. The CR study was done in the mid-90s. A summary from British Car Magazine, 1996:

"Consumer Reports, with one of the most widely respected product testing laboratories in the world has just released the results of an extensive test on oil brands and oil changes, as well as other issues regarding car care. In the process, the test demolished much of the conventional wisdom regarding car lubrication. The two most surprising results: the frequency with which oil is changed doesn't matter after the first few oil changes on a new engine, and the type or brand of oil used can not be shown to make any difference.

The testers placed freshly rebuilt engines in 75 New York taxis and then ran them for nearly two years, with each cab racking up 60,000 miles, placing different brands and weights in different cars and changing the oil at 3,000 miles in half the cars and 6,000 in the other half. At the conclusion of the test period, the engines were torn down, measured and inspected. The conclusions: Regardless of brand of oil or weight, no measurable differences could be observed in engine wear. Furthermore, there was no difference among cars which had oil changed at the shorter or longer interval."

 

Jim, I'm afraid that is not a isolated case, I tried to teach a neighborhood kid about the importance doing maintenance on his truck after his dad had passed away suddenly, I offered him the use of my shop and tools anytime he need and even offered to help teach him how to change the brakes.

I showed him how to change the oil and even stuck a piece of tape inside his glove compartment for the mileage when the oil should be changed.

In November of this year he call and said he needed to check the oil, NOT CHANGE IT, I said bring the truck over, I heard his engine knocking before he pulled in the drive way, I pulled out the dipstick and it was on the tip of the stick was black and smelled burnt. the oil was below all the hatch marks, he hadn't checked the oil in over two years.

The engine gave up about a week later and he learned a valuable lesson, oil changes are a lot cheaper than a new engine. HRP

 

Regardless of manufacturers recommendations, even our new Mustangs, old and filter at 3K, except 55 Chevy with no filter every 1K. That or every year even if a car is driven less. I can't imagine changing just oil running it through a dirty filter.

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On the 30 coupe Flathead with "filter" at least once a year or ~1500mi (PennGrade1 partial synthetic)
On the Diesel Colorado 5000-7500 miles depending on the type of driving/hauling I have been doing (Pennzoil Euro L full synthetic dexos2)
On the wife and daughters car's around 3000-4000mi
On the motorcycle 6000mi per manual (so 2 or 3 times a year)
Chappy

 

I have a friend that build racing motors. His opinion on oil changes are: When the oil that you wipe off the dipstick no longer feels slippery between your fingers, change the oil. Don't be concerned about the color, mileage, or the age. When the oil looses the slipperiness, its bad.
Personally, I change the oil on my wife's car in the spring and in the fall. My winter truck gets an oil change in the fall. The short trips kill the oil. The coupe gets it in the spring, and whenever it gets down 1 quart, or is going on a trip of over 500 miles (no more then every 3 months).
I do admit to doing the slippery test every time I check the oil though. Gene

 

I can't believe my new Mustang takes 10 quarts of oil to fill the pan.....

 

Yearly or 5000 miles, whichever comes first.

 

Mention Mustang? On the HAMB? Blasphemy!

 

Same here 5k or 1 year. The local Sheriffs department uses synthetic and changes oil filters every 10k and a full oil change at 30K on the patrol units. Which is about 6 to 9 months.

 

Funny you say that, I have been hearing that in Japan they have a law that you cannot have a car on the road over there with over 60 K miles. Evidently Honda & Toyota motors are real cheap to buy and they only have 60K on them .... bet they don't get many oil changes though.

 

This depends so much on the quality of the oil and the filtering. I run a high quality synthetic oil in all my equipment (yes, there is a considerable variation in the quality of synthetics), and change the oil and filter once per year.
I pulled a Ford 302, used on my boat with over 3500 hours of run time, because salt water corrosion caused a manifold failure and salt water could have got into the head. Other than break-in, the engine had been run on synthetic oil, with a top quality filter for all of its life. This engine spent all its time running with an engine vacuum of 5 inches or less, meaning that it was operating at 75% or more of a continuous maximum load.
The teardown showed that the engine was in excellent condition. The timing chain was like new, the pan was so clean that you could have eaten out of it, and there was no cylinder ridge, and there were still machining marks in the cylinders. The main and rod bearings showed very little wear. There was no appreciable wear in the valves, and the heads were as clean as if they had been tanked.
I freshened the heads, re-assembled the engine with new bearings and seals, and ran it an additional 10 years without incident. It was still running beautifully when I sold it.
My point is, that a top quality filter and synthetic oil will cost more, but it will significantly extend the life of an engine. In addition to the fact that there is less internal friction, resulting in less wear, this also means better fuel mileage and lower overall maintenance costs.
Before I retired, my commute to and from work was 100 miles each way. (I was a pilot flying overseas, so I only went to work 4 times per month). Because my airport car(s) spent the majority of their life on the highway, I found that the fuel mileage improvement after conversion of the engine and drive train to synthetic, was between 10-12% over an average of 7,000 miles per year. Not a bad payback, even without considering the reduced maintenance cost, the extra cost of the oil more than paid for itself..
Bob

 

FYI, for what it's worth, years ago a well respected racer friend (rip) had an oil friction tester. Super simple device mounted on his garage wall. It was a small 120vac electric motor. There was a roller bearing on a short bracket with a 1/2" square hole on end. It had a 1/2" drive beam type torque wrench in it.
There was a small metal cup below so when you pulled torque wrench down, bearing was inside cup and bearing contacted motor shaft.
So you could put any liquid in cup, pull wrench until it just stalled motor and read the torque. Common sense...the more torque means less resistance, slipprier oil.
Of the oils he tested Valvoline was best, Warren was worst (this was years ago).
Adding a few drops of Pro Blend you could not stall motor out.
The Warren oil was a great break-in oil, then he ran Valvoline in a new motor.
It would be interesting to test modern oils and synthetics.

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Years ago I called the great Smokey Yunick (rip) a few times, once about oil, and he talked about importance of fresh clean oil. Even mixing brands/weights wasn't so important as clean.

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Oil actually seems to get better over time, if it´s kept clean. A couple decades ago a German engineer delevoped a very fine mesh oil filter for cars, trucks and machinery. You only change the filter and refill the oil, they say the quilty of the oil will even improve over time since it absorbs carbon, which acts as an additional lubricant. Here´s a link
http://trabold.de/v1/
I ´ve heard of it but knew no one who had actually used the Trabold filters and has first hand experience. So a few weeks ago I learned that a friend of mine who runs a construction and recycling business has been using Trabold filters on all his trucks, loaders and equiment for more than 30 years. Some of the loaders had trabold filters on them since they were new, now they are 30 years old , have been on duty for 30 years with no oil changes. Seems to work and last, at least on engines that are used daily and over longer periods of time.
I rather change my oil and filters frequently, like every 3-4000 miles on the cars I drive a lot and maybe every 2000 miles on cars that I rarely drive. I hate it to drain oil that looks like new on the cars without oil filters, but that´s cheap insurance...

 

I'll never buy one..... Did I say that out loud????

 

Once a year on the coupe. Usually around 2500 to 3000 miles. Snowman

 

When the little "oil" light comes on.....

 

On a newer car it's the gravy boat symbol [emoji23]

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Daily’s 5000-6000 + using full synthetics , older vehicles conventional oil about 3000 + ...... Flux

 

Try changing the oil on a 6.0 Diesel!!

 

I totally agree, in 1962 my father had a 1957 Desoto,V8/Push Buton Auto. I was 15yrs. and really noticing cars. He had no interest in cars,fix when you have too. I went with him to our local Sunoco station where he had “Sparky” change just the oil filter. I asked him why he did that and I thought you’re going to run “dirty oil through a new filter.” He told me to be quiet and get in the car. Never did answer my question.

 

Try it on a DD15 Detroit diesel---11 GALLONS! Factory specs call for a 50,000 mile drain interval.

My late model 5.4 Ford drivers take 6 quarts, wife changes hers [has it done] every 3,000 or so, my pickup I've had over 3 years now and have never changed it that I can remember, but I've only put around 3500 miles on it in that time. All this oil talk reminded me that I'd never changed it, so went to Wally World tonight and picked up oil, Lucas, and a Motorcraft filter for both of them so I can do it tomorrow.

Reason I don't put many miles on my pickup is I'm in the semi truck all week, and the pickup sits in the yard sometimes two or three weeks before it even gets cranked, wife refuses to drive it because it sits higher {4X4} than her Expy and she has a hard time getting in it. We go anywhere, we go in hers most of the time.
The 350 in the Lincoln, I changed it once in the 3 years it was running,s till didn't put but maybe 3000 miles on it total in that time, if that. Got fresh new oil in the 302 in it now, just waiting of a few more things before I fire it off.

 

I've heard the same, something about onerous inspections, all kinds of parts need replacing to pass, hoses etc. It's considered a domestic stimulus program because there aren't any old cars on the road. The engines are pulled and sold here in North America as good used.

 

Other than off topic cars and trucks, 2000-2500 is my average. Ford garage moaned when I brought my Focus in early. I told them to change it anyway. That one goes 5000, or less. With those tiny oil filters I don't trust them to last high miles. I've torn down one of my engines with nearly 85,000 on it, and it was clean enough to eat off inside. The same with another one I did years ago. That one had almost 100,000 on it. It was still running strong. The 85,000 one had two bad rods! Good GM quality huh? I rebuilt it completely, and again it failed at about the same mileage, for the same reason. (151 four cylinder S-10). SBC's I've cracked open looked quite fresh inside after 60,000. They were running strong too.

 

I change the oil in my Hot Rods annually, probably less than 2000 miles on either of them in a season. I run Wix filters on both with 30W HD in my 440 and 10W30 in the 454. Each also gets a bottle of ZDDP supplement for good measure. I don't care what reports and studies say, I sleep better knowing my engines have fresh oil in them...

 

every 3k on moms tahoe, with 200k on er, once a year or so on the Flat truck Valvoline r40wt, and way more often on the Flat FED, seems to get alcohol in it every so often........

 

Every 7500 miles on the modern stuff.

Twice a year on the old stuff.