Technical How often do you change the oil?

What? Oils are the same, and cars are the same. I will say though their fuel standards are better, especially when it comes to diesel. When Mercedes looked at bringing over their diesels to NA at about the same time, they told us the diesel fuel in NA was sub standard for their engines. They also told us that the DEF additive would have an adverse effect on Diesel engine wear.

 

Ok, if you say so.

 

IIRC, in my DD (BMW turbo diesel) the interval is approx. (depends on type of driving etc.) 18K miles - 5.3 quarts of fully synthetic 0W-30. Been driving the car for almost 105 000 miles now, and no signs of oil consumption or increased fuel consumption due to wear and tear.

 

Oil standards are different in Europe, in case anybody is wondering. Higher end cars the cost of an oil change is pretty steep. In the US the emphasis for oil itself in recent years seems to be on "energy saving" & fuel economy standards and eking out the last .2 mile.

They do have extended drain intervals "over there", but the additive package has to be exacting with lots of dispersants and detergents. Older Mercedes at least, hold 8 quarts in the pan.

 

Twice a year. I was at Sams Club yesterday and picked up three cases of Mobil 1 5-30. I change my 2001 Chevy 3500 work truck and my el Caminos 454 oil at the same time..

 

Oil And Filters Are Cheap So I Change It Before The Bombs Are Put Away For Winter..Yesterday...

 

You change oil by mileage not time. If you drive your car in the summer only just change it every spring.

Now for you flathead guys this is just a thought. They did not have high zinc oil when your car was new. It never came into play until spring pressures came up in modern (by our standards) engines.

 

3k...religiously

 

In the fall b4 layup. Only drive 1500-2000 a year & am using Valvoline Racing oil.....soooooo
i'm go'n 2 every other fall. Cheap, old, & lazy.

 

2,000 miles with Valvoline VR1 20-50w Racing Oil on my inline six Chevy 235 and Jimmy 302.

On my O/T Caddy ATS-V twin-turbo v6 when and with what the car damn well tells me to.

 

I agree, that's why I wondered about this "3 months/3 thousand miles" business with the VR1 Racing oil.

So I called them and asked, and the guy said first to go by the engine builders recommendation. Now that makes sense - if we're talking about viscosity and I said I just got an old Ford with a flat tappet cam, and he repeated the "3 months/3 thousand miles". I can see where if an oil doesn't have all the detergents or dispersants it isn't something to be left in the crankcase for extended drain times. I just want a good oil I can leave in a year or so that doesn't cost $12 a quart.

This is all BS. LOL

 

Heavy duty diesel engine oil. You want one that meets the CK-4 specification but does not also carry the SN license as well, because if it has the SL license it will have reduced zinc levels to meet the passenger car oil limits. Just look up the data sheets they'll tell you what you need to know.

For instance Shell Rotella T4 15W-40: https://rotella.shell.com/en_us/pro...e718cd0fc768d05faab7059e52f0938/t4-15w-40.pdf That is CK-4 and does not carry the SN license. That's a good one.

Chevron Delo 400 SDE 15W-40: https://cglapps.chevron.com/sdspds/PDSDetailPage.aspx?docDataId=481951&docFormat=PDF That is Ck-4 and it DOES carry the SN license, so that will have reduced zinc levels (~800 ppm max).

That is just 2, there are many out there, if there is one you're interested in look it up.

 

I change mine when it begins to turn color. Modern stuff that's about 3000-4000 miles, older anything down to 500 miles depending how worn it is.

My father swore by the filter set on his '58 Land Rover- he was in Africa at the time and with the open crankcase ventilation system he said the dust would get drawn in and make the oil sludgy in a few hundred miles- he fitted a regular paper element filter which then fed into a centrifugal filter to remove the particulates that the paper element missed. This was mainly so the thing wouldn't leave him stranded, seized up someplace in the middle of the back end of nowhere (where it is quite possible to die all by yourself and never be found, becoming lunch for the local wildlife).
He said that kept the oil from changing visible color for a much longer time but it was still changed every 2000-3000 miles because it would lose its' characteristics. He said that was easy to tell, the engine would begin to get audibly knocky under load when it was hot and the oil was thin because the big ends had seen better days.

I attribute quite a lot to modern metallurgy though- the A-series in my old man's Healey needed rebuilding at 60,000 miles even with routine maintenance. It had steps in the bores by that time, which by the very nature of the beast merely makes the oil worse and the wear faster. On the flip side my '87 Renault I pulled apart with 120,000 miles on the clock and the factory hone marks are still visible. The main bearings weren't scored, though they were worn down through to the copper.

Working at an airport back in the UK (GA stuff) I saw the service schedule we had worked on with the manufacturer of the engines, Lycoming. Every 50 hours of running the oil was changed, the filters dismantled and inspected, anything untoward investigated. Aviation gasoline burns with highly acidic deposits- more so when the pilots are leaning the mixture off to squeeze more economy from the fuel. Routine oil changes to remove the acids that build up and cause the oil to break down was the reason for the more regular changes. We saw significantly longer working life from the engines. Even when they were up on hours and due rebuild, they invariably ran well with little wear on the moving parts. We had a couple aircraft come in from the States that had been on the regular maintenance schedule and the engines were junk by 75% of their service life. Mechanical sympathy also plays a lot into what ends up going into the oil; run an engine hard when it's cold before all the tolerances close up and observe the blow-by.

If it's worth it to you, change the oil. If not, don't.. but alter your expectations accordingly.

--Phil

 

Because as a racing motor oil it isn't intended to be used for a long drain interval, it is intended to be used for a race, or a couple of races, and then drained. So it probably doesn't have the anti-oxidants and corrosion inhibitors for long term use. 3k miles is a "safe" interval. If they told you to run it longer than that and your engine developed sludge and lacquer deposits you would go back to them with a bill for cleaning it up, and they want to avoid that, as well as a pissed off customer.

 

Again, I don't have a problem with the 3k miles part. It's the 3 months part. Sometimes I drive it a lot, sometimes not.

Take this to the logical extreme for a second. I just drained the old stuff out, and poured this fancy pants zinc oil in. Fired it up and checked, no leaks, no runs, no errors.

OK. Now let's say I don't drive it again. Obviously it doesn't need changing again in 3 months, right? At least, I hope not.

See where I'm goin' with that? I don't inderstand why it ain't good for a year or so change interval, with 1k or 2k miles. Anti-oxidants, corrosion inhibitors? If it ain't, that's OK too I guess. But I won't buy it again.

A. I'd like to run a gasoline engine oil, 10w-30 year round, that's what the operator's manual wants "in most cases" and I figure they knew what they were talking about.

B. It should have the zinc or phosphorous or irridium or whatever the fv$@ it is I'm supposed to run.

C. It should not cost $17 a quart. $2 or $3 would be OK.

D. I can leave it in the crankcase for 5,000 to 7,500 miles or a year or two. Etc.

 

^^ Right! Just use the oil that's formulated for your engine and type of use.. I use Mobil 1 5-30. I even use it in the lawn mower haha..
I always put my car away for the winter with fresh oil in the crankcase..

 

I don't see any problem whatsoever with leaving oil in the crankcase over the winter. If it's good oil it's good oil. If not, not. I make the "final" shut down after a good highway run at normal operating temperature though, burning off any condensation or sludge.

Coolant temperature is not the same thing as oil temperature, it lags quite a bit. Engines only warm up completely under load. Sludge and acids form over time that will etch bearing materials. Driving off sludge works for me. I don't start it every two weeks or BS like that.

I know people bitch about women amd their shoes, but this Go&$@amn motor oil business ain't much better. Jeeze Louise!

When I was growing up we grabbed the yellow cans of 10w-30, antifreeze was green, as God intended, (not orange, pink, red, blue ... WTF?) and the gasoline didn't rot our carburetors and fuel hoses.

And you kids get off my lawn!!

 

The guy is parroting what he has been taught. This 3 months/3000 miles is based on someone who uses the car as transportation year round. I do not run synthetic oil yet (maybe never will) but if your oil didn't "spoil" in ever how many years it has been since dinosaurs roamed the earth its not going to go bad over the winter. I would worry more about it drawing moisture or dust than the oil going bad. Even at that if you park it in Oct and want to drive it again in May a quick oil change and you are golden.

I run Castrol in my hot rods, its pricey any more but not so expensive that I cannot afford an oil change once or twice a year. I run stiff springs and flat tappets and the only time I ever use zinc additive is on cam break in. A real cam guy and not a oil salesman told me that unless you have a bad cam to start with (think GM 307 here) if you are going to flatten a cam it is going to happen during break-in. Once it is broken in it is burnished and hard and you ae golden.

 

My flatty with filter is every 1000 miles the olds has a modern sbc I do it at 3000 miles.

 

Was reading the article in the hagerty magazine about them driving a WW2 Jeep to Normandy,
It ran out of oil and they poured in a quart of olive oil to get it moving.

Maybe we’re over thinking things.


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I have been using Lucas hot rod & muscle car 10/30 for about 8 years (24000 miles) without problems , if you buy 3-5qt containers it's free shipping (,was) about$ 105.00 total + tax . I just looked , oil has gone up $3 per 5 qts. , So $114 and free shipping ..

 

I poured cheap scotch in a friends master cylinder once to get him home, and stole a coil from a Chebby truck for an off road racer on the Baja Peninsula too. We are talking vehicle maintenance here not survival.

That said we have not had an emergency repair thread in a while, maybe I'll start one.

 

Cheap scotch, well OK.. not the good stuff!!

 

Real cheap scotch. It smelled like brake fluid and it was not going to freeze. LOL

 

If it smells like brake fluid, I think that's Tequila?