I just got through reading a thread where a guy said he got good service out of an engine because he changed his oil every 1500/2000 miles. Well there was a time in my life that would have been every 10 days! When my Dad bought a new 1966 Ford Galaxie, Ford recommended changing oil every 6/7 thousand miles! That was about what I changed oil at for years! And that was with points and a carburetor! Later , in my career, I started using oil analysis and found out I was changing my oil too often on the job and doubled the time between oil changes. Just wondering about the thoughts of the learned people here on the HAMB about this? Bones
It all depends how often you drive it and how hard it gets driven. It also depends on how many miles are on the engine and how much oil it consumes. Also, on the quality of oil you use too. Kind of an open-ended question.
3k on the old ones with filters. 5-7.5k on new rides. No filter? I’d probably have to change at 1500.
When it starts looking dirty and begins to smell bad, which in my engine, running cheap-n-cheerful diesel 30W is about 1000-1500 miles. A bunch of short trips so the oil gets dirty quick. Starts to smell more like acidic funk than it does oil. Can also hear when it needs to be changed, the engine gets noisier, particularly at low RPM. No filter on mine. So, it generally tells me when it wants it renewing. Phil
The hobby cars, once a year. Don’t rack up that many miles, so they get fresh oil in the spring. Same thing with my pickup, it sits more than getting driven. Wife’s SUV gets it at around 7500 miles, which is about every month and a half.
Plan II has well over 5k on it, which includes a trip to Ohio and 7 drag strip passes...but hey, it's synthetic, and it runs clean, so no problem. Usually 3k on the older ones, and when the idiot light comes on the new ones (usually 7-8k).
Summer driver, once a year I've got one summer driver very high performance on E85 that's changed every two months depending on use. Daily driver 7 to 10 k. I use full synthetic in everything including the tractor.
Yep! I have no filter on my flathead so I change it as part of the spring tune up. The 442 has a 9 quart pan so it can wait a year or two until I save up enough money to change it.
No filter on my flathead so I change the oil at 500 miles which is about twice a year. I always considered oil changes cheap protection.
"oil change"..is this something new? But what brand would of oil would I use? Viscocity? How about the brand of filter? I can see how this maintenance thing, can really get overwhelming.
I have 4 flathead engines that I regularly “shuffle” in and out of my Henry 32 cabriolet. I chose NOT to run a filter because it is only a partial flow and not suited well for my needs. I have a tach,but no speedometer to indicate mileage. Therefore,I change oil pretty frequently. In south Texas, the weather is pretty decent and my hot rod is driven almost daily unless it rains(car is a hiboy with no fenders). I probably drive this 32—-10,000 miles a year if not more. My philosophy—-oil is cheap,motors are not. It is not uncommon for me to change oil after 600-700 miles of use.Flatheads Forever!!!
If it's GM or British, you wait until it stops dripping in your driveway, then just top up with a gallon of fresh oil.
When the oil is no longer slippery between your fingers, or around 5,000 miles on the coupe (2x a year). It rarely sees short drives, most are at least 20 miles, long enough to reach operating temp. The truck gets changed 2 times a year, once in the spring, and once in the fall. It sees more short drives, and less miles. My wife's car gets the oil changed 2x a year also, but it gets more miles. Looks to me like time is more important then miles at my place. My mom drives her mini van about 4 miles a day, 2 miles in the morning (1 mile each way) for coffee, and 2 miles in the afternoon for coffee, nearly every day. I make her get the oil changed (lots of reasons for that) every 4 months because it never gets warmed up.
One of my old Chevys pours out oil and ATF. The other doesn't leak a drop. The british car...the engine is apart right now, but it doesn't even have a rear seal on the engine, puddles are expected.
I have a bottle of Scotch that I imported from Britain after a recent visit. When I unboxed it the cardboard was oil soaked as where the shipping peanuts. WTBH?
It would be good to have the lubricant specialists to chime in on this issue. Our daily driver cars run on synthetic and run a long time between changes but our old ones have that lifter/ zinc issue to deal with.
I't's the oils that have changed ask the people that do oil analysis. The fact fuel injection reduces cylinder wash down ( which does not apply here) that has changed things.
Mine use/leak so much oil I do an oil change one quart at a time. I do change the filter regularly though.
Once a year. If I sent it for testing I’m sure it would be too early. Most of my driving is about 5 miles. I’ve put 12k miles in 10 years on the car and engine since I bought it.
I looked up oil change times in some old manuals and generally come up with 3 months or 3000 miles. My daily driver car with its change oil when the light comes on has me really questioning that. I can't remember when I last changed it but since then, I went on vacation clear across Canada in the fall and the light still hasn't come on. I'm all for saving money and the environment by prolonging oil change intervals. There is also the whole issue of detergent versus non-detergent oils for old engines. Why not run an oil that will help keep things clean? I'm not running an old engine so for me, it doesn't matter.
I've recently been in the habit of putting a bright green piece of gaffer tape on my oil filters, and writing the miles that I changed the oil at with a black sharpy marker. I go purely by miles, regardless of how often a vehicle gets driven. I shoot for 3000-4000 miles before changing the oil and filter. I run regular oil, not synthetic. My vehicles are street vehicles, not race vehicles.
@Boneyard51 is the only one that mentioned oil analysis so far. You learn a lot for the $30 or so. I do them on all my vehicles every so often. It has been surprising how well the additive packages have held up, meaning I’m probably changing oil more often than needed. John
Interesting thread. On my newer vehicles... every 4000 miles. On my '63 Biscayne 283 only driven in summer, every spring with best filter. And it always looks just as clean as when last changed... cheap insurance.. IMO
I noticed several people here stated they change their oil in the spring as the get their car out of “ storage “ and start driving it. When I had my Zero turn mower sales, the most often asked question was “ How often should I change my oil? “ Since mowers here in Oklahoma get put up for the Winter, I would tell them to change their oil when they put the mower up for storage, instead of in the Spring. My thinking on this is to not let the engine set all Winter with dirty ,acidic oil in it. Put new fresh oil in it and run it a little then put it away. This theory could be applied to cars ,also. Just my thoughts! Bones
When I took over the maintenance of our Fire Dept in January of 1979 , it was the policy to change oil and filters on every pice of equipment every six months! Now that took up a lot of my time and some of those trucks took 11 gallons of oil and two filters. So you can imagine the expense ! At today’s price of $5 a quart x 44 quarts = $220, plus $25 for filters, just for one truck! Add up 15 big trucks, plus 15 support vehicles, that’s a ton of money, not to mention the time involved! This is where I used oil analysis to show the upper brass that we were wasting money and time! I got the frequency extended to one year! I used that money that I saved to improve the trucks, instead of just maintaining them. I further used oil analysis to try to got to 18 months , which the analysis supported, but that didn’t happen! Lol I highly recommend oil analysis for everyone! Bones
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