General consensus on long interval oil changes.
Discussion
Interested to know what what the general consensus on long interval oil changes is.
My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
dsuk said:
Interested to know what what the general consensus on long interval oil changes is.
My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
Depends on how long how many miles you will keep it for ??My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
Sell on to friend or intend to keep it then every 6k or 6 months ..
Keeping it for 3 years then do what it takes to maintain the warranty
Remember service intavals are set to make a new car look cheap to run and not to maximize life ...
Heaveho said:
Well' I'm clearly going to be in the minority, but I change oil and filter on my stuff at 5k.......I'm not happy running turbo'd stuff for longer than that, I think the temperatures generated give oil a harder life, and oil's cheaper than engines.
Agree - a good oil is a cheap mechanic.Characteristics of the engine, how you treat it when cold and so on probably have as much of a bearing on engine health.
Some manufacturers say long service intervals but a litre of oil every thousand miles or so is acceptable. My heap has shorter service intervals, but has only had a litre & a bit between services in almost 150k. Would have been far less bar a silly design fault.
Big thing for me is how you treat when cold & sticking to the regime, for vaguely ordinary stuff anyway.
Some manufacturers say long service intervals but a litre of oil every thousand miles or so is acceptable. My heap has shorter service intervals, but has only had a litre & a bit between services in almost 150k. Would have been far less bar a silly design fault.
Big thing for me is how you treat when cold & sticking to the regime, for vaguely ordinary stuff anyway.
dsuk said:
Interested to know what what the general consensus on long interval oil changes is.
My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
I think those service indicators use a rather complex algorithm that takes into account cold starts, WOT, blar dee blar to work out the oil change interval. A lot of the trips my car does in town show an average speed of 30. 18,000 miles @ 30mph is 600 hours which is a little higher than my company vehicles oil change, but it's 600 hours of essentially idling. You could have an oil sample checked to put your mind at ease as to what state the oil is actually in My car is 9,000 miles (12 months) since last change, car is indicating another 9,000 miles till oil change. Which will make it 18,000 miles 2 years.
The car is used for 10 mile urban commute, and short distance urban driving at the weekend.
Car is under warranty, but does drink a bit of oil and is engine is known to have timing chain issues.
Dealer cost £149 for oil change, which has the advantage of dealer stamp for resale of car next year and any warranty work identified.
Thoughts?
Oils have significantly improved. Engine machining tolerances have improved. Normal road cars are very rarely put off the road or damaged due to oil-related issues in the engine - most are scrapped with perfectly healthy engines because other MoT repairs are not economic (particularly suspension issues).
So long as the oil used is to the manufacturer spec and your usage of the vehicle would be deemed "normal" then I wouldn't worry about long interval changes.
So long as the oil used is to the manufacturer spec and your usage of the vehicle would be deemed "normal" then I wouldn't worry about long interval changes.
TVR1 said:
iva cosworth said:
£149 seems excessive to change the oil.
Why? Or do you think an hours labour, oil and filter should be supplied free of charge?GreigM said:
Oils have significantly improved. Engine machining tolerances have improved. Normal road cars are very rarely put off the road or damaged due to oil-related issues in the engine - most are scrapped with perfectly healthy engines because other MoT repairs are not economic (particularly suspension issues).
So long as the oil used is to the manufacturer spec and your usage of the vehicle would be deemed "normal" then I wouldn't worry about long interval changes.
This.So long as the oil used is to the manufacturer spec and your usage of the vehicle would be deemed "normal" then I wouldn't worry about long interval changes.
For all the posters stating that manufacturers are wrong and it should be changed every 12 months, do you have any evidence to show sticking to the manufacturer schedule causes problems?
I've got the Skoda Fabia Greenline '08, I change the oil and filter every 10000 miles using a 'Pela' I think it's called without looking, vacuum pump, it's tube goes down the dipstick hole, a few presses of the handle and the oils out in a few minutes. I use the absolute correct code oil mainly because of the diesel particulate filter, an so far in 85,000 miles - no problems.
I did the same thing on the previous car, An olde Peugeot 405 estate, when I PXed it for the Skoda it had done 293,000 miles with no great problems at all, a few issues of course over that mileage but nothing that I remember ''inside'' the engine. I don't pay £149.00 for an oil change, it seems a lot to me too, or even if that's the going rate in a lot of garages, easy usually to do it yourself.
I did the same thing on the previous car, An olde Peugeot 405 estate, when I PXed it for the Skoda it had done 293,000 miles with no great problems at all, a few issues of course over that mileage but nothing that I remember ''inside'' the engine. I don't pay £149.00 for an oil change, it seems a lot to me too, or even if that's the going rate in a lot of garages, easy usually to do it yourself.
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