Cheap oil with frequent changes or expensive and infrequent?
Discussion
Definitely the better oil. The reason service intervals are so long is that modern synthetic oils don't degrade any where near as quickly. It's very likely the cheap oil will only protect your engine as well as the good stuff does just as you are coming to the end of your service interval.
My Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
My Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
Extended oil changes work fine when you use the exact oil specified, the car is not seeing stop-start traffic or traffic jams, and is used for a good distance every day. Typically those caveats will be in the service book and the manufacturer will encourage you to change oil more regularly accordingly.
For an owner that is resonably practical, consider this, if you have a 10K service interval and you go to the dealer for those, if you changed oil every 5K the extra cost for doing it yourself would be an extra ~ 500 pounds using OE spec oil and filters in the worst case.
If you compare the mileages that many vehicles achieve in the USA (high) versus their European counterparts (far lower), then look at the differences in usage and servicing, the key point that sticks out is that the USA will generally encourage servicing every 5K (and it used to be 3K). Now, oil in the US is cheap and the fact that there are so many oil change places helps make it easy for people and keeps everything competitive, but it is also of interest that they also use conventional oils as a rule. Statistically there is a mountain of evidence that says more regular servicing will help extend engine life as a general rule. The same goes for transmissions, cooling systems, etc.
I wouldn't recommend using anything less than OE spec oil, but I think given a choice between OE oil & more frequent changes or 'the most expensive oil you can buy' and extended changes I would go for OE spec and more frequent. When you look at what the extra 500 pounds spent on oil gives in terms of extended vehicle life it is an absolute bargain, and the more expensive the machinery the better value it becomes.
For an owner that is resonably practical, consider this, if you have a 10K service interval and you go to the dealer for those, if you changed oil every 5K the extra cost for doing it yourself would be an extra ~ 500 pounds using OE spec oil and filters in the worst case.
If you compare the mileages that many vehicles achieve in the USA (high) versus their European counterparts (far lower), then look at the differences in usage and servicing, the key point that sticks out is that the USA will generally encourage servicing every 5K (and it used to be 3K). Now, oil in the US is cheap and the fact that there are so many oil change places helps make it easy for people and keeps everything competitive, but it is also of interest that they also use conventional oils as a rule. Statistically there is a mountain of evidence that says more regular servicing will help extend engine life as a general rule. The same goes for transmissions, cooling systems, etc.
I wouldn't recommend using anything less than OE spec oil, but I think given a choice between OE oil & more frequent changes or 'the most expensive oil you can buy' and extended changes I would go for OE spec and more frequent. When you look at what the extra 500 pounds spent on oil gives in terms of extended vehicle life it is an absolute bargain, and the more expensive the machinery the better value it becomes.
CDP said:
Definitely the better oil. The reason service intervals are so long is that modern synthetic oils don't degrade any where near as quickly. It's very likely the cheap oil will only protect your engine as well as the good stuff does just as you are coming to the end of your service interval.
My Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
this is rubbish the reason service intervals are so long is to show lease companys the car is cheaper to run !!! they just about get away with it most timesMy Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
if every thing is perfect no overfueling and normal diving and a quality syn oil is used , no oil can protect an engine if its contaminated the fact syn oil stays in grade for longer wont make any difernce if its dirty or diluted with fuel or acids from short journeys or a highly loaded diesel producing a lot of soot , cheaper clean oil over expensive dirty oil every time for me..
Edited by powerstroke on Wednesday 28th December 22:15
powerstroke said:
CDP said:
Definitely the better oil. The reason service intervals are so long is that modern synthetic oils don't degrade any where near as quickly. It's very likely the cheap oil will only protect your engine as well as the good stuff does just as you are coming to the end of your service interval.
My Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
this is rubbish the reason service intervals are so long is to show lease companys the car is cheaper to run !!! they just about get away with it most timesMy Vectra's been dealer serviced at the recommended 20K and upto 162,000 still going strong, I doubt this would be the case with the 10 pound per gallon rubbish. Decent oils and cars designed to use it are the reason so many seem capable of 300,000 plus these days.
if every thing is perfect no overfueling and normal diving and a quality syn oil is used , no oil can protect an engine if its contaminated the fact syn oil stays in grade for longer wont make any difernce if its dirty or diluted with fuel or acids from short journeys or a highly loaded diesel producing a lot of soot , cheaper clean oil over expensive dirty oil every time for me..
Edited by powerstroke on Wednesday 28th December 22:15
A daily car is an item you buy, use up and throw away. Like a Biro, it's a consumable and an extra five hundred pounds of servicing the manufacturer doesn't require seems crazy.
Only the other hand my racing car gets oil changes roughly every three hours driving...
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