How often do you change your engine oil?
Discussion
for my previous cars i've always changed the engine oil more regularly than the manufacturers book states, but i'm wondering whether there is any actual benefit for doing this?
modern synthetic oils seem to last absolutely ages and with the type of driving i'm doing (about 250-300miles a week, about 200 of which are motorway thanks to 18 miles each way to work being MWay) the OBC on my car suggests oil changes should be as much as 18000+ miles apart! but that just seems like too long for me, i was going to do an oil change every 7500 miles as an interim thing, and then the proper service every 15000 miles.
am i just wasting money? the car now has 125000 on the clock, hasn't missed a service and the engine is still so smooth and linear, i'm pretty sure when the car does die, it won't be due to engine wear.....
modern synthetic oils seem to last absolutely ages and with the type of driving i'm doing (about 250-300miles a week, about 200 of which are motorway thanks to 18 miles each way to work being MWay) the OBC on my car suggests oil changes should be as much as 18000+ miles apart! but that just seems like too long for me, i was going to do an oil change every 7500 miles as an interim thing, and then the proper service every 15000 miles.
am i just wasting money? the car now has 125000 on the clock, hasn't missed a service and the engine is still so smooth and linear, i'm pretty sure when the car does die, it won't be due to engine wear.....
I tend to knock a few thousand miles off the manufacturers recommendation, mainly because my car does a lot of short journeys with my OH and when I'm driving it, I tend to do so enthusiastically. Always comes out of the car a dark golden colour, I assume this is better than it being black as I often seen on some dipsticks on petrol cars?
I generally try to do the oil every 6k miles or so, and change all service items (plugs, filters and fluids) every 12 months. That's an e46 BMW by the way, and I do around 10-12k a year. The sort of servicing I do (all diy) probably amounts to an Inspection 2 every 12 months/12k miles and an oil service in between, which is far more regular than the BMW schedule. Probably costs me about £100-150 a year to do all that, plus brakes/suspension/tyres as required.
)About 3-4k for mine. Interval is 9-12k depending on car. If find this is usually when the oil starts to turn a bit dark. At just over a tenner a go, it's silly to leave it longer really. Plus I know I can take any of my cars on a long hoon or track session at a moments notice.
Of course no interval is fixed and all manufactures suggest altering all servicing to suit the use of the vehicle.
A lot of people need to really think about whether they really need fully synthetic oil at £50 a tub. Almost all cars will run quite happily on 10-40 semi, but I guess people like to think by spending a bit more on the oil it makes them feel like they're doing their engine a favour. Yes it might be engineered to last 20k, but I'd rather use semi synth for a quarter of the cost and change twice as often. Get that sludge out of your engine!
Of course no interval is fixed and all manufactures suggest altering all servicing to suit the use of the vehicle.
A lot of people need to really think about whether they really need fully synthetic oil at £50 a tub. Almost all cars will run quite happily on 10-40 semi, but I guess people like to think by spending a bit more on the oil it makes them feel like they're doing their engine a favour. Yes it might be engineered to last 20k, but I'd rather use semi synth for a quarter of the cost and change twice as often. Get that sludge out of your engine!
I stick to the manufacturers recommended interval unless I've tuned the car in which case I tend to give it an interim oil change just to be on the safe/paranoid side.
I know some people swear but more frequent changes but I've been into cars for well over 20 years and for all that time people have been saying oil change intervals are too long, yet engines serviced to manufacturers spec just seem to keep on going and going.
I know some people swear but more frequent changes but I've been into cars for well over 20 years and for all that time people have been saying oil change intervals are too long, yet engines serviced to manufacturers spec just seem to keep on going and going.
14 year old Honda, short journeys, low annual miles and just change the oil once a year or 6000 miles which ever is first. The car runs beautifully.
The builder at work has an S reg Astra G van, same year as mine. He has had it at least 6 years and it ha about 100k on it when he bought it, now on 170k last time I had a nosey. He has NEVER changed the oil, it just gets topped up. Maybe all of the monbey I have spent on my car keeping it in the best condition possible is money wasted??
The builder at work has an S reg Astra G van, same year as mine. He has had it at least 6 years and it ha about 100k on it when he bought it, now on 170k last time I had a nosey. He has NEVER changed the oil, it just gets topped up. Maybe all of the monbey I have spent on my car keeping it in the best condition possible is money wasted??
My 7er has done about 7k since the last change and according to the dealer will start asking politely for one in another 5k. The oil is completely clean so I'll just let it tell me when it wants doing.
I'm not one to scrimp on maintainance but on the other hand I'm not volunteering my wallet for any more molestation than it really needs.
I'm not one to scrimp on maintainance but on the other hand I'm not volunteering my wallet for any more molestation than it really needs.
charltjr said:
I stick to the manufacturers recommended interval....
Yes, it is odd that some people think they know better then the manufacturer.Unless the use cycle is very extreme the recommended interval will be fine. The manufacturer pitches it at a sensible compromise, not at an absolute extreme.
If a car only does a limited annual mileage (assuming it's occasional use and not daily 2 mile journeys!) I'd make sure fully synthetic was changed every couple of years and that part-synth was changed once a year.
Astra Dan said:
A lot of people need to really think about whether they really need fully synthetic oil at £50 a tub. Almost all cars will run quite happily on 10-40 semi, but I guess people like to think by spending a bit more on the oil it makes them feel like they're doing their engine a favour. Yes it might be engineered to last 20k, but I'd rather use semi synth for a quarter of the cost and change twice as often. Get that sludge out of your engine!
Need to be careful about that - semi-synth in Saab 9-5 turbos causes sludging which can lead to engine failure. Saab specified semi-synthetic for the lower powered models and fully synthetic for the aeros. Lower powered cars run on the specified oil often had problems, aeros didn't.On the other hand, Mazda specified a semi-synthetic for the RX-8. Some people thought they were getting better protection by using a fully synthetic, but it was important for oil injected into the combustion chamber to burn cleanly and the fully synthetic caused problems in this regard.
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