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Oil change: 3,000 miles or 5,000 miles?

How often do you change oil?

  • Total voters
    39
beags86

beags86

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I have my opinion, interested to hear yours.
What is your preferred oil change interval?
3 thou, 5 thou or something else.

Don't care if it's carb'ed, efi, diesel. Just your opinion on what's right and wrong.
 
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My dad always said oil is cheaper than engines,rings & bearings.....

3000 miles might be "early" for todays oils,but back in the day,3000 miles was the limit..
It will only hurt your wallet a little by changing the oil "too soon"..and a new filter EVERY time is well worth the 5 bucks too..preferably not a FRAM filter !..

When my dad worked at the gas & electric plant,the management decided to try something different--on one of their fleet vehicles,a 60's Dodge Dart wagon with a slant six,they did not change the oil after the first "break in period"--instead they just replaced the oil filter,and added a fresh quart..that car went well over 100,000 miles and still ran fine,no smoking,or ticking--but those old slant sixes were well known for running "forever" even with practically zero maintenence..

I've seen several later model engines that never had the oil changed very often,and still looked clean inside the valve covers--many of them were "off the stick" when my friend went to do an oil change on the customers vehicles that didn't know squat about their vehicles,running them too low on oil is what kills 90% of the engines he has to replace..people see the oil light come on,floor it,and pray they make it home..usually they dont!..

The 2.7 Mopar engines seem to be sludge factories,my friend has replaced many of those engines and almost all of them after being torn down to see what happened,had a ton of gook in the crankcase and lifter galley..those engines look like a 1000 mile oil change interval would be better,especially if its used in short runs often in cold weather..
 
well my {couch cough} Priu { cough cough } s... is every 10k. no exception.. no meter.. they say 10k i do 10k.. im heading in soon for my 7th oil change... yup 70k and all going well
 
3-5K depending on how I feel, but normally 6 months because that is what every manufacturer (that I'm aware of) recommends if you don't hit the mileage limit, which I do not.

Modern oil life monitors are based on load on the engine to calculate oil life, using a fixed mileage number is antiquated, but without any empirical evidence like oil analysis, better to err on the side of caution. 5000 unloaded highway miles is going to "work" the oil far less than 3000 miles of towing.

Edit: additionally, I'm sure this is why engines such as diesels have relatively large oil capacity. Even on our lowly SBC's, GM increased oil capacity 20% on some of them. That is going to affect how long the oil lasts.
 
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I run full synthetic and change once a year. Then again I only put 3000-3500 miles a year on my truck.

My work truck we change by the oil meter. 10,000-12,500 usually.
 
sweetk30 said:
old motor designs = old service rate of 3k

new motor designs = new 5k-up service rates .
Click to expand...

beags86 said:
Elaborate on what you mean.
Click to expand...

Older designs = Run dirtier, more carbon and soot for the oil to pick up.
Newer designs = Run cleaner

There so many variables to when you should change your oil....Quality of oil, viscosity of oil, quality of filer, load, environment just to name a few. The only way to know for sure is to send out samples every time you change the oil. That's the only way to know for sure when to actually change your oil.
 
3- 5000 is fine for most vehicles. 5-7500 for diesel's with conventional oil. My wife drives a Tacoma that has 250,000 on it and it has the oil changed around the 5000 mark. Of course it depends on conditions.
 
The computer on our Avy here is set to remind you to change oil out at 6000 miles. I run a full synthetic and top quality filter and so far everything is going fine. I do check the oil regularly to make sure its not too dirty looking and whatnot, so far its been doing fine at that. Older engines, I run full synthetic and top quality filter and keep an eye on the color of the oil, once it starts to get dirty, it gets changed.
 
I run mobil one in my 06 silverado 1500. i just go by the computer. not sure of mileage.
 
10k on the VW and 3-5k on anything else depending on what we're doing, towing would be less miles and just daily driving I'll let it go longer.. mainly because almost all our driving is highway. Much easier on the oil verified by oil analysis..
 
I have a constant flow of new oil at all times, I just leave the dean plug in a "leaky" status as to keep the clean oil flowing..
 
So your alls opinion on the oil themselves? Better or worse then yesteryear?
 
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