I swear, if there is one thing over all that people bug me about after finding out that I’m the designated “car person”, it’s “do I really need to change my oil at 3,000 miles? It can go longer, right?” Can it go longer? Of course, especially in a newer car. 5,000 miles is safe for most vehicles, but we’ve heard of going longer and being ok, and we know taxicabs and cop cars that need fresh stuff much sooner than that. It all depends on how you use the car. You know that, I know that, but try telling that to a non-car person. You’ll get a glassy stare that means that they are just going to call either their dealership, the family car person, or Jiffy Lube and ask them. Should there be a schedule? Yeah, for two reasons: it provides people a mark to absolutely bring the car in so they don’t go to the point where the oil becomes molasses, and it keeps them from having the oil changed ever three weeks, wasting oil and time. And yes, we know of a couple of cases like that.
Three months or 3,000 miles…that’s the schedule. Stick to doing your oil changes on that clock and you’ll be just fine. How many of us heard that growing up? How many of us stuck to that? Do you pay attention to any of the other maintenance schedules, or are you more than certain that the gear fluid is the stuff pumped in by the line worker as it rolled down the track before getting loaded on a truck way back when? Do you make up your own timelines, do you follow the sticker religiously or do you ballpark it and just decide that it’s time?
with the 30 psi ls builds i’m building dirt cheap with old diesel turbos i’m proud to make it 1000 before grenading the long block and needing a new one
Ive used AmsOil for the last 15 years 500k miles and no oil related engine failure ….
changing my oil at 25k between changes
I change my 76 Blazer every 4500, by then I’ve added nearly three quarts as it uses a bunch, same with my wife’s Sidekick (220,000 miles). My work truck gets changed every 8000, it holds 7 gallons and has 680,000 miles on it so that schedule seems to be working out well. My lawn mower gets changed at the end of the season, bike gets changed every 2500.
Current and previous DDs both have oil life timers from the factory. I’ve gone by the indicators, which appear to be set to way longer than 3000 miles.
I use synthetic and write the stickers for 3,000 but aim to change between that and 8,000. I monitor oil consumption, which allows me to also monitor oil condition. I gauge it off those indicators, but 8K is the absolute longest I’ll let it go. I also tend to play with oil viscosities a bit too. Ive put 3 cars into the 200,000 + club without any bearing/ring/timing chain related repairs, so I guess it works for me.
every 6-10K with Mobile 1 in my Mustang. Comes out as clean as it went in. every 5 on the Ram…about once a year on the Plymouth…
The 69 Dart is every spring and fall,Challenger is when the oil change required light comes on. Sometimes its around 5k and other times its 8k.
As a generational family traditional practice, we’ve many examples of regular oil changes. Daily drivers: 100-250K mile cars are common in our garage over the years. ’53 Caddy 230K, ’66 Rivera 425/DualQuad 200K, 69 Chevelle 350 185K (first motor) – 125K (second motor), 2002 Explorer V6 195K. 63 Nova 220K, 71 Chevelle 454 158K, 2002 Rav4 150K, Every 3-5,000 miles plus a quart of transmission fluid to the crankcase every 10,000 miles just before the oil change. Aloha!
The 3V 5.4L gets it as close to 3,000 miles as possible. Mobil 1 full Syn.
The Jeeps and other crap gets it whenever. “Maybe I should change the oil in that”
Every 3,000 in my weekend beater (except when my dirty rat brother steals it, then sooner for no good reason.) Every spring in my autox car, my car show car and the harley. Whatever the schedule says for whichever car I have for work, which changes every 2-3 months.
One thing to try and remember, the manufacturer of the car doesn’t manufacture the oil, and is only really concerned with the engine lasting for so long.
3K miles or every 3 Months was the Recommended Change Intervals for Heavy Duty usage/ High dirt areas.
My normal use engines (street driven vehicles) 7K intervals. I run Conventional Valvoline. Only one I ever had lose a rod or bearings was a Pontiac 301. It was made to Grenade by Pontiac.
Diesels I run 15w45 Shell Rotilla
No SPAMS-Oil ever.
Event Trucks & Cars (tough trucks, mud drags, derby cars) Before the First Event. Check for odors of fuel after every event. If it looks funny, or smells off change it. That oil life is measured in Hours under load. a Derby car Heat & Feature may be equal to 1 to 4K miles depending. Derby cars also tend to suffer from blow by. Old worn the slap out cylinders are less prone to seizing up with no coolant then new fresh blocks. Losing plugs is a issue too.
My new truck has 5,000 Mile Intervals and the Mustang only sees a couple thousand miles a year so I change it before I put it away for Winter.
I find this test interesting-
http://www.brianschreurs.org/neptune.spacebears.com/cars/stories/mobil1.html
With Mobil one they determined that it’ll last 10,300 miles before requiring being changed. I still change mine every 5k. It’s easy to get at Costco…
For oil and filter I go 3K on daily drivers, once a year on my 68 Javelin that sees maybe 1K road time a year. Been doing this since my teens in the late 70’s. Always felt it was cheap insurance. Transfer case, transmission, axle oil, etc, get dropped and replaced per service intervals.
I’ve run Mobil 1 synthetic in everything I’ve owned for the past 25 years and change it at roughly 10,000 miles. Never had an issue yet and engines have looked spotless.
I change my oil when it looks dirty (dark brown to black) because my driving lengths are erratic at best. The oil gets dirty faster on those short drives I make sometimes so the oil gets changed sooner. When we do longer drives and the oil has time to get warmed up good and disperse any contaminates then the oil change frequency is longer.