How often do you change your oil?

Hoytman said:
Oil changed for $20 huh? What brand and how many quarts? You won't change Mobile 1 for that price, and I'm not even sure you can change Valvoline for that price either, even doing it yourself.

I'm south east of you by about 3 1/2-4 hours and $20 oil changes are long gone. That said, I agree with the rest of your comments about a time and place to be a DIYer, and is the reason I let Wal-Mart change my oil now. I can't buy the filter and oil, Valvoline, or Mobile 1 for $20.
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I never claimed to get Mobil 1 oil changes done for $20. I used to do my own oil changes using Mobil 1 on a previous car, but it was a garage queen and I didn't want anyone else touching it.

In my 7 year old, $7k dollar daily driver, I'm not concerned with running Mobil 1 in it. Before I moved from one side of town to the other, a local Buick dealership did $17.99 oil changes. Now I let Wal-Mart do them where I can usually find a coupon that they'll match, bringing the total to around $20. I believe they use Quaker State oil at that particular store. I do think I'll bring in a Motorcraft filter from now on to replace the junk FRAM filters they use.
 
On my garage queen fun cars, I try to change at least once a year. My 350z has 5800 miles on it and I have already changed the oil twice. On my daily driver, I am doing very short quick drives so I am changing every 2500 to 3k miles. On my dads 2010 TL, I am going to try to keep oil changes at 5k mile intervals. I use Mobil 1 or Valvoline Syntec, whatever is cheaper and available at walmart. On my 91 SE-R, I changed the oil when I was driving the car routinely every 3k with Mobil 1, and a few years ago when I replaced the valve cover gasket, the top of the he ad still looked brand new at 120k miles. I am also a little anal and only use OEM oil filters. Oil can never be changed to often, but it can be not changed often enough.
 
once a year using Mobil 1 or when oil life gets to ~15%
 
I had been changing about every 5k with Mobile 1, then I found out that turbo drive demand 3k changes regardless of oil (ie replaced a turbo at 85k).

Now I check the oil at every fill up, and around the 3k mark you can see it visibly change color and get darker.
 
For our daily drivers I use Mobil 1 synthetic and change both oil and filter every 6,000 miles.

My Z06 uses Royal Purple synthetic and is changed annually.
 
Jaretr1 said:
On my garage queen fun cars, I try to change at least once a year. My 350z has 5800 miles on it and I have already changed the oil twice. On my daily driver, I am doing very short quick drives so I am changing every 2500 to 3k miles. On my dads 2010 TL, I am going to try to keep oil changes at 5k mile intervals. I use Mobil 1 or Valvoline Syntec, whatever is cheaper and available at walmart. On my 91 SE-R, I changed the oil when I was driving the car routinely every 3k with Mobil 1, and a few years ago when I replaced the valve cover gasket, the top of the he ad still looked brand new at 120k miles. I am also a little anal and only use OEM oil filters. Oil can never be changed to often, but it can be not changed often enough.
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For anyone making frequent oil changes, you might benefit from having an oil analysis done. There is a local company to me that people from all over the country send their oil to. They will do a full analysis of your oil and let you know how long you could safely go between oil changes. The company's name is Blackstone Laboratories. Here's a link:

Blackstone Labs
 
Honda, for the past few years, put in a "maintenance minder" light on the dash. Smart...very smart of Honda, because the average car owner will drive that bad boy in to the nearest Honda dealer and give them their arm and leg. So Honda recommends you to change the oil when it gets down to 12%. Which is usually about 7-8k for me. Honda has also moved to synthetic and synthetic blend. I still get my stuff from the dealer. It helps to have a hook-up.
 
This is going to sound a bit different from the usual 3K, but I change by oil when my oil pressure starts going a bit nuts. This usually happens about 2500-3000 miles. My truck has been running a bit better with every oil change though. I did an oil change the other day and put some Restore in with it. I guess I'll see how that goes...

I use conventional oil.
 
clm65 said:
My garage queen is nothing fancy - just a 2007 jeep wrangler.

I only average about 1000 miles per year on the jeep, and I've been changing the oil once per year (with synthetic). I know I'm not putting too many miles per oil change, but I'm not sure that only changing once per year is good enough.
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As far as my definition of "Garage Queen" goes....."Being fancy" has nothing to do with it. Although it's not a GQ.....My wife loves her Jeep, and so do I! Same as you do, I bet.

You live a clime (Florida) where you can get your queenie out on a regular basis (at least monthly?) to blow some of the cob-webs and soot out. Your oil change interval on the GQ, then, IMO, is more than adequate. :)

Bob
 
clik 2000 full synthetic racing oil every 10K (km)

trend is towards lower viscosity synthetics in the high compression engines but I've just stuck with 5W30
 
My Inifiniti G35 gets the oil changed every 75000mi. I use Castrol Synthetic Euro Formula, but someone has mentioned it has been discontinued..going to find that one out. I took my oil to get analyzed by Blackstone laboratories and the oil was still good.

My Camry gets the oil changed every 5000mi on Castrol 5w-30.
 
Y2KSVT said:
I never claimed to get Mobil 1 oil changes done for $20. I used to do my own oil changes using Mobil 1 on a previous car, but it was a garage queen and I didn't want anyone else touching it.
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I didn't think you were claiming that. I merely stated that oil couldn't be changed for that using Mobile 1. Maybe I wasn't clear in writing that.

LegacyGT said:
I had been changing about every 5k with Mobile 1, then I found out that turbo drive demand 3k changes regardless of oil (ie replaced a turbo at 85k).
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Really? Are you talking about a turbo charger? My manual for my Buick (supercharged) recommends changing supercharger oil every 50,000. It's been changed once, and due to be changed again now.


BobbyG said:
For our daily drivers I use Mobil 1 synthetic and change both oil and filter every 6,000 miles.

My Z06 uses Royal Purple synthetic and is changed annually.
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Mobile 1 definately stays cleaner, for a longer period, than regular oil.

My uncle ran heavy equipment for a company that used Royal Purple in every piece of equipment they had. That company also used the oil in their company trucks along with those toilet paper (can't remember the name) filters. Don't guess they ever changed filters, or oil from what I understand. Just changed the roll of toilet paper (at high, high mileage), added a quart of Royal Purple and changed the actual oil filter every so often. From what I understand the oil was kept virtually looking like new. My uncle also used Royal Purple in his diesel truck. I've heard awesome comments about it, but I've never seen or used it.

Y2KSVT said:
For anyone making frequent oil changes, you might benefit from having an oil analysis done. There is a local company to me that people from all over the country send their oil to. They will do a full analysis of your oil and let you know how long you could safely go between oil changes. The company's name is Blackstone Laboratories. Here's a link:

Blackstone Labs
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Thanks for the link, that's good to know. I wonder how much an analysis costs (without glancing at the link)?
 
I have mine done at the Ford dealership and I change it every 5000...
 
I change my oil in my 92 Taurus SHO every 3,000 miles. Im not to sure of previous owners maintenence on the vehicle so untilli get an oil analysis on it im going to stick with 3,000 mile intervals. I use Pennzoil Platinum in it. Still running with 200,000 thousand miles
 
I can't believe changing oil every 500 miles. Your engine can't even break-in in that short period of time. I could see changing the filter on a more frequent basis, like every 1k-2k miles, but not oil. The first oils for combustion engines was good for 500 miles and some 2k miles. So I would think that any conventional oil is good for 3k. From what I heard/read, when Mobile1 full synthetic was first developed it could go 40k miles, and they realized they would lose a lot of money so they shortened the life span to 15k. It is recommended to change your filter every 3k or so even if the oil is still good since most filters aren't made to go over 6k safely. Like stated, the only way to really know if your oil is good or bad and what is going on inside your motor is to have it analyzed by a lab. It will save a lot of money and guess work and help you identify problem before they become catastrophic. On turbo motors that rely on the engine oil for lubrication and cooling, I would get it analyzed and never go over 3500 miles without at least changing the filter even if the oil looks good. Clean oil isn't always a good thing. It can mean that the oil isn't actually removing dirt, carbon, metals, etc from the engine. Unless you are using a really good filter and changing it more often than the oil, I would question oil that stays really clean after 3000 miles of daily driving. To stay on the same OCI that people have been since the 80's (or earlier) seems silly considering how much more expensive oil changes are now and how far oil technology has come since then as well. I read up on this a little while ago and read that even a lot of race teams just change the filter between races, and get the oil analyzed after every race or two.
FYI: watch full synthetics, like Royal Purple, in turbo charged motors. I tried running it too long in my Subaru and had issues with bearings. Was partially my fault, but I had less than 4k miles on an oil change before my engine seized and the oil was nearly all gone. That being said if I had been getting my oil analyzed I would have known something way before the fact. Life lesson learned the hard way.:)
 
agreed. Most oils can go much longer than the intervals we change them at (I think the clik I use is rated at 24K) but the only way to know is with a UOA. It's really the filter that really needs to be changed most of the time.

I read also that Mobil 1 has changed their synthetic oil formulation recently such that they lost some kind of racing certification. Sure enough, my buddy showed me a jug of their new stuff vs their old stuff and the certification stamp was gone. May not make much of a difference to some people but everyone is cutting costs nowadays it seems...
 
Hoytman said:
Really? Are you talking about a turbo charger? My manual for my Buick (supercharged) recommends changing supercharger oil every 50,000. It's been changed once, and due to be changed again now.
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The Subaru Turbo is plumbed into the regular engine oil supply (and coolant/radiator for that matter). They have a 'banjo bolt filter' that will clog and starve the turbo of any oil if you let the oil get dirty ... and the banjo bolt filter is a pain to get at / change.
 
I use full syn. and go 5000 on my truck, which is about a years time. So two dino oil or one syn.
 
For my 08 Impreza 2.5i, Subaru has me in every 4,000 miles. Just scheduled a 30,000 mile "Service Interval". I'm assuming they will be changing all the fluids.
 
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