Oil Change Intervals

[Robotazky]

^^^ Mobil 1 is cracked dino oil(Group III), not a real synthetic. The M1 EP is a group IV synthetic. If you use EP or other real synthetics you'll get even better mileage.

I use Redline, which is Group V, and don't worry about changes until major weather changes, so every 6 months regardless of mileage. I'm sure I could go all year if I got lazy and still have no problems.

 

[Robotazky]

FYI, since I cannot agree that there is no such thing as "changing your oil too often", then you would be mistaken. Quality oils have additive packs that are designed to actually increase performance over time and then begin to degrade beyond a certain point. Changing your oil before this peak performance point is not only wasteful of oil, but also obviously changed too early considering you are always changing the oil outside of its most efficient performance period. There's a lot more to it than what you're talking about and generalizing, but thanks for the funny lecture. It's amusing.

Oh, and your understanding of rings and blow-by is amusing as well. Thanks for the chuckle.

I fundamentally disagree. First of all, when you read the oil change intervals in service manuals and so forth, the key word there is "recommended," not "required." This means that, depending on many circumstances, and your personal driving style, the oil change interval for each person/vehicle could be very different. I think we can all agree that there is no such thing as "changing your oil too often" unless your literally changing it everyday.

Once you understand that, contaminated engine oil is usually not visible to the human eye, obviously. The job of the engine oil, aside from the obvious lubrication of metal-to-metal surfaces, is also to keep those surfaces cool and suspend foreign particles so that they don't cause damage to engine parts. Blow-by gases contain actual unburned fuel, and acts as a solvent, thinning the oil. The amount of stress on those pistons and the crankshaft is enormous, and increases with things like trailer towing and driving up hill. Not to mention that condensation also adds a somewhat trivial amount of moisture into the oil.

Unless your out trying to prove a point about how a specific engine oil is made on planet Krypton and it never has to be changed out in order to sell it, those claims of 15,000 mile oil etc. are completely and utterly misleading. Especially considering 0W, an oil with a molecular makeup that is so small, it was designed to lubricate the extremely narrow space between your piston rings and the wall. This is to make the engine more energy efficient by reducing blow-by gasses making the space tighter. With today's 0W it's more important than ever to make sure contaminants are at a minimum in your engine oil.

The difference between changing your engine oil every 5k miles vs. every 15k miles is not evident right away, I'm 100% sure that if you take 2 exact vehicles, brand new and have them driven the same way for let's say 10 years, changing the oil on one every 5k miles and 15k miles for the other... you will see what happens eventually down the road. Some ppl don't plan to keep their cars for 10 years so it doesn't really matter to them. After 10 years the 15k mile engine, if it's still alive, has a good chance of suffering from knocking or tapping while the 5k mile engine will probably purr like the day it was purchased, and again, this is assuming a lot of things but I'm saying, all other factors being equal.