New car oil change interval

[Bird]

Why I remember when we used to change oil every 1,000 miles, and grease 9 to 21 grease zerks each time, and . . . . . . .

 

[JATO_RaT]

Thats right Charlie, I think your right, its not always easy to let go of old habits, old beliefs, and traditions. Spark plugs being changed at 100K and even then they don't look all that bad. No more pitted points etc.. Without a doubt all oil has changed as well. Besides the conventional petroleum oil having much improved viscocity indexers, cleaners, and lubricating qualities, we also have synthetics which arguably do most everything better. Tires today are far superior then anything made all that long ago. I think the old tried and true piston engine is probably nearing the epitome of refined excellence and after a few more years of tinkering with it via metallurgy, ceramics, and computerized management etc., we will be squeezing the last bit of energy out of it that a mist of fuel/air has to offer. Don't feel bad about questioning the change interval, if at the very least it gives food for thought and discussion about a topic that us feeble minded folks with no real sense of engineering ability can contribute our 2 cents of passion about something that is probably still beyond our ability to comprehend fully. Why we change our oil when we do may have as much to do with the color of it after 3000 miles as anything else. Some studies even show that used but clean oil is actually better at lubricating then brand spanking new oil. Who knows and probably more important, who cares all that much? I almost always follow the manual, I vary at times, its not a religion with me that at 5001 miles I'm now 5280 ft past my oil change requirement and now must pray that my engine won't gum up with massive deposits in the oil pan or seaze the rod and crank bearings. I think most of us are somewhere in this ball park of belief. Oh well, those that follow the Jiffy Lube mantra of chaging oil at the 3000 mile mark can give themselves a pat on the back for helping to keep thousands of oil changing technicians across this country employed, I just hope they are reusing/recycling all that just broke in oil. RaT...

 

[chim]

The last company truck I had - 1990 Chevy 1500 4X4 w/ 305 had the oil & filter changed every 3000 mi. It had 215,000 miles on it and still ran great when I got the new one in 2000 - Silverado 2500 4X4 w/ 6Liter. After I was done with the Chevy, a guy in the shop ran it for another year or two. The company has no problem with the frequency of the changes, so with 74.000 miles on the Silverado, there have been a bunch of oil changes. It seems like cheap insurance............chim

 

[bgott]

Those 100k sparkplug changes are another fallacy. Most plugs start screwing up at 80k or so. Most heads are aluminum. Have you ever tried to get the plugs out of an aluminum head that have been in there a 100k? They usually pull the threads out with them. When I worked at Firestone management really got irate when you tried to pull tight plugs, we'd end up re-threading the durn things for free, customer satisfaction, don't you know. I've had days when I had to send two or three good paying jobs down the road because those 100k sparkplugs would tighten up on the way out. I think they went to a 100k change interval to get away with designing cars with the sparkplugs totally inaccessable.

 

[JATO_RaT]

And then theres guys like me who change every 5000 miles as indicated by the manufactuer, have over 400,000 miles on it and everything is still tops. Is 3000 miles excessive or am I just lucky? Go Figure RaT....

 

[ekrampitzjr]

The manufacturer is not the be-all and end-all on everything. If it was, we would never see lemons. The 100K spark plug is a joke. In my '97 Escort, which had 100K plugs, the plugs were way out of spec before 50K. Luckily, it was easy to get to mine and install the antiseize that the factory never seems to put on, which obviously becomes an issue when the plugs seize in the head at high mileages. And they do.

Talk to techs (mechanics) in the field and see what long-term damage these excessive maintenance intervals are doing. The manufacturers specify 10,000-mile oil changes because they know that all too many owners will not bother with much essential maintenance anyway. You can get away with 5,000-mile changes with conventional oil--barely. Granted, Click and Clack of Car Talk radio show fame started advocating 5,000-mile changes several years ago for environmental reasons. The problems come when you go 6,000--let alone 7,500 or 10,000--miles between changes with conventional oil.

It's true that on many engineering details techs can't second-guess factory engineers as they once could. This doesn't mean that everything is peachy-keen with the factory's designs and recommendations. One tech shop magazine recently discussed a problem with a secondary oil seal in a certain family of Honda four-cylinder engines that pops loose on its own with little or no cause, leading to massive oil leaks and risk of engine failure. The design could have been better and was finally fixed by the factory on newer engines, but not before many thousands of these hit the street with a seal that was a ticking time bomb. The article discussed ways of rigging a stay to keep the seal in place. This was Honda, of all outfits, a company with an excellent engineering reputation and manufacturers of Acuras with 10,000-mile oil change intervals. Certain Chrysler and Ford engines are notorious for early head gasket failure, which is inexcusable today. At least one very expensive German car has underdesigned ball joints that fail after 30,000 miles or so, necessitating replacement of the whole lower control arm at many $$$, according to one syndicated car care column. Techs in the field discovered this problem. When these same techs have valid things to say about the differences they see in engines that go too long between services because the manufacturer says to do this, we need to listen.

Go ahead and change your oil every 10,000 miles if the manufacturer says to. But don't be surprised if the engine isn't doing so well after 75,000 miles or so. Ditto for tractors and trying to increase hours between services.

 

[dmccarty]

cp1969,

Another thing you could do is spend a extra $20 per oil change or
every other oil change and get the oil tested. I'm doing this on
my new truck and I'll get the tractor oil tested at the next oil
change.

I'm using http:// [url]http://www.blackstone-labs.com/auto.html [/url].
They have a sample kit that they send to put the oil into. They
send back a report on the oil fairly quickly. This way you can at
least have a chance to see what is happening with the oil. If the
tests see problems with the oil or engine then you can adjust your
schedule as you see fit.

I have only used done this once so far but many people on
http:// [url]www.ford-diesel.com [/url] are using this company. I'm
sure there are other labs out there as well. I noticed a local
lab in the yellow pages the other day. If you search yahoo
for blackstone I saw some coupons that might save you some
money as well...

Hope this helps,
Dan McCarty

 

[normde2001]

Ok Fred, enough with the yelling already. We can hear you.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

NORM,
SORRY YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH CAPS. MAYBE IF YOU WERE NOT SO CLOSE TO THE SCREEN IT WOULDN'T SEEM SO LOUD.
FRED

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>

When I worked at Firestone management really got irate when you tried to pull tight plugs, we'd end up re-threading the durn things for free, customer satisfaction, don't you know. I've had days when I had to send two or three good paying jobs down the road because those 100k sparkplugs would tighten up on the way out.

<hr></blockquote>



One Firestone shop only changed 5 plugs in a Caravan I owned. They told me they changed them all, but when I changed them myself the 2nd time I found an original Champion in #1 along with the replacement Bosch plugs. I don't go back there.