[sub]you’re[/sub]. 
:smack:
Do oil fileters when clogged up enough 'break thru" bascially, if the filter gets clogged enought, allows a ‘door’ to open to allow unfiltered oil to circulate, whcih would be better then the reduced flow flitered oil to circulate?
I switched to synthetic oil (Mobil One), on the advice of my friend, a fellow veteran. He was a helicopter mechanic in the Army. Anyway, he informed me that synthetic oil doesn’t break down, like regular oil does. All synthetic oil does is get dirty over time, and to remove the dirt from the oil all you have to do is change the filter.
Yes, there’s a oil filter bypass valve. At least on older cars.
Believe me, that feature’s saved a lot of engines.
From this site
Originally Posted by Philster
Ever have any failed gaskets, Alan E Sheets?
Old oil tends to deteriorate gaskets. It can get acidic or corrosive. Maybe the synthetic wasn’t as prone.
Didn’t the car guys (car talk?) decide to drive a car without oil changes, just topping off when needed, just to see how far it’d go?
Maybe olefin MEANT “your welcome” when he wrote it. As in “(Here is/this post serves as) your welcome”
Donno just thinking…
Link to the SAE test results, please.
Amsoil doesn’t claim that their oil never needs to be changed. I use it in my '98 Chevy 5.7 Z71 and at 92,000+ miles I haven’t had a oil related failure.
Hey… That was supposed to be private.
What I have found on my 2010 Honda Civic is I change the oil filter every 3000 miles and top up the new filter and the crankcase with fresh synthetic oil. I can drive for 12 months and the oil change life percentage never gets close to 15%…That is when a certified Honda dealership says to bring the car in for oil & filter change. So, I run Amsoil top shelf for one year and just change filters. Then once a year I start all new.
I’d bet that you’re spending more on oil filters and topping off with synthetic + a full change once a year then you would if you just left it in and changed it according to the regular schedule which ends up being about once every 10,000 miles or so.
(and yes, I know this is an old thread)
You do realize that this percentage is a nearly meaningless counter that represents no real-world value of time, mileage, oil condition, etc.? In my '07 Odyssey it rockets downward so fast I’d have to change oil every other fillup.
Reset it at your leisure and use any established rule of thumb for oil changes. Especially with a quality engine, synthetic oil and (I assume) normal driving habits, 10-12k miles and once a year is plenty.
Oil changes on much heavy equipment is done based on oil analysis, primarily because of 2 reasons- down time is costly, and because in the quantities required for a change for some of these machines with sumps in the tens of gallons, the oil itself can be extremely expensive, even though a quart of it may actually be cheaper than garden-variety Pennzoil.
Long-haul truck engines, locomotives and all manner of heavy equipment works like this, and the military does this as well with tanks, trucks, humvees, etc…
You can do it with your own cars, but the cost savings just aren’t really there if you have a 1-2 gallon sump, since the analysis itself costs upwards of $20.
A lot of gearhead hobbyist types do it for 2 reasons- one, to see how long they can go on a single oil change, and two, because oil analysis is sort of like the automotive equivalent of a person’s bloodwork at a physical- over time, you can spot increasing wear and possible engine problems via the results of the analysis.
Blackstone labs is a good example of someone who can do this for the average joe.
The general findings of the gearhead hobbyists who get oil analysis are that the mfgr. recommendations are pretty conservative, and the 3000 mile oil change is ridiculously too frequent for all but the most severely used cars running super-cheap oil.
Actually I think that Honda now has an oil life monitor that’s slightly more complex. It does actually measure the mileage, type of driving, number of cold starts, etc. However, it still has no way of directly measuring the condition of the oil, so it will read the same regardless of the type of oil used.
Of course, every time someone joins a site and digs up a nearly decade-old post just to sing the praises of Amsoil is always a little suspicious, but I guess mentioning Mobil 1 too gives him the benefit of the doubt for now.
Not completely on topic, but related… the age old standard of changing your oil and filter at 3,000 miles is completely nonsense with today’s oil quality and filter technology.
The other half of that standard… “or every 3 months” is particularly ridiculous and has made those quickie lube places millions of dollars every year.
Some might really be surprised at how unbelievably inferior oil was in terms of purification, lack of additives and general quality dating back to say the 50s and 60s.
Under normal conditions for non commercial/industrial use a change ever 5,000-7,000 miles even for non synthetics is perfectly fine.
You can do this? It didn’t occur to me you could change just the filter. i thought the oil would pour out the filter opening in the engine. I’ve always drained the oil, then changed the filter, then refilled. But thinking about it now, the oil filter is higher than the oil pan.
So an anyway, if I’m changing both, does the order matter?
ETA: I’m thinking it might be easier to change the filter first, and let it drain into the empty plastic collection pan, then replace it and drain the oil pan.
No.