Although I own a car, I live in the city and rarely have a need to use it, unless it’s snowboard season, in which case I take it out on a biweekly basis to make the trip to and from a ski resort.
I’ve always changed the engine oil on a 5000km schedule, (3000 miles for you Americans), but I’ve recently begun thinking that maybe I should change my oil just once a year since I only put about 7,000-8,000km (4,500-5,000 miles) on it per year. I’m less worried about the increased mileage between changes than the time period between changes because I’ve heard conflicting stories about whether you should change oil every six months regardless of how many miles it was driven.
What do you think? I drive a 2012 Volvo XC70 if it matters any. And, how often (distance or time) do you change your vehicle’s oil?
3,000-4,000 miles on both vehicles. I do drive them quite a bit. Neither are newer - a 1999 and a 2003.
I know that is not considered necessary these days even when using dino oil. But I take mine to my mechanic; he only charges $20 for an oil change and he checks everything else out at the same time. Twenty bucks and 45 minutes of my time an extra time or two per year per vehicle doesn’t seem onerous.
Six months or 10,000km, whichever comes around first. I’ve recently bought a new car (Mazda 3) and apparently it needs servicing, including an oil change, only yearly unless I drive more than 20,000km, which I never do.
We have a truck that *might *get 3000 miles on it in a year - unless we’re doing a project that requires us to buy lots of big stuff or haul debris to the dump, it’ll typically be driven twice a month. I’ve always done oil changes every 5000 miles because it’s easy to keep track of when they’re due, but our mechanic said we should come in at least every 6 months with the truck. This last time, we went nearly a year because I keep forgetting about it, but it did fine.
We don’t drive the car as much as we used to since we’re retired, but we’re sticking to the every 5000 mile schedule for now, because we’ve been accumulating the miles with trips to see our respective elderly parents. The manufacturer’s recommendation is every 7500 miles, but again, 5K is easier to keep track of.
I think my last three Honda’s have all recommend 7500 (?) miles or so, might be a bit more. There’s a light on the dashboard that comes on for the last 1100 or 1200 miles and a big orange thing that I have to hit a button to clear for the last 800 miles or so IMO, that’s far too early for those warnings to start. It means I have to have a to look at a warning light for a month and I drive a lot, for some people that’s probably closer to two months.
It starts warning me at 15% and I have to wonder if that’s the number they’ve been using since you had to change your oil every 3000 miles and now that it’s considerably higher they just never rethought lowering the percentage at which the light comes on. That’s always been my guess anyways.
I drive a Chevy Impala, and like some of the other cars mentioned in this thread, it gives me an indicator when, according to GM’s standards, I’m supposed to change the oil - usually every 7-8000 miles. However, every mechanic I’ve talked to about it advises me not to follow the indicator, but to change the oil every 3-4000 miles. I’ve even been told that the manufacturers deliberately stretch out the oil changes more than they should because eventually the engine will wear out and you’ll have to buy a new car sooner. I’m not sure I subscribe to the conspiracy theory, but the consensus about the more frequent changes seems to be unanimous. Then again, I’m a salesman and I drive a lot of miles, probably something on the order of 25-30,000 per year. YMMV.
My car, a 2008 Camry, starts to flash sinister red lights at me after 4500 miles, and stops displaying any other dashboard information after 5000. So I usually get the oil changed around 5100 miles.
My car uses synth oil, so I just follow the maker’s recommendations. For the RV, I change it every year, mainly because the vehicle sits idle over the winter and it gets quite a lot of freeway driving on trips we take during good weather.
My car and truck both run with 5W20 semi-synthetic. The recommended change interval is 7500 miles, but I go with 5000 as it’s easy to remember.
When manufacturers are putting 100,000 mile warranties on engines, it is not in their best interest to promote overly long change intervals. If a crankshaft bearing burns out at 95,000 miles, and I can document a service history that meets their requirements, they’re on the hook for a few thousand dollars of repairs.
OTOH, mechanics want you to bring your car in every 3-4000 miles so they can sell you air filters, wiper blades, “free” brake checks and flushes, etc. The right answer is probably somewhere in the middle.
Time is a very minor factor. Automobile manufacturers typically recommend changing oil once a year if not enough miles are accumulated to change it on a mileage basis.
The most critical factor is what kind of driving you do. If it doesn’t get many miles on it because you’re doing a lot of very short trips (just a few miles), changing it at 1,000-3,000 mile intervals would be wise. Alternatively, if it doesn’t get many miles because it’s not used often, but when it is used it’s typically long trips with a lot of highway driving, then Volvo’s recommended 7,500 mile interval should be fine.
The conspiracy theory is, as I gather you suspect, hogwash. Automobile manufacturers don’t want to get a reputation for having engines that don’t last – when you eventually do buy another car, they want you to buy one of theirs. With modern engine designs and modern oil, engines that go 200K-300K miles are the norm, and major engine failure is not very common.
The oil change reminder system on your car is much, much better at figuring out the appropriate time to change your oil – based on your particular driving pattern – than the “one size fits all” recommendations that are based on nationwide averages. I suspect the mechanics you’ve talked to are ill-informed on this matter.
ETA: And while a 3-4K interval might be right for someone who does a lot of short trip city driving, 7-8K is more appropriate for long trip highway driving.
I go by the indicator and change it about every 11,000 to 12,000 miles. I keep my cars for around 150k miles of short trip driving and have never had an issue with an engine. Maybe if I changed more often the engine would last for 300k instead of 200k but, well, I don’t care at that point.
My car (Saab 9.3) has a “oil life indicator” and it routinely gets closer to 8k miles before it tells me to change the oil.
I use my odometer to tell me the amount of time between oil changes, and I don’t know what its on, but I know that last time it was close to 8. The recommended oil is Mobil 1, which is high quality methinks