To build upon GaryT’s informative post (aren’t they all?) this problem is likely your fault. Not because of your oil change habits, but because you ignored the red flashing messages and beeping. Your poor car was crying out “STOP” “Refer to Manual” “STOP ENGINE NOW” and you kept on driving. Something went horribly wrong inside your engine and by continuing to drive, the engine got destroyed.
A word to the drivers out there, red warning lights are serious, do not treat them lightly.
As I said in my post, I would not recommend this method. To me, an oil and filter change is one of the easiest and inexpensive preventative maintenance “must do’s” the owner should do.
You said something that made me think. This guy never buys a new car. He drives older model cars, and he tends to keep them. However, he may very well get rid of them before the engine suffers any major breakdown. I’ll have to ask my father if he knows approx. how many miles he would drive before replacing the car. Also, since he doesn’t drive newer cars, perhaps he has to put in more than a quart when he does the filter change, due to engine oil consumption. That may also help lengthen the engine’s life.
I wonder if any of those consumer labs have ever tried this technique?
Murasaki312a, generally when the stuff is black, its time to change it.
Also, in the manual it should state something like change it every 4000 miles OR every three months, whichever comes first, not one or the other.
What I don’t get about your situation, is when I waited too long for a change, which was only 4000 miles on a VW bug '65, it would make a ping sound from the oil being too dirty (my friends told me they heard this sound). Did your car make this sound?