Oil Change Frequency

[Squatch]

I buy Quaker State Ultimate Protection through Walmart.com, costs me $4.80 a quart and an oil filter is $8 so every oil change at 3k cost me $37, so 3 of them is $111 not so bad. And what will I do with a Blackstone analyze, nothing!

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[MEDISN]

With full synthetic every 5k or six months, whichever comes first.

This ^

Cheap insurance and easy to remember January and July.

 

[mpeugeot]

So let's get this out of the way.

5k oil changes.

Not because it's a turbo motor (water cooled turbo housings are fairly resistant to cooking the oil), not because the oil doesn't survive until 10k miles (it certainly can), but because of one thing.

Cam Phasers.

Go ahead, get them gunked up and see how it goes for you. My 3.5 Ecoboost had 250k miles without any major engine work mostly because I kept getting frequent oil changes and reduced the amount of contaminants that could gunk up passages (like those in the cam phasers).

Maybe I am pissing away money, but my Bronco has 120k miles on it with no downtime.

 

[Coralhead]

Okay, this literally made me laugh out loud.

What's so funny...?

 

[Coralhead]

1. Don't listen to Chicken Littles on YouTube who have a vested interest in rage/engagement bait.
2. Your oil filter is more determinative than the oil when it comes to distance between oil changes.
3. I only trust Blackstone Labs; start sending in samples.
4. WIX XP and Costco full synthetic every 5k works.
5. Just ran to ~9,000 to push this combo and I was finally able to notice a performance improvement when I changed the oil like back in the day with older cars. Usually, there's no significant difference in how the engine appears to be running when I change every 5k. I changed at 9k because I had two fill-ups back to back where I suspected the engine was running a bit worse than normal. Just one fill-up can be chalked up to moisture creep in the gas station tanks. It was still barely discernable.

Just curious...If you get back less than acceptable test results, what do you do next? If out of warranty..?

 

[Badrap]

Yawn.

Disclaimers up front - Not a lubrication expert. No horse in this race and frankly to each their own. Also, I like to save money, so yes, I'm a cheap sonofabitch. Also, as I've gotten older, I've gotten lazier. All that said, I may be able to help some of you fellas and gals save some money, even if only small amounts, on unnecessary oil changes!

I beat the living balls off all my trucks but especially my Bronco as it's a barrel of monkeys to drive. I start it, pull out of the driveway and I'm on the highway at 90MPH in about three minutes - in any season/temp. I do the same for my Cummins 3500 and 2013 JK (well, the JK rides like shit at 90 so closer to 80 on that rig). The Bronco gets redlined everyday and I cruise at 90 plus for 3/4 of the trip to work which is about 50 miles. On the weekends, it goes off-roading at a variety of venues in central and eastern PA - lots of slow speed rock crawls and higher speed shenanigans if the terrain fits. The Cummins has hauled an Arctic Fox TC in the bed and flat towed the Jeep for most of its 215K miles. If it's not loaded with the camper, it's loaded with about 6K pounds of logs for a few hundred interstate miles between home and camp. The JK has 240K miles on it, with conservatively, at least 25K of those miles having been off road on every terrain - rock/mud/sand/water both in PA and out in the southwest and Nevada basin.

I run Amsoil in all three and change the oil on the JK and Cummins when the "service required" chimes in. On the Jeep, that tends to be about 9500 miles. On the Cummins, its 15K but I've also installed a bypass filtration system on that because of the sooting caused by the EGR system. I will follow the same protocol on the Raptor.

In putting big miles on my rigs, I've come to the realization that driving them HARD appears to have been helpful in aiding in their longevity. I'm not an engine designer so my opinion is again, purely from personal experience and probably not worth much to the younger whippersnappers on the forums. I've driven every new car I've ever owned until it is completely worthless - either from irreparable frame rot or engine/driveline failure. My personal champ was my 1994 Jetta TDi that topped out at 640K miles before the unibody rotted completely away. It ran on Amsoil at 10K intervals because I drove it about 2K miles a week and while raising a family - times were lean. I still sold the motor to some guy for $1200. I've also gone through two 100 series Land Cruisers each with over 500K miles.

I will continue to use good synths in the crankcase and just keep on beating the ever loving shit out of my cars/trucks as, in a lifetime of driving, that seems to have gotten me the best bang for the buck. My point? JUST DRIVE IT HARD AND STOP WASTING OIL!! Carry on and thanks for the bandwidth and free entertainment!

 

[Smocaine]

Oil change frequency is a matter of significant contention, but if you want your vehicle to last more than the manufacturer warranty period, you need to maintain it more frequently than the manufacturer suggests.

Short trips and cold starts are especially hard on your components, so if you mostly do those, change more frequently. If you offroad a lot, especially in 4LO, your oil can get very hot - I would recommend shortening intervals for that too.

If you are going to do 10k, do it with a very good oil and filter. I would trust Amsoil that far, but I just use Amsoil and change it at 5k anyway.

Also, consider your other oils. You have a transmission, transfer case, and two differentials that all need their sauce changed eventually. The diffs especially on these seem to have a lot of break-in metal, so an early change or two would do you a lot of good.

Has anyone dragged @CarbonSteel or his tables in here yet? I would consider that a true "paranoia" schedule, but I'm much closer to his intervals than Ford's.

 

[adam1991]

Every gas fillup, regardless of how much gas you put in.

You can never be too careful.

 

[MWILD]

I’m tuned on E85 and change every 5K using AMSOIL SS. I’ve had an oil analysis done and the oil was still good. I’ll still change every 5K

 

[nc-hiker]

I did my first oil change at 3,200 miles and plan to do them every 5,000 miles from here on. The local shop I take it to advised me to do it every 5,000 for whatever that is worth.

 

[adam1991]

AMSOIL SS

I have a sudden urge to create a unit patch.

 

[FourHorses]

I did the following:
1200
5000
10000

I’ll do them about every 5000 going forward.

 

[mpeugeot]

I’m tuned on E85 and change every 5K using AMSOIL SS. I’ve had an oil analysis done and the oil was still good. I’ll still change every 5K

I have heard that it's important to change oil more frequently with E85 as it tends to contribute to oil dilution more quickly than gasoline from what I understand.

 

[CarbonSteel]

I was told with my Big Bend that I should be getting getting an oil change every 5K miles even though my percentage of oil life doesn’t indicate that.
how often do you get an oil change?

What engine is in it?

 

[VirginiaHeritage]

I always run full synthetic in all my vehicles, which are all low mileage and thus only get changed once a year. Typically 3-5k miles per year, per vehicle, with an occasional road trip or what not that calls for an oil change before the year mark. This is all within manufacturer spec and oil monitor spec.

The Ford oil monitor system has a hard cut off at a year, so if you drive low mileage all you are getting with the oil monitor system is a 1-year countdown. If you drive a lot, you'll get a mileage countdown instead.

I'm not sure if Ford does any actual analysis of driving for the oil monitor. My guess is, even if they do, it's still 95% just time and miles.

I wondered about this. I’ve gone 3200 miles since my first oil change and lost 32% of the oil life (68% oil life remaining). Kinda seems like a 10k countdown.

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