Oil change interval with synthetic oil

[agent00f]

What a waste of money, I can do a Mobil 1 oil and filter change for that.

Hardly a waste of money given it actually empirically answers what all the fluff bro-science explanations attempt.

 

[JCH13]

Oh, dear God. Talk about overthinking something to the nth degree.

Do you have a better idea to answer OP's question?

What a waste of money, I can do a Mobil 1 oil and filter change for that.

Do you have a better idea to answer OP's question?

 

[Yuriman]

Did you miss the part where the OP said he's only driving the car about 1500 miles per year? So he gets an oil test and it recommends he change the oil every 10,000 miles... And then what?

I'm with JCH13 here - a place like Blackstone isn't going to simply say "change it at 10,000". They're going to look at the accumulated contaminants in the oil, and at the chemicals, detergents and friction modifiers in it, and give a recommendation about the remaining life of the oil. It may well come back as, "Your oil only has 1k miles on it, but we're seeing a peak in acidity and breakdown in some of the detergents... time to change your oil. In fact, You might want to do it a little more frequently."

My Insight is at 220k miles right now, and has had 10k changes since the day it was purchased back in February of 2000 (not by me, but its first owner was meticulous about records). Pulling the valve cover off reveals an immaculate engine. It only takes 2.6 quarts to change, so I can nearly do 2 changes on a $22 bottle of Mobile 1 0w20 synthetic (what it's always had), so cost isn't an issue, but I sent a sample off to Blackstone at 10k out of curiosity anyway. I asked a question regarding how dark the oil was at that change interval, even though none of it seemed to be staying inside the engine. This was what I got back:

"The oil may appear dark, but that just shows it's doing one of its many jobs. In this case, that would be "cleaning". The oil is capturing dirt and combustion byproducts so that it's removed when the oil is changed. Wear materials look great next to universal averages, which show typical wear after about 8,600 miles on the oil. These wear levels are great after 10,000 miles and don't show any obvious mechanical issues. There wasn't any contamination present, and air/oil filtration are fine based on the low silicon/insolubles. Try 12,000 miles. All is well from our end!

 

[HarryLui]

This guy did 2 years / 13,000 miles oil change interval.

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum...mile-blackstone-labs-amsoil-oil-analysis.html

Of course, to use a long oil interval, oil level needs to be checked regularly, and synthetic oil is highly recommended. I like and use AMSOil.

Send a simple out at the end of the year, and ask blacklabs stone for advise.
I did.

 

[RLGL]

I do not need to pay someone to tell me when to change oil, I follow the manufacturers guide lines.

To jch13, If you had followed the thread my comment was in response to you remark about spending 28 bucks, not the OP. Next time pay attention!

 

[agent00f]

I do not need to pay someone to tell me when to change oil, I follow the manufacturers guide lines.

To jch13, If you had followed the thread my comment was in response to you remark about spending 28 bucks, not the OP. Next time pay attention!

Manu guidelines are sometimes too conservative, or sometimes too lax to cut down the number of changes under service warranty, among other issues.

 

[lsd]

Oh, dear God. Talk about overthinking something to the nth degree.

Seriously it's a '97 626. Just pick up whatever is on sale that week you feel like changing it and be done with it.

 

[jlee]

I do not need to pay someone to tell me when to change oil, I follow the manufacturers guide lines.

To jch13, If you had followed the thread my comment was in response to you remark about spending 28 bucks, not the OP. Next time pay attention!

The OP's question was "Well, should I really be changing my oil and oil filter less frequently than once/year?" and testing is the only way to provide a conclusive answer.

Whether or not you can buy oil and a filter for $28 is irrelevant.

 

[Muse]

Seriously it's a '97 626. Just pick up whatever is on sale that week you feel like changing it and be done with it.

Actually, I have Mobil 1 full synthetic on hand for 2-3 of my next changes already (picked it up on sale at Costco). I'm shy filters right now, though, but I changed around Memorial Day so no hurries.

 

[JCH13]

I do not need to pay someone to tell me when to change oil, I follow the manufacturers guide lines.

To jch13, If you had followed the thread my comment was in response to you remark about spending 28 bucks, not the OP. Next time pay attention!

Wait... what? I suggested spending the money to answer the question. You said it was a waste. Is there a better way to answer the question? Saying 'I would rather just change the oil' isn't quite addressing the topic thread and is tangential to what was being discussed. I think you're the one not paying attention.

 

[RLGL]

Wait... what? I suggested spending the money to answer the question. You said it was a waste. Is there a better way to answer the question? Saying 'I would rather just change the oil' isn't quite addressing the topic thread and is tangential to what was being discussed. I think you're the one not paying attention.

You are the one not paying attention, What happened to common sense?

 

[JCH13]

You are the one not paying attention, What happened to common sense?

I guess it went the way of your proper punctuation...

 

[RLGL]

I guess it went the way of your proper punctuation

picky...pickey

 

[JCH13]

I guess it went the way of your proper punctuation

picky...pickey

And your spelling...

 

[RLGL]

And your spelling.

As if you are perfect

 

[bigi]

This question pops up frequently in many forums. Consequently, there are endless answers and theories presented ranging from so and so to so and so.

I have 2 CX-5s that I work on 100%. I change oil ever 5K-7K with Mobil Synthetic. Me thinks that 10K would be EASILY doable with this oil/engine. Now, currently we only drive ~12K miles a year, so I do it biannually.

YMMV of course.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

+1 on blackstone analysis. I thought that my duty cycle was severe so changed the oil often. Turns out I am able to go twice as long between changes. The analysis paid for itself after first year.

As an added bonus oil analysis can sometimes tell if engine is running poorly and/or wearing parts prematurely.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

+1 on blackstone analysis. I thought that my duty cycle was severe so changed the oil often. Turns out I am able to go twice as long between changes. The analysis paid for itself after first year.

As an added bonus oil analysis can sometimes tell if engine is running poorly and/or wearing parts prematurely.

Yeah, but wouldn't you have to do it fairly frequently for that to be helpful, and wouldn't that nix any savings you might see by having to do changes less often?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Yeah, but wouldn't you have to do it fairly frequently for that to be helpful, and wouldn't that nix any savings you might see by having to do changes less often?

That's why I said it's a bonus. Doing oil analysis just for the engine diagnostic isn't something I would recommend. Once you have a baseline for a young healthy motor I probably wouldn't bother to have another oil analysis for 100k miles or so.

I could still end up saving money and routinely do analysis. I doubled my oil change interval as a result. If I only did the analysis every other year I would still come out ahead.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I do not need to pay someone to tell me when to change oil, I follow the manufacturers guide lines.

To jch13, If you had followed the thread my comment was in response to you remark about spending 28 bucks, not the OP. Next time pay attention!

Agreed, but when I called the manufacturer of the vehicle I was about to buy knew about the use of Mobile 1 instead of Dino oil and asked about recommended intervals under normal use they said I could go longer, but they were not willing to state publicly what that was. So, I followed the manual and run intervals of 7500 miles. I just requested a kit from Blackstone and will be testing this on a 16 year old truck with 200K miles on it that I ran on Mobile 1 for 100% of the time of my ownership (original owner). Curious to see what shows up.

 

[Muse]

Memorial day is in 6 days, and it would be my annual oil change, but this year I'm going to wait. I suppose I should do more research, maybe call my Mazda dealership, my mechanic, I could post in the Mazda 626 forum. I have been driving maybe 1000 miles/year, using Mobil 1 Full Synthetic. The car's 21 years old, has less than 33,000 miles on it!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Do you make sure to get the oil all over the engine?

Well, If you ask me, the brunette with the short-sleeve rainbow sweater and tight jeans in the Humira drug commercial has triple-crown legs from here to there and back again.

Glimpses of the jeans

And -- the Humira girl can't be as stupid as the one pouring the oil here.

I just replaced the 10W-30 regular oil in my Trooper since last September and 1,600 miles ago with the full-synthetic I'd always used. I TOLD the mechanic I tried last year that I wanted full-synthetic, and he will now no longer have my business.

I ALWAYS change the oil annually and within a 3,000 mile interval, even with full-synthetic. The synthetic doesn't break down as fast. This would also mean less in contaminants. Overall, I'm only spending a few more bucks to assure that the oil still looks new and light-amber after 2,500+ miles.

I was very interested and attentive when I had this latest oil-change at a repair-shop I feel confident to trust for a long-term business-customer relationship. A month ago, I went OCD about cleaning up the entire engine compartment. It looks as though you could make scrambled eggs on the hot engine and they'd be safe to eat. No dust or fluids anywhere.

And -- the new guys didn't spill a drip or a drop.

 

[HarryLui]

 

[mindless1]

Won't taking the occasional ~20 mile trip burn off that moisture in the oil? I was advised to do a 20 miler every 2 weeks or so to keep the car running well. I sometimes go 2+ weeks without starting it up. Don't take a lot of short trips, I use my bicycle or roller skates, weather permitting for short stuff. My car trips very seldom are less than 10 miles, including round trips to Costco every 2 weeks, ~5 miles each way.

You should be fine changing your oil every two years instead of annually, regardless of whether using dino or synthetic, until the engine has enough wear that it makes sense to do it twice a year to use different weights for summer vs winter, but at the rate you're putting miles on, you may end up getting rid of the vehicle for other reasons before then.

I do think doing a UOA after two years on the same oil makes sense, then adjust from there, but also do a visual inspection of oil (off the dipstick) every few months at least. If it has turned black, don't leave it in any longer unless it's a formula known to darken a lot from heat.

Also, a UOA only costs $28, and the test kit is free. If it saves one synthetic oil change in the life of the vehicle, it was worth it.

Maybe. You can't just do one early in the life of the vehicle and make a life long assumption about OCI. A UOA only tells you how that oil and your engine are doing at that point in time, tells nothing about changes due to weather, driving habits, aging of engine, eventual tiny leaks, etc.

You will have to do a UOA several times over the life of a vehicle to have fair confidence in it to the point of stretching out oil change intervals, especially if many years are going by and seals are degrading more from age than mileage.

The older an engine gets in calendar years, the faster it tends to contaminate the oil with all else equal. To keep the same protection with clean oil you'll have to do the UOA more and more often the older it gets, so pouring more and more money into a vehicle that's less and less valuable. It's somewhat of a contradiction, might depend on how much you like the vehicle. Even so you can put all the love in the world into one then along comes a texting teenager, drunk driver, or deer in the road and the vehicle is totaled.

 

[trenchfoot]

I go with Blackstone whenever I do an engine rebuild and want to closely manage the break-in period, especially when turbos or huffers are used. Straight regular 30wt for two oil changes during the first 500 miles, with aggressive/yet loving care driving to seat rings properly and synthetic thereafter. Keeping track of oil consumption and thick skinned oil filters a must blah blah blah.

For the grocery getters that I want to keep around the house long term I use Blackstone every other year just to get a dependable peek at the condition of the engine (meaning every 20K miles or so). Makes it easier to plan out realistic PM schedules for the family cars.