Rant: You work where.. and how many years do you have experience do you have?????

[5150MyU]

5yrs. exp. lol.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Parts guys always think they know a lot about cars because they talk to a lot of people that work on cars. Some of them DO know a lot.

From your post, and the postings in this thread:

Your friend is full of it about switching oils at any particular mileage.

He is not wrong about using 30 weight in general although I'd use 5w30. Won't hurt your car at all, might actually help longevity. 5w20 was all about emissions and a microscopic amount of fuel mileage, that's it, as mentioned already.
He has no idea WHY he was telling you that, though.

As far as having the dealer change your oil, there ARE advantages: One, many dealers around here are less expensive than you Jiffy Lube-type places.
Two, even though most dealers also have oil-change monkeys doing the work, you have the advantage of this: Those trained monkeys work on one brand of car mostly, the brand they sell. They are oftentimes training to be real mechanics. So they are a step up from the HS dropouts working at Jiffy Lube.
You also have factory-certified guys working around them, so if they see anything that might need attention with your car, they can have a very knowledgeable mechanic taking a look at it in a hurry, whereas your lube shops just drain and refill, change the filter and try to sell you a trans flush.

Downside is it usually takes a bit longer.

 

[ajskydiver]

You can't tell oil's condition by its color. If you want to see how your oil is holding up, a used oil analysis is the way.

+1

Just spend the $20 or so and get it done to remove all speculation and guesswork.

 

[desy]

The lower 5 isn't what is helping you its the top 20 or 30 in the heat that is helping.
0/20 5/30 10/30 would all be just fine in your car and not worth worrying about.
Because its california 10/30 wouldn't be a bad idea, you would just get a 1/2 mpg less fuel economy its still going to flow in that engine, however you can never go wrong with the cap.
Oil life monitors are accurate and again I wouldn't lose sleep over that

I never understand why oil is so debated? I drive avg cars, don't use the oil recommended 'although still in spec' always exceed recommended change intervals and NEVER had engine issues with 30 years of vehicle ownership.
I came up w this philosophy while in the 80's the fleet vehicles we drove recommended 6k mile intervals by the plan holders who have experience w thousands of cars. Fast forward to today where engines are better, oil is better. Reading around the internet there are many examples of people who have NEVER changed oil other than to top it up and still get 100's of thousands of miles ' I'd never go that far'
It seems oil changes are overated for the avg person who doesn't drive performance or extreme conditions.