Big Brother!

[Skywagon]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-autos-oil-change-20111215,0,4554184.story

 

[dg_moore]

So what's wrong with this? Reducing fossil fuel consumption sounds like a good thing to me. Inform the public of the facts and let them decide for themselves. If you want to change oil more frequently, then go ahead.

 

[Glashub]

The Big Brothers are the oil companies, thier marketing arms, and all of thier little acolytes (i.e. dealerships, lube joints, ect.) foisting propaganda about the necessity of changing the oil every 3,000 miles for top performance when it's not true. Had an Acura for 6 years and the maintenance minder always hit 5500-7500 miles before mandating an oil change.

 

[mcginnpm]

If you really want to know how often to change your oil, you'll need to have it analyzed. Doing that isn't cheap. Everyone drives differently, so everyone would have different oil change intervals.

If everyone recycled their used oil, the issue of how often you changed it and environmental impacts would pretty much be moot.

I'm one of those who always changes oil at around 3000 miles (and I send my used oil to the recyclers). When I drain the oil, it comes out black (contaminated). I can only guess what oil that's been circulating for 6000, 9000 or 12000 miles is doing to the engine.

When I've pulled a valve cover on my cars, I found it sparkling clean inside, even after 100000 miles on the car. When I've looked at the engines of friends who changed their oil at 10000+ mile intervals, the innards were brown and frequently coated with mild sludge buildup in the nooks and crannies.

 

[EXBMWGUY]

The short-drive, shut-off-the-car syndrome is as bad or worse for a car as contamination, because you end up with water from condensation that accumulates, sludge forms, non of the oil additives can do their job and you end up with lubrication starvation. So for some Dino-oil users who start-go-shut off 2 minutes later, 3,000 mile oil changes are absolutely necessary, whereas for drivers whose engines warm up properly (not just the coolant temp., but the oil temp.) 7,500-10,000, depending on oil quality and engine design, might be perfectly ok.

Are there any comments from our several well-informed, oil-saavy members?

 

[LA Genesis]

I read the article a few days ago and intended to post it myself. I've been a 3500 mile oil changer for years. When I picked up my new Genesis a a few weeks ago, the guy orienting me to the car's features emphasized it's not necessary to waste time or money changing the oil more than the factory recommends unless my driving habits change.

I mostly avoid L.A.'s nightly, bumper to bumper freeway driving. After reading this article I've decided to not change oil as frequently as I did before. I think I'll bump the frequency of changes form 3500 to 5000 or maybe even 6000 miles. Hyundai's warranty gives me the peace of mind to make that decision.

 

[rickfen]

Just to support the more frequent oil change. Many years ago when I bought my first car (1965 or so, an older gentleman with a Renault Dauphine (not a great or reliable car), told me he changed his oil every thousand miles. His car was a wreck, but the motor was as quiet and smooth as my Genesis and his car had 160000 miles on it. Pretty good testimony to more frequent changing of the oil. I change mine every 5000 KM (3500 miles or so). I have 40000KM on the car and most of the time I can't tell if the motor is running or not, so it seems to pay off.

 

[mcginnpm]

EXBMWGUY's comment is spot on. I'm one of those guys with a short, daily commute (certainly longer than 2 minutes, but often not longer than 10). I'll stick to the reduced interval oil changes.