Is it necessary to change it every 3-5 k miles, or wait til it looks dirty on stick.
I read all kinds of different opinions on line. Not sure what to believe. Basically I can still see its only about half dirty, half clear. It's been about 5 k miles since last change. Should I just do it anyways or is it wasting money?
The color has little to do with the oil's true condition. Like Nick said, if it's slippery it's still in good shape. It all depends on the age of the vehicle and what the manufacturer says. I use synthetic in my S10 and dino in my old van. Synthetic is a little thinner and flows to the bearings faster upon a cold start up that dino oil, and that's a good thing. You can also go longer between changes with it, so it's not really
that much more expensive if you buy it on sale in those 5 quart jugs.
What is the vehicle and how old is it? Also, how does she drive? All short trips, or does it regularly get driven long enough for the engine to get totally warmed up?
If it only gets driven to school or to work and back, and it's just 3 to 5 miles each way, those would be considered hard use. 10 to 20 miles of steady driving from a cold start is better on the oil and it can be changed less often.
In the olden days of carburetors (like my rigs
), oil needs to be changed more often because of the imprecise fuel metering which causes oil contamination and it also washes a little bit more oil off the cylinder walls than FI. I still go at least 4500 miles between changes in my old '77 van. It has 271,000 on it and doesn't use much oil.
Newer rigs have fuel injection and computers so the air/fuel mixture is as lean as possible which keeps the oil clean a lot longer.
What oil do you use (10-30, 10-40, 5-40?) and what kind of daily temps do you experience from now into deep winter?
One more tid bit............. I have
never heard a good thing about FRAM oil filters, only the opposite.
