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monotonous oil change Debate..

NW-ZJ-SCOTT

NW-ZJ-SCOTT

TEXAS-JT-SCOTT
NAXJA Member
Location
NE Texas
They say.. 3 months, or 3,000 miles.. witchever comes first, change your oil..

For most automobiles.. that is.

I've always stayed on top of this with my jeeps!! every 3k miles has always come before 3 months..

The last time i changed the oil in my wheeling rig was in April (8 months ago) It's got less then 500 miles on it, the oil looks really good!

Please, Enlighten me on why i should change it just due to time? :eyes:
 
I change mine once a year, or sometime after 3K miles, but hopefully not more than 4K.

Stop following the Severe maintenance schedule if you are not actually live in a harsh environment.

-Ron
 
I don't know where this 3000 miles thing came from. When I started driving like 30 years ago, I could swear it was 6000 or more. I remember the first time I heard a guy say 5000 and wondered how I had it wrong. Now it's 3000? I am thinking the oil companies or jiffy lube people are behind this.

You would think newer cars could go longer between oil changes. My two 2012 VW's have a 10,000 or 1 year interval.

I have a few cars that get low annual miles, I change them once a year and use synthetic (was told it doesn't break down as much?)

My XJ is on the same schedule (in theory) but anytime I spend the day wrenching, I'll do an oil change so it gets it more often.

I have changed the XJ oil at 3,000 and it still looks new.
 
I have a 2000 NIssan Maxima. Bought it new in 1999 and changed the oil religiously up to about 75K. Never even got dirty between changes. It has been changed only 4 or 5 times since then, and the oil is nice and black all the time, but the engine runs great, smogs perfect still, and has 266k on it.
 
I take my truck to 10-12k between oil changes, but thats because It's got 380k miles on it and at $50 an oil change.. I cant live by the 3k/3mo rule.. I'd go broke..

I've just always feared sludge buildup with the jeeps.. but if the oil is far from black, why bother?
 
The debate of the century!
I was taught by Dad every 5000 miles and have always used that teaching.
The experts now say 5000 - 6000, dont want too much oil entering the system.
Try this if it makes you feel better.
Oil gets dirty from combustion bypassing the rings
 
sorry hit enter in error:
The oil filter can only filter so much before the oil turns black and starts to break down, thus dirty oil.
if it makes you feel better try changing the filter after 3000 and adding a quart.
this will keep the oil cleaner help it from breaking down sooner and give you peace of mind.
 
If I have been thrashing it, running in dirty conditions, etc, I change every 3-5k or when I remember. The 3 or 5k interval is only recommended for harsh conditions if you check the manual.

If I've been doing a lot of short trips that don't bring it to normal op temp for a long enough period to burn off any condensate in the oil, I change it every 3 months or when I remember.

Else it doesn't get changed.

The 3 month rule is due to combustion byproducts going by the rings - some result in water condensing into the oil, others result in acidifying the oil IIRC. Neither is good. Running the engine for long periods of time (i.e. not doing a million short trips) is a good way to get the condensation to boil back out of the oil, but not much can be done about the other stuff except changing the oil.
 
The 3K/3month interval was from back in the day(Way back in the day,.. pre '80)when carburetors ruled. Incomplete combustion of a rich mixture would quickly contaminate oil with raw gasoline. Dino oil would sludge up pretty quickly. Additive packages weren't nearly as robust and broke down quickly. Oil filters sucked.(comparatively) There were a lot of reasons to change oil at short intervals.

Now I'm hearing 12K to 20K. Seems excessively long, but then again,.. modern technology gives us 200K motors. They must be doing something right. Back in "the day" 50K was a common lifespan for a motor. Amazing what reliably tight tolerances and good metallurgy and chemistry have done.

I've been using 5K intervals,(lazy way: oil change at 5 and 10K on the odometer. On my older stuff it used to be at 3.3K, 6.6K, and 00) but recently thinking of switching to 10K. Seems like the oil holds up, and the motor doesn't care.
 
I'll toss this in just for kicks.

I wrench for a municipality where we maintain the police fleet. Most of our cars are Crown Vic's. A few years ago, we switched oils from Mobil 1, to Hydrotex Hyfilm LEO 5W-40 for our fleet, including our heavy trucks down to the squads/mowers.

After constant sampling and analysis, we run about 9,000 miles on a change now for the Vics. The interesting part comes with the idle hour timer on the Vics. On the Vics, it counts the time it's idling in park or neutral. Ford assigns a mileage value based on the hour time. I forget what the conversion is. I want to say they said an hour of idling was 33 drive miles. Anyway, by the time you did the idle conversion on top of the 9K service interval, we were averaging about 27,000 mile equivalent on our oil.

All that, and we might even be able to push it to 12,000. In a vehicle that is constantly being beat, abused, and misused. Food for thought.

Rob
 
My DD with 261K on the clock gets changed every 5K with maxlife 10-40. Never had a problem yet. I do the same for my rig that only has 189K on it. Both are 1989 Cherokees.
 
automan2164 said:
I'll toss this in just for kicks.

I wrench for a municipality where we maintain the police fleet. Most of our cars are Crown Vic's. A few years ago, we switched oils from Mobil 1, to Hydrotex Hyfilm LEO 5W-40 for our fleet, including our heavy trucks down to the squads/mowers.

After constant sampling and analysis, we run about 9,000 miles on a change now for the Vics. The interesting part comes with the idle hour timer on the Vics. On the Vics, it counts the time it's idling in park or neutral. Ford assigns a mileage value based on the hour time. I forget what the conversion is. I want to say they said an hour of idling was 33 drive miles. Anyway, by the time you did the idle conversion on top of the 9K service interval, we were averaging about 27,000 mile equivalent on our oil.

All that, and we might even be able to push it to 12,000. In a vehicle that is constantly being beat, abused, and misused. Food for thought.

Rob
Click to expand...

My experience with sampling mirrors yours. Mine was on tow trucks. The oil stays good for way longer than the recommended interval. I wonder who is behind the 3,000 mile change in this day and age. Couldn't be the oil companies, could it?
 
Part of the 3000 mile oil change VS what ever it is now, had to do with the detergent cocktail they were using then vs now. Detergents don't make good lubricants, and lubricants don't make good detergents. But engines now don't need as much lubricating additives(ZDDP) do to the mass amount of effort that has been put into reducing friction inside the motor, to make the motors more efficient.

I saw someone mention that their VW says 10k or 1 year? I work at O'Reillys, and have to keep a section of Import specific fluids, including several synthetic oils that meet different VW, MB, BMW, Audi, etc, specs. Every time I turn around somebody is saying "no, that's not the one I need, it's supposed to meet xxxx.xxx.xx spec" and I have to search our system to find an oil that specifically says that it meets that spec, and I add it to inventory, and they keep coming back because they know we have what they need. Another example is the Mercedes customers come in once a year for their oil change, a lot of them take like 8 quarts of full synthetic. That's going to take a while to get that much oil dirty when it's in a little v6. Food for thought.
 
I drive my Jeep daily turning 33s and used to change my oil every 3,000-4,000 miles. For the first 40,000 miles I had my Jeep I ran a synthetic blend and conventional lucas oil stabilizer. Then I switched to full synthetic and synthetic lucas oil stabilizer still changing it out every 3,000-4,000 miles. But about 2 1/2 years ago when money got tight around my house and I had removed both the oil pan and valve cover and had seen there wasn't an ounce of sludge in the motor at, by then, 180,000 miles, I now go 6,000-8,000 miles between changes. Saves me money by not having to change the oil as often and since I run full synthetic there really is no reason I can't go longer. In fact right now I am just shy of the 8,000 mile mark and I am dead broke looking for a job so I might have to go until I reach 10,000 miles.
 
Go to Bobistheoilguy.com They have a bunch of knowledgeable geeks over there. One guy just ran his wife's van to 10k on dino Walmart supertech. Typical soccer mom, and the used oil analysis showed he could go farther. I use Rotella for the additive pack, and will no run it out to 7500 miles with no worries. The oils have improved light years since my Jeep was built in 87
 
I have been using Amsoil in the XJ since it had 135,000 miles on it. It is now over 180,000 miles. I usually change the oil between 10,000 and 12,000 miles. I change the oil filter once between oil changes then top of the oil. The oil pressure stays upward of 60 PSI at speed and 40 +/- at idle all day long.

The XJ manual normal service oil change is 7,500 miles. 90% of my driving is at highway speed. Synthetic oil have a longer life than conventional oil thus the extended oil change intervals.
 
I change the oil in my trail rig once a year. I use Shell Rotella so it has a good life cycle being a diesel oil.

I change the tranny fluid/filter once a year and service the diffs/t-case once a year as well.

I generally put less that 1500 miles on my trail rig a year and its not a trailer queen, I just have 5 other Jeeps in the driveway to spread the mileage out on.
 
i have a couple barrels of rotella so i change mine every 3k-4k miles. im on 33s and drive it every day.
 
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