Change oil?

We change oil every 2000 miles on 8 Cylinder and someone said now they say to do every 5000. Anyone know if that's right?

 

Depends on the year of the vehicle, how well the fuel system is tuned and how the vehicle is driven. If you are putting that 2000 miles on in let's say 6 months then I would say yes change your oil at lower mileage intervals than normal. If you are doing it in a month then in my opinion you are wasting oil. If it's a fuel injected engine that is running correctly than I would think you would be more than safe at 5,000 miles. If an older carb engine running rich than you would have to change it more often. If you just do a little driving around town and barely getting up to operating temp you would also need to change it more often because you will risk the build up from sludge because the condensation in the oil will not have time to burn off. This guy with a Ford van has gone over 50K miles without changing his oil and it has over a million miles. http://www.millionmilevan.com/ .

 

You can safely run it out to at least 3000+ miles if running cheap dinosaur oil rather than synthentic.

 

I've used synthetic oil (Mobile 1) since 93 and change oil and filter 7-8 thou with no problems. I drove a 93 full size Chevy conversion van for over 200,000 miles. When I got rid of it the transmission, air conditioning, heater motor, elec windows, yadda, yadda were shot but the engine still ran like new. Never burned a drop of oil.

 

The Obama Administration prefers that you use Sodium Silicate!

 

And I prefer the Obama admin...........well......in my best Gilda Radner voice "Nevermind"!

 

You guys are too much!

 

What Mr. Obama wants and what he gets might be two different things.

 

Ditto- my feelings exactly!

Amen Bob!!! This is a scary ride........... Kim

 

Synthetic Oil? How often change?

I've got a Honda Odyssey and the rescue has an Astro. Guess I should run synthetic in both of them? and older cars? How often change that? Thanks Kim

 

Hello forum,

I change the oil on my 92 Cruiser between a few thousand & up to 13,000 miles. It is in the 181,000 mile range. I just changed it the other day & checked it before hand & it was full & I could read the dipstick through the oil, meaning it does not turn black. It pegs the gauge at 60 psi when cold, runs down the road at 45 psi & idles at over 30 psi. I did this when I had my 78 Camaro also. It was a carburated engine I built myself & I ran it to 160,000 miles over 11 years before I sold it to my cousin & the oil was always clear on it too. One thing though about the Camaro, it had a non molested carburator i.e. I took it out of the box & put it on the car, no over jetting to go faster crap but I like the computer cars now.

I do not abuse my cars I have always stayed on top of maintenance but I think oil change mileage is over rated especially with the modern oils that are alot better than the old days. Although I would not so this under warranty, from what I have read they would tell you to stuff it.

Just my $0.02 & having joined recently I know I need to post more.

 

I agree with Don Don. Engines wear out due to many things including oil. If the carb is dumping fuel in to the engine that the engine cannot use it goes in the oil. Keeping up with oil changes is the most important maintenance item. 2nd of course is making sure all the other systems are working correctly. A bad carb will take out an engine in short order.

I think in most cases the engineers designing engines know what they are doing. A big carb will not make an engine better.

 

Oil will last a long time. It is the additives that break down and need to be replaced. I have a buddy that never changes oil, he just changes filters and tops off the pan. When I worked as a taxicab mechanic, we changed oil in the cabs every 4,000 miles. we used Exxon 15W40 year round in every cab regardless of what the factory recommended. Most cabs were Luminas with 3.1 V6 and astro vans with 4.3 V6. Engine problems were rare and we got upwards of 300,000 miles out of them, even with mostly town driving and cabbies are not the easiest drivers on vehicles. As for recommended oil change intervals, my guess is the factory does not want cars and trucks to last a long time, they want to sell new ones. I personally change mine every 3,000 miles and use conventional oil.

 

You can, and the advantage for you would be less frequent oil changes.
Some of us like changing oil, and it seems I can hardly wait for my OCI (oil change interval) to come up.
10,000 miles would be a typical OCI for a synthetic, although I'd want to swap out the filter about halfway. I run older cars that don't maintain their cleanliness very well so I prefer to change the oil and filter more often.
And always buy oil on sale. If you want a recommendation for a synthetic I'd go with Pennzoil Platinum or Valvoline Maxlife. It'll cost twice as much but you can run it twice as long or more.