saving money on oil-oil changes

Yep I find it fascinating that a person would pay $35,000 for a car\ truck ,wash it ,build a garage for it then put the cheapest oil made in it ,to save money

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I'm a retired mechanic & I have used NAPA oil for years it is Valvoline. Since I can remember I have always changed my oil & filter @ 5000 miles.

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"Contempt prior to investigation can leave a man in forever ignorance"
My paraphrase from a Herbert Spencer quote.

I change my own every 5000 miles. I do 10, 15 20,25. Easy to keep up with. I buy my own oil and filters. I would never trust these places that change help every month to service these expensive vehicles. Use good oil and filters and do it myself for peace of mind.

http://www.pqiamerica.com/

All oils are far from being the same. What you buy could destroy your engines.

I change all my own oils after a VERY bad and expensive experience from a quick change place. 100% Synthetic oil and a quality filter for about $30 a vehicle. I change when the onboard indicator tells me it's time to change which is about every 12-15k miles, less in the winter since the engine idles more. You can't really go by miles in the winter, number of hours is better with an analysis being the best.

I check my oil..... sometimes. I change it and the filter when they look dirty. Except the diesels, they look dirty one minute after a change anyway. Used to send sample out for a lab to send me a fancy report too. Spent lots of money for numbers and graphs. Now if it looks dirty, or tastes dirty, I just change it.

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First you state that the oil you select can destroy your engine, then you admit to going 15K between services because your magical engine monitor tell you to. Good luck with that. I have a good friend who does at least $50K a month in engine replacements. All high end Jasper, or equal, reman. products. The typical customer has a 4-7 year old vehicle that they have abused in the manner you recommend. He LOVES your way of thinking. An engine with 100K on it, and "maintenance" on your schedule is well on it's way to self destructing. Worn cams, sloppy valve train, compression issues and so on.

The whole "change when the car tells you" game is pure BS. The manufacturers work hard at convincing you of this since, it is a great way to do two things. First, it creates the illusion that modern vehicle are nearly maintenance free. No more 3-5K changes, just wait till the idiot light tell you to. The latest in German junk come with NO dipstick. Drive it for 12-15K, dump a few Qts. in when the light comes on. Change the oil 7-10 times during the life of that engine. It's shot at 100-125K. Second, if you fail to properly maintain a vehicle by believing their BS about skipping two out of three oil changes, never flushing coolant, transmissions, brake fluids etc.....you kill a car well before it's legitimate lifespan, and they get to sell you a new one. Sorry, but I'll pass on playing that game.

Oil ever 5k
All fluids every two years or 30K miles, including coolant, trans, gearboxes, and brakes.
That's why my vehicles still run great with 200-300K on them. If you follow the manufacturer's BS, you will be lucky to see half that. Or, you end up at my buddies shop, and leave $5-6K lighter, with a recommendation to start taking care of your vehicle, so it doesn't happen again.

Unless you have more money than sense, the best thing you can do with a maintenance minder is to learn how to reset it, and ignore all the "helpful" info. it's providing.

I use dino oil and change oil and filter every 20-30K miles or when the oil sample tells me to. Normally somewhere in that 24-25K mile area.

About as legitimate as predicting the weather by standing outside with a finger in the air. The sample reports you have paid for in the past are run on an extremely expensive spectrograph analyzer, or maybe they just give it a taste

Currently I have 30k on one engine that's a new car, 160k on another, and 748k on another. I haven't fully changed the oil on the 748k vehicle in over 4 years, over 600k miles. I change the main filters every 40k, top off the oil and change the bypass filters every 20k and top off the oil. Each time the filters are changed I get an oil analysis. The other 4 vehicles I've owned since 1985 all had over 200k before they were sold or totaled in wrecks. Of the vehicles that didn't have monitors they were changed per the manufacturers recommendation or an oil analysis, some I ran for 20-25k before changing, so 15k is actually on the low side. I had no issues with any of those vehicles. My 2012 Impala doesn't even tell you when to change the oil, it's in the monitor, which takes into account miles and time. Again, going by number of miles means nothing, in the winter my vehicles almost spend as much time idling as they do driving. I also have a 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk that cost more to rebuild than I care to even talk about, that is run less than 50 hours a year and gets changed every year. Again, number of miles is meaningless.

My point was, that not all oils are the same. If you read the link, there are oils that have actually been recalled because what's on the label isn't what's in the bottle, it can ruin your engine. You think you might be doing the right thing by buying whatever is onsale when you possibly are doing more harm then if you had a quality oil and changed every 5k or more.

So, what I do works for me, been working this way since I started driving in 1977. I've never had an engine fail on me due to when I changed the oil. The only time I had a lubrication problem was when I went to a quick lube place every 4-5k and the rearend went out on it, no fluid. Guess they never bothered to check even though it was part of their "free fluids check with every oil change". WHich was my other point, maintain your own equipment.

I have been using the Walmart house brand in the blue jugs for a couple years now with good luck. I switched to the Walmart house brand of oil filter last year, I use Fram otherwise.

Got over 230K on my Ford and something over 200K on her Chevy.

Lots of folks get their panties in a wad over oil, I think the most important part is changing it like you should over what brand you choose.

I still use dino oil because I would rather change the oil and get the dirt it collects out of the engine.

Kevingr, You are all over the map on what you claim is your regiment. You follow the onboard minder, you don't, you go with bypass filtration, you do analysis, you go 40K, ...... little hard to keep up with all of it? Bottom line, miles matter, and onboard minders cannot account for many things, including airborne particulates and initial oil quality. I stand by the facts that have made a very good living for my buddy's shop. Extended oil changes are a boon to the repair industry because it leads to premature failure of engines. It's that simple. Talk to any decent repair facility, and ask the primary reason that a customer is spending $4K + for a reman, engine install, and you will hear the same thing every time, deferred and/or a total lack of maintenance. Got news for you, many engines don't make it past their first 15-25K interval oil change, particularly some of the Chrysler and Toyota V6 products.

I was at a service station years ago & an old man came in & wanted an oil change . If I remember correctly he was driving an old dodge . About a 58 model I think . His car didn't use a spin on filter , it still had the metal can the filter fit inside .
The guy removed this can & had to pry the filter out of it . The whole can was packed with sludge . He asked the old man when was the last time he had his oil changed . The old man squinted up his eyes , scratched his head , thought about it for a while & finally said , well let me see , I think I bought this car about 8 years ago & that's all he said .

GM had to warranty lots of their Acadia motors for extended oil change intervals, they change the engine and reflash the engine computer to shorten the oil change interval. They also have big problems in their 2007-2010 5.3's with active fuel control clogging up the rings and causing large oil usage. So big an issue that aftermarket service contracts SPECIFICALLY list this issue as not covered for these issues. Manufacturers tried to extend the interval but it didn't end well

I've got a cousin that has never changed the oil in his truck. He changes the filter and tops off when necessary. Had over 200,000 miles on the truck when he sold it.

That's the difference between statistical and anecdotal evidence.
The next guy could do the same stupid, abusive trick and blow a motor in 20K miles.

I had a 2000 Dodge with the 2.7 V6. These motors were famous for sludging if they didn't have meticulous maintenance, including religiously changing the oil at no more than 5K. My buddy's shop was getting them in frequently, and in one case with a ruined motor after the customer had forgot to change oil and let it go to 11K, with no consumption, and a full dipstick.

At 190K, and ten years of service, I sold the car to my buddy's shop. This was five years ago, and it has been a daily loaner since. It doesn't have a undented panel on it, and it looks like crap. It does however get properly maintained, and it's getting close to 300K on the ODO.

That is the opposite extreme of anecdotal evidence. A car with a marginal reputation and a really problematic engine that is still running great due to proper care.

So seeing his success have you adopted his strategy?

Yeah, I agree with that. I will only use AC filters in all our Chevy vehicles, and have never had a problem with them. Also change oil every 3,000 miles in all five of our vehicles. They're all over 100,000 miles, a couple of them are pushing 200,000 miles. I've done the same thing with all our vehicles, once had a Chevy station wagon we drove for 250,000 miles--it was good when we sold it, but I like to try not pushing much farther than a quarter million miles. You never know, something's bound to happen.