Oil Change every 5000 miles?

[sprtzfrk]

My new Corolla owners manual tells me I am supposed to change the oil every 5000 miles. I was religious about changing every 3000 miles on my last car. It just seems like the oil filter would not be filtering anything at the 5000 mile mark. Am I supposed to use a special filter or do newer engines just run cleaner?

Thanks

[splavin90]

WELL

you're also supposed to run synthedic / synthedic blend (5-30w) in newer cars, and older cars didn't have synthedic engine oil readly avaliable when they were made.

changing your oil at 3,000 miles won't hurt your engine, but it will probably prolong your engine life.

[joeking]

You can go 5,000 miles with synthetic oil. Just keep an eye on it so it doesnt get dirty. Synthetic oil seems to stay cleaner than regular oil. Mobile 1 is all I ever use.

[sprtzfrk]

Thanks, I was not thinking about synthetic oil, since I did not have to run that in my old car. Good thing I asked because I obviously missed that in my owners manual.

[tigrpal]

Pretty sure the owners manual doesn't say you need to use synthetic. You can use conventional, 5W-30, make sure it is SM rated, and change every 5000 miles and your engine will have no oil related problems.

[darcsyde]

if you use mobil 1 syn you can go up to 15000 miles, i never do i always change bout 7500. They have filters that filter longer than 5000 miles, they cost more, but they have'm

[DoubleEdgedWomb]

I use cheap oil, and change at 3,000 miles. Never had an oil-related problem doing that.

[joedaddy]

Originally Posted by joeking

You can go 5,000 miles with synthetic oil. Just keep an eye on it so it doesnt get dirty. Synthetic oil seems to stay cleaner than regular oil. Mobile 1 is all I ever use.

teach me how u can tell if a oil is "dirty" lol

[montrealjoachim]

That's a strange question. Have you ever checked the oil right after an oil change?
It's then transparent to amber in colour, depending on the type and brand.

Over the 'life cycle' of the oil, during 5000 miles of use, dust, dirt, soot is deposited in the oil. One of the functions of the oil is to keep particles suspended, so that they do NOT deposit somewhere in the engine. As technology progresses, less and less dirt is deposited during an oil change cycle, thus the intervals keep increasing. Even so, the capacity of oil to keep dirt suspended is limited, thus the 5000 mile change interval. That's actually true with
normal 5W30, too as this is a synthetic blend.

If you go to Europe, a liter (not gallon!!!) of oil in 5W30 will set you back 15-20 Dollars PLUS recycling charges for the dirty oil, but they have change intervals of 15-25,000 miles. (20-50,000 km). And their motors don't collapse either. Of course, that expensive stuff is specially formulated for the long intervals, and ours here in North America is not formulated for THAT long intervals, but even so, you don't have to worry about the 5000 mile interval.
I go at least 5000 miles, sometimes 6000 miles before changing and (we have two corollas) no problems whatsoever, one of them is now beyond 100,000 and still going strong like a new one. We don't give special instructions to the (Toyota) garage, they put 5W30 that's all.

Hi from cold Montreal,

Joachim

[tigrpal]

Originally Posted by joedaddy

teach me how u can tell if a oil is "dirty" lol

Well not by just looking at it. The best way is to do a used oil analysis such as you can get from http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free_test_kit.html . They will tell you what chemicals and particles are in your used oil, what additives are left in your used oil, and estimate how long you still could have that oil in your engine.

[tnmk]

Originally Posted by tigrpal

Well not by just looking at it. The best way is to do a used oil analysis such as you can get from http://www.blackstone-labs.com/free_test_kit.html . They will tell you what chemicals and particles are in your used oil, what additives are left in your used oil, and estimate how long you still could have that oil in your engine.

Well said. Some additives actually darken over time from the heat. Doesn't mena they're burnt or going bad, but it makes your oil look bad.

As for extended change intervals, When I was using conventional oil I was doing 5-6k changes and have never had oil related problems.

Now I use Amsoil which is good for 25k or one year, so are the new filters. Newly designed in a joint venture between Donaldson, Wixx and Amsoil. They call it Nanofiber technology. Traps more dirt, yet still flows better. Don't ask how, I didn't design it. So now I change my oil once a year. I know, it's just crazy.

Redline says it's good for 18k, Mobil One for 15k. I'm not sure about any others.

If you use a premium air filter and a by-pass oil filter system, there are people that go over 100k on one change. They do UOA periodically to make sure it is still good.

I could go into a whole dialogue on this, but I've done that b4 and I'm not going to do it again.

Bottom line; Synthetic is the best thing you can do for your engine. The only drawback is the initial cost. But it pays you back in better mpg, extended oil changes and fewer repairs because the protection is that much better. So in reality you save money with synthetic. Plus it doesn't use petrolium and does a lot less harm to the enviroment.

[Donald]

Most manufacturers reccomend 3000 miles for harsh driving conditions - dusty roads, lots of stop and go, pulling a trailer, tempreature extreems - I don't think it is a hard and fast rule, although I try to stick to it. Technology is improving rapidly in all aspects of automobile design so if they say 5000 miles I wouldn't argue with them. They have done the tests that brought them to that conclusion, and they are probably still being conservative.

[tnmk]

I've seen 7500 for schedule A and 5000 for B (I might have that backwords). I think that's becoming the norm. And that is in reference to conventional oil.

[sprtzfrk]

Glad to know this forum is just as informative as the forum for my old neon.

Thanks all. Synthetic it is.

[caddymac]

I use Mobil 1 oil and change that at least once a year or every 10k, whichever comes first. The filter I change every 2k and use only Napa Gold/Wix or AC Delco.