Oil Change every 5000 miles?

Huh??

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 said:

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.

Click to expand...

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.