Changing Oil

pigman1 wrote:

slickest1 wrote:

tropical36 wrote:
Opinions will vary, as with any discussion, but there's one thing, I'm absolutely and positively convinced of and that is that we're wasting far too much oil in this country with unnecessary changes and all this while we're running threads on the price and MPG of fuel.
Now seriously, when was there ever a documented failure of an engine, because the oil hadn't been changed frequently enough and most likely the causes were because it was without oil?

I agree and I think this is the best answer. These engines are designed for long engine life and oil sampling just to see if you should change it is a waste of money.
I it were a high mileage engine or was showing sins of trouble that would be different.
I change mine somewhere between 10 to 15,000 miles.
I have ran truck engines over 900,000 kilometers before rebuild and never had an oil sample.

I agree with the sampling technique and a lab analysis to tell you if your oil is still OK. We use Blackstone Labs to check ours, but I don't extend my change interval. My interval is 20,000 mi and we hit that at a year or less. Yes, we do TRAVEL.

All that said, WAY back when (early 1960's), I worked for my father-in-law who was a master truck mechanic and who maintained a fleet of short haul gas powered trucks delivering in New York City. My job was oil changes and grease jobs on the weekends paid by how many I did. Dad had a heart attack and the boss asked me if I would be willing to do the recurring maintenance on the fleet. I was, but he also decided to let the oil changes go for a while as he didn't want to get a new guy to do the job I was doing. Inside of 3 months we blew up 4 engines. Granted these trucks were operated under the most severe conditions imaginable, high loads, extended idling, stop and go traffic and any other severe condition you can think of, but that fleet's last blown engine had occurred 4-5 years before. The moral of the story---oil changes matter, so don't ignore them, but with light service, oil testing and smart operation, I think going from one to two years as the OP mentioned is not a big issue.

Things have changed a lot in the last 1/2 century or so, but many still adhere to old school and naturally this is also promoted by the service centers who make money by wasting oil.
But even back then, with what you're saying, I find it hard to believe that the properties of this oil was broken down to the point of being ineffective as a lubricant and thereby creating major engine failures of some sort.