Oil change

If a person knows anything about engines it would give you a clue as to how often you need to change oil.
Generator? Change it every few years. Low hours.
Mowers, once a year, should do twice probably but they'll last me 20 years and they're already 20-30 years old.
Boat once a year becasue it's relatively low hours, but it's really expensive. Doesn't mean I need to change it every 20 hours. 20 or 100 hours a year, it gets 1 oil change in the fall.
Vehicles, generally at the reccomended oil change intervals. Reference post above.
Snow bike, every ride, every time becasue I beat it like a rented mule and the oil is contaminated and shot after 4 hours.

Some personal preference, sure. But again, who cares. This is literally the first time posting this. Don't need the moral support or public acceptance. And you shouldn't either....so all stop pretending your method is the BEST and others should follow your lead. Don't understand the pride in oil changes !

Eric n Lisa is spot on.
Who the he__ does oil analyses on their pickups? No one I've ever known does. No one I've ever know does on their cars has either. And I hang around with a bunch of gear heads. And I've moved like 10 times in the last 25 years so plenty of "friends " in plenty of places.
Only ever heard of it on the Internet. Even being in heavy civil construction 25 years. Never personally seen an oil sample go in. Except maybe trying to diagnose a condition on an expensive engine.
If you want to change your oil every weekend, every year, every 10k miles, who cares?
Chances are your car will run a long time unless you never change it.
Better to do it at 3k 5k? Probably.
Going to blow up if you change 10k? Probably not.
To add to Eric n Lisa post. 1/ 2 cent a mile or what $100 a year for a couple oil changes? That's like 1/1000th of my total expenditure a year. I spend waaaay more just on beer and Copenhagen. Is that more important than an oil change?
If so, don't change your oil, who cares. If not then change your oil, who cares.
I get beer chew and oil at the same time.......
How people can brag or argue or bitsch about a couple bucks a year is beyond me. Do you only eat beans and rice or do you eat steak and not change your oil? Who the f cares?

Eric&Lisa wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:

Tom N wrote:
I like to equate oil change intervals to buying a used vehicle.

If you were offered two exactly the same used vehicles, one that had the oil changed at 5,000 miles and one that had the oil changed at 10,000 miles, which one would you chose?? And why??

The cheapest one obviously. If they're using good oil then the engines are basically the same. No biggie.

I disagree, but maybe I am reading more into it than just an oil change. One vehicle was maintained with "What service should I be providing?" The other vehicle was maintained with "What is the minimum service I can get by with?" I think the oil change frequency is an overall indicator of the level of care provided for a used vehicle.

Maybe you are right about the oil, and the debate will continue on. However I will maintain that someone who is actively seeking reasoning & justification for the minimum level of oil changes will also defer other vehicle maintenance.

Let me pose a different line of thinking....

A quick Google search says a 2019 Chevy 1-ton dually gasser is around $50k. Another quick Google search shows oil changes cost $25 on the low end to $70 on the high end for synthetic. 100k miles at 10k oil changes is 10 total changes - or $250-700 total. At 5k oil changes that doubles to $500-1400. Seems like pretty cheap maintenance on a $50k investment, especially if this is spread over a the number of year it will take to accumulate that 100k miles.

A $50k truck for 100k miles is going to cost $.50 per mile just for the vehicle purchase price. That truck gets 12-17 miles per gallon, and will burn through around 6000 gallons of gas to go 100k miles. Picking $3/gallon, that is around $18k in gas, or $.18 per mile. That puts the truck at $.68 per mile for ownership + gas on the first 100k miles. Keeping this simple and erring on the side of conservative math, I will leave out the dollars spent on taxes, registration, insurance, and other typical cost of ownership expenses.

Let's say $1000 is spent (middle of the estimate range) on oil changes every 5k miles. That is $.01 per mile for that 100k miles. The cost of vehicle + gas + oil has now increased from $.68 to $.69 per mile. If I push to 10k oil changes, that only drops 1/2 cent per mile.

So I have to ask... With this kind of money on the table, is saving 1/2 penny per mile really that big of a deal? If budgets are so tight that this is really that important financially, then I would question the wisdom of purchasing of a $50k truck in the first place.

Several people have mentioned Blackstone Labs testing. Their price for a standard analysis is $28. Let me see if I get this straight... Take time & effort to gather an oil sample at 5k miles. Send it off. Wait for a response. Put off an oil change until 10k miles. The purpose of testing is to see the changes from a baseline test, so re-test to see how much the oil degraded in the second 5k miles. Justify the decision to put off an oil change, although $56 + time & effort has already been invested. Play the one upmanship game on Internet forums bragging about how far they go between oil changes. By the time this horsing around is done, the oil could have been changed at the recommended interval for about the same amount of money & effort.


That's my $.02 (or the cost of an oil change for two miles of driving)!
-Eric

If what you're saying were true, then you may have a point, but there's just too many points that are in error to bother trying to rebut.

You are certainly free to do it however you want, and I will do it however I want. Some people just think differently.

I use Dodge recommendation of 7500/15000 miles on my '03 HO and use nothing but Rotella dino. The Cummins has just over 325k miles now.
This truck pulls a 11200 lb 5th wheel trailer some times ....a 16k GN tri axle stock trailer and various other non rv trailers plus it was a daily driver for a while at 660 miles a week.
I use a mixture of the 7500/15000 miles schedule depending on percentage working or running around empty.

goducks10 wrote:
I go by my oil change message on the dash. I can scroll thru and see what my % left is.

Ditto, my oil gets changed when the OBC says it's time! :B

Dan

My RAM has had synthetic in it from the day it was made.

I have zero issue exceeding 6 mo drain intervals. I am still under warranty but with oil analysts I have proof the engine is being properly taken care of.

fj12ryder wrote:

Tom N wrote:
I like to equate oil change intervals to buying a used vehicle.

If you were offered two exactly the same used vehicles, one that had the oil changed at 5,000 miles and one that had the oil changed at 10,000 miles, which one would you chose?? And why??

The cheapest one obviously. If they're using good oil then the engines are basically the same. No biggie.

I disagree, but maybe I am reading more into it than just an oil change. One vehicle was maintained with "What service should I be providing?" The other vehicle was maintained with "What is the minimum service I can get by with?" I think the oil change frequency is an overall indicator of the level of care provided for a used vehicle.

Maybe you are right about the oil, and the debate will continue on. However I will maintain that someone who is actively seeking reasoning & justification for the minimum level of oil changes will also defer other vehicle maintenance.

Let me pose a different line of thinking....

A quick Google search says a 2019 Chevy 1-ton dually gasser is around $50k. Another quick Google search shows oil changes cost $25 on the low end to $70 on the high end for synthetic. 100k miles at 10k oil changes is 10 total changes - or $250-700 total. At 5k oil changes that doubles to $500-1400. Seems like pretty cheap maintenance on a $50k investment, especially if this is spread over a the number of year it will take to accumulate that 100k miles.

A $50k truck for 100k miles is going to cost $.50 per mile just for the vehicle purchase price. That truck gets 12-17 miles per gallon, and will burn through around 6000 gallons of gas to go 100k miles. Picking $3/gallon, that is around $18k in gas, or $.18 per mile. That puts the truck at $.68 per mile for ownership + gas on the first 100k miles. Keeping this simple and erring on the side of conservative math, I will leave out the dollars spent on taxes, registration, insurance, and other typical cost of ownership expenses.

Let's say $1000 is spent (middle of the estimate range) on oil changes every 5k miles. That is $.01 per mile for that 100k miles. The cost of vehicle + gas + oil has now increased from $.68 to $.69 per mile. If I push to 10k oil changes, that only drops 1/2 cent per mile.

So I have to ask... With this kind of money on the table, is saving 1/2 penny per mile really that big of a deal? If budgets are so tight that this is really that important financially, then I would question the wisdom of purchasing of a $50k truck in the first place.

Several people have mentioned Blackstone Labs testing. Their price for a standard analysis is $28. Let me see if I get this straight... Take time & effort to gather an oil sample at 5k miles. Send it off. Wait for a response. Put off an oil change until 10k miles. The purpose of testing is to see the changes from a baseline test, so re-test to see how much the oil degraded in the second 5k miles. Justify the decision to put off an oil change, although $56 + time & effort has already been invested. Play the one upmanship game on Internet forums bragging about how far they go between oil changes. By the time this horsing around is done, the oil could have been changed at the recommended interval for about the same amount of money & effort.


That's my $.02 (or the cost of an oil change for two miles of driving)!
-Eric

Tom N wrote:
I like to equate oil change intervals to buying a used vehicle.

If you were offered two exactly the same used vehicles, one that had the oil changed at 5,000 miles and one that had the oil changed at 10,000 miles, which one would you chose?? And why??

IDE take the one that the previous owner cared for!

Tom N wrote:
I like to equate oil change intervals to buying a used vehicle.

If you were offered two exactly the same used vehicles, one that had the oil changed at 5,000 miles and one that had the oil changed at 10,000 miles, which one would you chose?? And why??

The cheapest one obviously. If they're using good oil then the engines are basically the same. No biggie.

I like to equate oil change intervals to buying a used vehicle.

If you were offered two exactly the same used vehicles, one that had the oil changed at 5,000 miles and one that had the oil changed at 10,000 miles, which one would you chose?? And why??