When do I need an oil change?
I have a new 2013 Suburban Truck with 4200 miles on it over the past 5 months. I am going to do about 1000 miles this upcoming week, not towing. My oil life indicator says 43% and "oil change not i...
Forum Discussion
This comes up on a regular basis. Immediately people state the oil life monitors have proved to be very reliable and changing oil more regularly than called for is a waste of money and resources.
Factually, that is simply not true. GM has re-calibrated the OLM numerous times in recent years and any GM dealer can tell you about instances of sludging on engines with infrequent oil changes. Toyota and Lexus had massive problems with sludging on 50,000 mile engines and totally revised downward the mileage between changes. BMW and MINI have both experienced sludging failures with direct injection engines attributable to longer oil change intervals.
It is a fact that lower maintenance costs sells cars and the manufacturer plays the game of stretching out service intervals as a compromise, like many others, in their marketing plans. More frequent oil changes are but a micro-fraction of total oil consumption and long term has little to do with any oil crisis.
Having spent more than forty years in the business of servicing cars, I can attest that the single most effective maintenance is frequent oil changes. Any thing less is the true waste of money and resources!
Factually, that is simply not true. GM has re-calibrated the OLM numerous times in recent years and any GM dealer can tell you about instances of sludging on engines with infrequent oil changes. Toyota and Lexus had massive problems with sludging on 50,000 mile engines and totally revised downward the mileage between changes. BMW and MINI have both experienced sludging failures with direct injection engines attributable to longer oil change intervals.
It is a fact that lower maintenance costs sells cars and the manufacturer plays the game of stretching out service intervals as a compromise, like many others, in their marketing plans. More frequent oil changes are but a micro-fraction of total oil consumption and long term has little to do with any oil crisis.
Having spent more than forty years in the business of servicing cars, I can attest that the single most effective maintenance is frequent oil changes. Any thing less is the true waste of money and resources!
