Oli change -- which is better?

This is a religous argument, so lots of people will tell you to use synthetic and change it 1t 3K intervals. You might as well burn that money IMO. If you change your oil on the manufacture's schedule and use a good quality dino oil and filter, the mechanical bits of the engine will outlast the rest of the car. Today's oils and engine technologies are far better than anything from years past. It that's an anutomatic, I'd be far more worried about the transmission than the engine.

-jim (turning wrenches for 30 years now...)

Obviously, you do not participate on BITOG. You are a PRIME example of somebody who has been brainwashed my the oil industry promoting 3000 mile intervals. 3000 mile intervals serve the oil industry and quik lubes well, but not the consumer.

True. But it's the "Oil Change Industry" standard.

And yet you trust people that *sell* you oil when they tell you to change it sooner. Odd.

? I can't figure out if you are for longer intervals or not now.

conditions, and

possible.

engine

technologies

anutomatic,

Have had my 6 cyl Ford vehicle over 20 years. After faithful oil changes, always with good quality oil and filters. Tried every quality oil that exists and has existed. My engine is now outlasting the body that needs some serious body work

Denny B

X-No-Archive: Yes

Why not just change regular oil with what the manual tells you or 3,000 miles along with filter?

You can't really extend the oil change beyond recommended anyways. Actually with synthetic you can, but they will not honor warranty if you have a problem if you can't present documentation of required maintenance.

Ben Cardozo wrote:

How absolutely TRUE, Roger, and thank you for bringing this valuable information concerning this huge conspiracy to the attention of every right-thinking and concerned HUMAN. Sadly, although your points are 120% accurate, you neglected to mention that you still may be in danger of being brainwashed by the oil conspiracy unless you are very careful to always wear proper protection to keep their top SECRET brainwashwaves from penetrating your skull while you are asleep. So please be a good fellow in the future and when you are typing all those CAPS letters, make sure you add that your readers MUST make themselves a BRAINWAVE SHIELD from aluminum FOIL and be sure to WEAR it to bed every night to PREVENT the evil oil conspiracy from FORCING them to change their oil every three THOUSAND miles. Oh, and for the benefit of the metric readers, would it be too much trouble to warn them what the EVIL oil conspiracy equivalent distance in kilometers would be? THANKS.

I do not use oil change companies I change my own oil. I really could care less that the oil change companies make more money on more frequent oil changes.

It's more than the people that sell the oil. The auto manufacturers originally said 6K then switched to 3K miles for years for a recommendation, now they are going back to the longer intervals once they found out that the longer interval advertisements are a marketing plus for selling vehicles.

The people that sell oil generally are more interested in selling more EXPENSIVE versions of oil (like synthetic) than they are interested in pushing 3K recommendations, it has been my observation. They also (now) seem to be getting interested in selling oil analysises too.

And consider that the people selling oil are only making a pittance on selling me extra oil vs the people selling new cars are making if I wear out my car faster because I extend oil change intervals.

As I said, there's more to oil in a crankcase than simply changing it.

If you really, really have this burning need to push dino oil past 3000 miles then you can - BUT:

a) you can't extend a change interval on the oil filter. Once it's plugged up it's plugged up. And a small filter is going to get plugged in 3000 miles unless the planets are aligned and the moon is in tune.

b) your PVC system has to be working perfectly

c) Your engine has to be tight. (not some loosy-goosy 250K+ mile engine that spent half of it's life running ground glass in the oil)

d) You must always use top quality oil filters. Not the $1.99 single-stage Fram cheapies.

e) You must maintain proper oil level, check it at least every 1000 miles.

f) Check torque on your oil drain plug if it's prone to loosening up. (some are, some aren't)

I am not in favor of extended drain intervals because I use the oil filter change time to:

a) Make sure the oil level is correct b) make sure the coolant level and mixture is correct c) refil the wiper/washer resevour d) visually look over the engine looking for wires that have come undone from their stays, water leaks, etc. e) replace the oil filter f) check torque on oil drain plug. g) check air filter

Here's the deal - my engines take about 5-6 quarts oil. I buy oil on sale for 99 cents a quart. When you look at all the other maintainence items that need to be checked at a 3K mile interval, the 5-6 quarts of oil that you replace is cheap compared to my time spent looking at the other stuff. In fact, the price of the oil filter is about 2/3 the price of the oil. It really seems quite rediculous to get all hung up over saving $5 on oil every 3000 miles. If you own your car for 180K miles, that's only $300 saved over the life of the car, which is about 1 month of a car payment + insurance for a new car. And if you change the oil at 3K miles, then if the PVC system fails and you get a lot of blowby, or you happen to drive your car for very short trips where the crankcase doesen't get warm enough to drive out the condensed water, or the air filter springs a leak, or the head gasket fails and you start getting coolant in the oil, or the oil filter anti-drainback valve fails and your lifters start leaking down every night, then the damage that will be reduced by more frequent changes is definitely worth the $300.

The saying penny-wise/pound foolish comes to mind here.

Ted

Then you missed my meaning. Oil and filter bought at your favourite discount store are also part of the "Oil change Industry".

How do you know this? Oil analysis?

Here too.

The first step in recycling is reducing the need for virgin product. Recycled oil is reused, but not as engine oil, afaik.

Changing normal oil every 3k miles is a *quick lube industry* recommendation designed solely to lube their cash registers. It's a huge rip-off and it doesn't provide any greater 'security'.

Take a look at your owner's manual. It may recommend 3k oil changes for

*severe service* such as cop cars and taxis, but rarely do normal users find themselves in that category. My 2001 Ford van recommends oil/filter changes every 5k, so that's what I do.

Why is it that people disregard the equipment manufacturer's recommendations? (Not just cars either - any product.) Those companies want their product to be as good as it can be so that you will think well of it and buy another from them in the future. The car co's have done extensive, real-world testing that shows oil changes more frequent than 5k miles (or whatever the manual says) for *normal* use is a waste of your money, the world's oil, and won't provide any greater benefit.

I have the impression that it is reused as engine oil, but would have to research it a bit. I know it used to be reused.

One of the trade magazines had some articles on quality of re-refined motor oil several years ago in which it was stated that re-refined could actually be better in quality than virgin oil. This supposedly came from reduction of unsaturates (olefins) present in small quantities in virgins oils which can polymerize and cause deposits in engines.

I would like to know what the status actually is.

It goes into all sorts of uses; about 14% of it is re-refined for use as motor oil, according to the American Petroleum Institute:

I don't usually see re-refined oil in the usual consumer channels, but a lot of big operators of trucks and buses and motor pool cars have gone to the stuff over the last several years.

There are several reasons, including public image, statutory/regulatory pressure to operate in an environmentally responsible manner and reduce hazardous waste (dirty motor oil looks a lot different to a business or government agency than to a private citizen), and, if you use enough, even the bottom line. A difference of pennies a quart adds up when you use a hundred thousand gallons a year; note here that handing quart bottles down a long line of middlemen is far less efficient than hauling a flatbed full of

50-gallon drums to your central garage.

Some fleet managers even have "closed loop" arrangements in which they ship their dirty motor oil to the same company that supplies them with re-refined oil.

I've also read that some manufacturers of name-brand motor oil quietly blend some re-refined oil into their base stock.

I haven't seen an authoritative technical statement that re-refining improves the oil, but it's widely held to be equivalent if the process is properly done.

Cheers,

--Joe

You ain't kidding. I was thinking of getting the Fram quick oil change kit for my car. This guy should too.

----------- Alex

Is that the one with the little valve that used to be sold as "Fumoto?" If so it might be OK but otherwise I wouldnt put anything with the "Fram" label in the same garage as my car.

nate

Here is an actual case study from consumer reports that will expose many oil change myths:

OILS

Performance.

Testing the Oils

We put identical rebuilt engines with precisely measured parts into the cabs at the beginning of the test, and we changed their oil every 6,000 miles. That's about twice as long as the automakers recommend for the severe service that taxicabs see, but we chose that interval to accelerate the test results and provide worst-case conditions. After 60,000 miles, we disassembled each engine and checked for wear and harmful deposits. Our test conditions were grueling, to say the least. The typical Big Apple cab is driven day and night, in traffic that is legendary for its perversity, by cabbies who are just as legendary for their driving abandon.

When the cabs aren't on the go, they're typically standing at curbside with the engine idling, far tougher on motor oil than highway driving. What's more, the cabs accumulate lots of miles very quickly. They don't see many cold start-ups or long periods of high-speed driving in extreme heat. But our test results relate to the most common type of severe service, stop-and-go city driving.

Each of the 20 oils we studied was tested in three cabs to provide meaningful test results even if a few cabs fell out with mechanical problems or because of accidents. (Six of the 75 engines did, in fact, have problems, none apparently related to the oil's performance.) Our shoppers all across the country bought hundreds of quart containers of oil. Some brands had slightly different formulations in different areas, but all the oils included a full package of additives.

An independent lab helped us identify the most representative formulations of each brand. Our engineers transferred containers of that oil to coded

55-gallon drums and hauled them to the fleet garage for testing. Ideally, oil should be thin enough to flow easily when the engine is cold and remain thick enough to protect the engine when it's hot. The lab analyses of each oil's viscosity characteristics (its ability to flow) indicate that motor oils have improved since 1987, when we last tested them.

This time, far fewer test samples failed to meet the viscosity standards for their grade, and those were typically outside the limits by only a slight amount. No brand stood out as having a significant problem. We tested oils of the two most commonly recommended viscosity grades, 10W-30 and 5W-30. Automakers specify grades according to the temperature range expected over the oil-change period. The lower the number, the thinner the oil and the more easily it flows.

In 5W-30 oil, for example, the two numbers mean it's a "multiviscosity" or "multigrade" oil that's effective over a range of temperatures. The first number, 5, is an index that refers to how the oil flows at low temperatures. The second number, 30, refers to how it flows at high temperatures. The W designation means the oil can be used in winter.

A popular belief is that 5W-30 oils, despite their designation, are too thin to protect vital engine parts when they get hot. But one of our lab tests found otherwise. In that test, the viscosity of oils was measured under high-temperature, high-stress conditions. Essentially, no difference was found between 5W-30 oils and their 10W-30 brand mates. But at low temperatures, the 5W-30 oil flowed more easily. Viscosity grade is important, so be careful. Recommendations vary with the make, engine and model year of the car, so check your owner's manual and ask the mechanic for the proper grade of oil.

Results

If you've been loyal to one brand, you may be surprised to learn that every oil we tested was good at doing what motor oil is supposed to do. More extensive tests, under other driving conditions, might have revealed minor differences. But thorough statistical analysis of our data showed no brand, not even the expensive synthetics, to be meaningfully better or worse in our tests. After each engine ran about 60,000 miles (and through 10 months of seasonal changes), we disassembled it and measured the wear on the camshaft, valve lifters and connecting-rod bearings.

We used a tool precise to within 0.00001 inch to measure wear on the key surfaces of the camshaft, and a tool precise to within 0.0001 inch on the valve lifters. The combined wear for both parts averaged only 0.0026 inch. Generally, we noted as much variation between engines using the same oil as between those using different oils. Even the engines with the most wear didn't reach a level where we could detect operational problems.

We measured wear on connecting-rod bearings by weighing them to the nearest

0.0001 gram. Wear on the key surface of each bearing averaged 0.240 gram, about the weight of seven staples. Again, all the oils provided adequate protection. Our engineers also used industry methods to evaluate sludge and varnish deposits in the engine. Sludge is a mucky sediment that can prevent oil from circulating freely and make the engine run hotter. Varnish is a hard deposit that would remain on engine parts if you wiped off the sludge. It can make moving parts stick.

All the oils proved excellent at preventing sludge. At least part of the reason may be that sludge is more apt to form during cold startups and short trips, and the cabs were rarely out of service long enough for their engine to get cold. Even so, the accumulations in our engines were so light that we wouldn't expect sludge to be a problem with any of these oils under most conditions. Variations in the buildup of varnish may have been due to differences in operating temperature and not to the oils. Some varnish deposits were heavy enough to lead to problems eventually, but no brand consistently produced more varnish than others. The bottom line: Our tests indicate that brand doesn't matter much, as long as the oil carries the industry's starburst symbol. Beware of oils without the starburst, as they may lack the full complement of additives needed to keep modern engines running reliably.

One distinction: According to the laboratory tests, Mobil 1 and Pennzoil Performax synthetics flow exceptionally easily at low temperatures, a condition our taxi tests didn't simulate effectively. Mobil 1 and Pennzoil Performax synthetics also had the highest viscosity under high-temperature, high-stress conditions, when a thick oil protects the engine. Thus, these oils may be a good choice for hard driving in extreme temperatures.

Note, too, that a few automakers recommend specific brands of motor oil in the owner's manual. You may need to follow those recommendations to keep a new car in warranty.

Testing Slick 50 and STP

We also tested Slick 50 and STP Engine Treatments and STP Oil Treatment, each in three cabs. (Slick 50 costs $17.79 per container. STP Engine Treatment has been discontinued.) All three boast that they reduce engine friction and wear. The engine treatments are added with the oil (we used Pennzoil 10W-30). They claim they bond to engine parts and provide protection for 25,000 miles or more. We used each according to instructions.

The STP Oil Treatment is supposed to be added with each oil change. It comes in one formulation (black bottle, $4.32) for cars with up to 36,000 miles, another (blue bottle, $3.17) for cars that have more than 36,000 miles or are more than four years old. We used the first version for the first 36,000 miles, the second for the rest of the test, again with Pennzoil 10W-30. When we disassembled the engines and checked for wear and deposits, we found no discernible benefits from any of these products. The bottom line: We see little reason why anyone using one of today's high-quality motor oils would need these engine/oil treatments.

One notable effect of STP Oil Treatment was an increase in oil viscosity. It made our 10W-30 oil act more like a 15W-40, a grade not often recommended. In very cold weather, that might pose a risk of engine damage.

Oil Changes

How Often?

The long-time mantra of auto mechanics has been to change your oil every

3,000 miles. Most automakers recommend an oil change every 7,500 miles (and a specific time interval) for "normal" driving, and every 3,000 miles for "severe" driving (frequent trips of less than four or five miles, stop-and-go traffic, extended idling, towing a trailer, or dusty or extremely cold conditions). Many motorists' driving falls into one or more of those "severe" categories.

In our survey, almost two-thirds of our readers said they had their oil changed every 3,000 miles or less. They may be following the thinking expressed by one of our staffers: "I have my oil changed every 3,000 miles because that's what my father did, and all his cars lasted for many years." To determine whether frequent oil changes really help, we changed the oil in three cabs every 3,000 miles, using Pennzoil 10W-30. After 60,000 miles, we compared those engines with those from our base tests of the same oil, changed every 6,000 miles. We saw no meaningful differences.

When Mobil 1 synthetic oil came out, Mobil presented it as an oil that, while expensive, could go 25,000 miles between changes. That claim is no longer being made. But Mobil 1 is still on the market, selling at a premium (along with pricey synthetic competitors from several other companies). And synthetic oil's residual reputation as a long-lasting product may still prompt some people to stretch their oil changes longer than the automaker recommends.

Determining whether synthetic oils last longer than conventional ones would require a separate test project. To try to get some indication as to whether synthetic oils last longer, we put Mobil 1 synthetic into three cabs and changed their oil every 12,000 miles. We intended to compare the results of these tests with those from the three taxicabs whose Mobil 1 was changed at our normal interval, every 6,000 miles. Two of the three engines using the

12,000-mile interval developed problems. (We couldn't attribute those problems to the oil.) The third engine fared no worse than the three whose oil had been changed at 6,000-mile intervals.

The bottom line: Modern motor oils needn't be changed as often as oils did years ago. More frequent oil changes won't hurt your car, but you could be spending money unnecessarily and adding to the nation's energy and oil-disposal problems. Even in the severe driving conditions that a New York City taxi endures, we noted no benefit from changing the oil every 3,000 miles rather than every 6,000. If your driving falls into the "normal" service category, changing the oil every 7,500 miles (or at the automaker's suggested intervals) should certainly provide adequate protection. (We recommend changing the oil filter with each oil change.)

We don't recommend leaving any oil, synthetic or regular, in an engine for

12,000 miles, because accumulating contaminants, such as solids, acids, fuel and water, could eventually harm the engine. What's more, stretching the oil-change interval may void the warranty on most new cars.

Where Should You Go?

Choosing the right motor oil is only the first step. Someone has to change the oil regularly. Should you economize by doing the work yourself? Should you go to the local service station? The car dealer? A quick-lube center? Our own tests plus the experiences of some 900 of our readers provide some answers to those questions. We asked readers how often they change their car's oil, who does it and how satisfied they are with the service. And we sent shoppers in several parts of the U.S. to 55 local quick-lube centers to assess the service and to collect oil samples.

The car owners we surveyed used these four options in roughly equal measure:

Service station or garage. Many local garages compete with quick-lube centers by charging $20 to $30 or so for an oil change. And the service station may be a good place to go for other repairs and maintenance.

New-car dealer. Some dealers offer regular oil changes for little or no extra cost with the purchase of a car. General Motors dealers offer a "one price" oil change that's competitive with the prices charged by quick-lube centers. But absent such a one-price arrangement, expect such dealer-performed oil changes to cost about $30. Car dealers were also the slowest and least convenient, according to our survey.Do it yourself. People change their own oil not only to save money (oil and filter together can cost as little as $10), but also for the satisfaction of knowing the job was done right. If you handle your own oil changes, be sure to dispose of the used oil properly to prevent it from polluting the environment. It's best to take the oil to a local service station that accepts used oil, or to a municipal household hazardous-waste collection center. Whatever you do, don't pour the oil down the sewer or discard it with the rest of the household trash.

Quick-lube centers. These operations promise to get you in and out in as little as 10 minutes. Of our surveyed readers, 90% reported that they waited less than half an hour. Cost: $15 to $33. Although about 77% of readers were highly satisfied with quick-lube centers, service stations and car dealers earned even higher scores.

How Reliable Are Quick-Lubes?

Quick-lube centers promise a lot for a little. They say they'll change the oil and filter, top off other fluids, check the tire pressure, perhaps even vacuum the car's interior, all in about half an hour and for about $25. To find out how well the centers deliver on that promise, we asked Consumer Reports shoppers in California, Florida, Illinois and Texas to take cars in for an oil change at quick-lube centers last winter. The shoppers visited outlets run by Jiffy Lube, Kmart, Wal-Mart and others. We didn't visit enough centers often enough to rank them from best to worst. But we did see patterns in the service.

The shops we visited didn't cut corners. The oil they dispense from a drum is comparable with the oil you can buy in one-quart containers. The shops also did a good job of filling oil and other fluids to the proper levels. But the shops do make mistakes. The most common, one that any servicer can make: using the wrong viscosity grade of oil for the car.

Many oil-change centers maintain computerized data on which oil grades are recommended for specific makes and models. But in the cases where we could compare the oil grade we got with the grade the car's owner's manual listed as preferred, the quick-lube shop used a different grade half the time. You might not be able to tell if your car got, say, 10W-40 instead of 5W-30. And one oil change with the wrong grade in normal weather shouldn't harm the engine. But the engine may not always be adequately protected if it has the wrong grade of oil in very hot or very cold weather.

The shops are usually fast and economical. They took from 10 minutes to more than an hour to service our shoppers' cars. Average time: 35 minutes. The cost ranged from $15 to $33, with the average at $23. Service varies. Some centers change the oil and filter, period. Others include a variety of services. But note that 18% of our readers who used a quick-lube center complained that it tried to sell them services they didn't want. And a few readers (8%) said the centers didn't perform a necessary service, changing the oil filter.

Consumer Reports Recommendations

Change the oil yourself only if you have the tools and equipment, can safely dispose of the used oil, and feel that it's worth the hassle to save about $15. Otherwise, any of the commercial alternatives can do an adequate job. Use a garage or the dealer when you also need other work done at the same time. Choose among quick-lube centers according to price and service, and be sure you tell the center what grade of oil your car needs. Discount coupons are common, so you need never pay full price.

Couple reasons. Check out oil filters someday. I don't mean compare the Consumer Reports, I mean cut them open. Your going to find out that there's wide variance in the construction. The cheaper filters don't have as much media in them and so they are going to plug up faster than the more expensive ones.

Also check the filters out for particular engines. There's lots of car models where the same engine is used, but different filters are called for. When you check the filters you find that the bases are the same except 1 is longer - the manufacturer calls for the shorty because the chassis design doesen't allow clearance. Well, just because the engine is in a smaller engine bay does it produce less contaminants? Fagh!

And lastly, I've tried a lot of different filters in my vehicles. I have found that the oil is less black at change time with the double filter, it is more translucent, more amber. Clearly the more expensive double filter is removing more contaminants for a longer period.

So yes, I think it's clear enough to me that a cheap single filter in a "small" can design, made small because of chassis considerations, is going to poop out around 3K miles. I can see it by the rate of change of the color of the oil over the

3000 mile mark when I've used a cheap single filter, as well as feel and hear it in how the engine sounds when it's started up and the filter is getting close to being plugged. I can also see it visually on the oil pressure guage, as the filter gets more and more plugged, the oil pressure drops.

The 99 cents a quart oil I'm buying is the name brand stuff. Valvoline, Chevron, Havoline, and a few others. And this is cheaper even than buying it in the gallon jugs, at least around here.

Ted

Others have already disproved this so I will not go further into this other than to say that your citing the environmental argument purely as a ploy. A car with a broken EGR valve or a plugged PVC valve is a far worse environmental hazard. People who only look at their engines every 5000 miles are going to be taking longer to be alerted that there's a problem with these things than the 3K changers.

I already laid out the economic difference over the life of a 180K mile car, and it's negligible. If your driving an average 20K miles a year, that's only an extra $30 a year to go to 3K changes over 6K changes. You can save far more money than this by not stomping on the gas at every green light.

Once again, disproved by others,

I already outlined the benefits, your just ignoring them.

And as for why would the automakers not do a 3K recommendation? Well think of it man, it's obvious. There's a bunch of armchair quarterbacks out there these days who are rating cars, some of the worst of them are in ragzines like Consumer Reports, and one of the things they like to rate is maintainence costs between cars. If Ford recommends 3K and Chevy recommends 12K extended drain then Ford looks like their maintainence costs are higher.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but none of the automakers give a shit about making their product to be as good as it can be so that you will think well of it and buy another from them in the future. Instead they are just concerned with making their product work reliably until 70-80K because the bulk of new car purchasers don't own their vehicles past this point. Once their product is out of the hands of the 1st owner, they could care less if it falls apart. And the damage that an extended drain is going to do will shorten the cars life - but it's going to shorten it from 200K miles to 140K miles or some such like that. And you can look and look but nobody does studies on the reliability of 150K+ miles cars because the auto manufacturers would just as soon see all cars that are in this age group go away.

Ted

Yes, that study has been around. Of course, it has several significant flaws. The biggest one is that taxicabs are not representative of real world service of most cars because since they are running all of the time, they don't lose much of an oil film when they are shut down. A better test would have been to find a service vehicle that is run for about

2-3 hours in the morning, then shut down and turned off for an hour, and then turned on for a half hour and then shut down for another hour, and turned on for another half hour, etc. for the rest of the day. Then left not turned on for a couple days, and then the process repeated.

They chose taxicabs because of the popular conception that cabbies are hard on cars, and because they wanted an article that they could put a trailer on the front cover that said something to the effect that synthetic oil is a waste of money so they could attract attention. (which it did)

Another problem is they rebuilt all the engines at the beginning instead of using off-the-shelf new cars, which would have given a much bigger spread of tolerances. Thus no data was gained by how well that say a loose-tolerance engine would do with different oil change intervals than a tight tolerance engine.

And another problem was that no mention was made of the type and brand and kind of filter used. A high quality expensive filter is going to allow you to go for longer than a cheap filter.

And of course the last problem is that they didn't follow the cars over a decent time interval, 60K miles isn't representative of the lifespan of most cars. From an economic perspective, assuming 5 quarts per change, and $1 a quart, and a $5 filter, (ie: $10 per change) over 60K miles the 3K oil changers pay a total of $200, the 6K changers pay a total of $100. If your driving 15K miles a year that's only $25 more a year you pay to change at

3K intervals instead of 6K intervals, barely a tank of gas.

In summary the really only eye-openers here are the little difference between synthetic and regular oil, and that all the oils tested met SAE and appeared to be little different from each other.

But I do give them some credit for the effort needed to field this study, it must have been immense. And of course they were really after bigger fish to fry - in short, more consumers have lost far more money on so-called "better formulation" more expensive oils than any more short drain intervals, and it was most important to attack that squarely.

I really wish CR would do a study on engine oil filters. But I'll bet they don't or Fram would sue them.

Ted