oil change question

I guess the real question should be "why 6 months" ? Give the kid $ 50 and tell them to go to an oil change place. Surely any place that has a college and gas station will be able to do an oil change.

No. Don't get into recreational oil changing.

Look up the Ford dealer near the college and print out a coupon for an oil change and clip it to two $20 bills, i.e. . Also teach the child-unit how to avoid the inevitable up-sell at the dealer.

If he or she asks around at college, someone probably knows a decent place for an oil change.

Someone (hopefully) taught the kid to change their underwear. Why not teach the kid to change the oil?

Unless the kids is living in a house that the parents bought for them, it's unlikely that the dorm or apartment or house that they're living in permits tenants to do oil changes.

My daughter is off to college next month. At the money we're spending she needs to be studying, not changing oil.

When my kids were in school they didn't let them do laundry in the dorm much less change oil in the parking lot.

Two went to the coin laundry, did their wash and studied (?). The other started a 'fluff and fold' operation in the same coin laundry.

He had other services he performed for money and did not require a dime from his mother or me.

As to your daughter .... lets see: Get in car start engine drive to I-Can-Lube Shop (or local equilivant) sit in waiting room (study or read old magazines, pay bill and drive back to dorm.

Kids forget things like oil changes.. Call him or her in 2-3 months and instruct to get the oil changed. Demand it. Send the money.

Is the garage owner behind on payments for his boat? Unless the car has only been driven short distances, I would definitely not change the oil until it gets to 69,500 mi (a 5,000 mi interval - consistent with your manual).

I would also teach the kid to avoid the engine shampoo and other money-sucking stuff that oil-change places offer. In fact, I would suggest that the kid go to a real garage.

How many miles in that 6 months? The "6 months or 5000 miles" idea is really intended for super low mileage where the car is only driven a few miles a day at relatively low speeds, so the oil ends up getting a lot of moisture in it. If it's going to be driven sufficiently, including occasional freeway driving, then going over 6 months is not an issue.

I remember having a car in college. When I drove to campus, rather than riding my bike, it was only a few miles, with maybe one 650 mile trip every 3 months to go home between quarters. Back then people did 3000 mile oil changes, but no one does that anymore.

No. Drive happy.

Your next oil change is due at about 70,000, that gives you 5500 miles on oil that can easily surpass 7000 miles.

You could look in the Owner's Manual and confirm the change interval they suggest is about 7500, and then rest assured that you do not need an oil change until 70,000 miles roll around. You can really go to 72,000 if Ford says that 7500 is a good change interval. If you use Full Synthetic, then you can let the oil stay in longer and still be comfortable that it is actually lubricating stuff inside the engine.

We've been through this too many times, Jeff. Yes, read your owner's manual. If it SAYS you can use synthetic oil and change whenever, then you can do that if you want to. If not, you can use dino oil and change that per schedule.

The freaking risk is yours. Oil is cheap.

I caught my daughter with her car empty of oil, and her excuse was that she added some last year. Kids are different animals.

BTY, she had to help me change out the engine in that car. It was a great father-daughter experience.

Thank you for the replies. Considering I already bought the quality oil/filter (Castrol GTX/Purolator Gold) on special for $22 and the vehicle will have 2,000 miles on the current oil change, I have decided to change the oil prior to our trip. The car will probably not be used much while my son is at school anyway so it could go over a year on the current oil in the crankcase. If I could find the receipt I may have not bothered.

Sorry, but I'm not getting the parallel between doing an oil change at 5,000 or 7,500, or whenever, and driving around with no oil in the car. These are not parallel topics.

Oil is a natural resource that the world is running out of. Engineers go to great pains to make the oil we use today last far longer than the oil your grandpa used in his day. There is no reason to change the oil in any modern automobile in under 7,500 miles. There are some cars that have a 15,000 oil change interval. But no matter what the change interval is, letting the oil level drop to the point where the motor locks up is an entirely different subject.

If the car is going through a quart of oil every thousand miles AND you are staying on top of it, I'd go so far as to suggest that you could spend the rest of your ownership of the vehicle without doing an oil change. You are constantly adding a quart, if the car holds 5 quarts then you are changing all of them in 5,000 miles. Buy a new filter a few times a year, but the oil flows through fast enough that it is always fresh enough to do the work it is expected to do.

It doesn't really matter if there is a week's worth or a million years. The issue is, there is only so much and we should use it wisely, not foolishly.

If the engineers can blend the stuff so it has a 10,000 mile life span, then one should not pour it out after 3,000 miles and start with a fresh bottle. Leave it in for the rated life so we get as much bang-for-the-buck as we can with the resources that we have.

I'm not a tree hugger or anything. And I have no qualms about buying oil from the Middle East. My issues are more global in that there is only so much of it so we should not waste it. I'm sure that whatever we have will last longer than I will, but that does not mean I should be a poor steward of the resources that come my way.

Motor oil once had a short life of about 3,000 to 5,000 miles and it was pretty much done doing what it does. They make motor oil today much differently than when the stuff was worn out in 3k to 5k miles. Now it is known to last in some engines for more than 15,000 miles -- my 2000 BMW carries 7 quarts of oil, and the car calculates the next change interval based upon the driving profile, and that change interval can be as much as

15,525 miles. The actual interval will be shorter if the car takes short trips and does not get up to full temp because this sort of driving profile is bad for the oil so the car shortens the change interval accordingly. If the car always takes long trips at freeway speeds, then the full 15,525 miles will be logged before the change interval light comes on. But whatever. It is wasteful to change the oil at 3,000 miles, and less wasteful to do so at 5,000 miles, and most cars sold these days call for a change interval of 7,500 to 10,000 for a 5-quart capacity engine.

Several things feed into the life of the oil, heat being high on the list. If the oil capacity is high, then the heat will be lower and the oil will last longer. If the capacity is low then the heat will be high and the life will be shorter. Of course, there are other factors that mitigate that rule. The chemical composition of the oil will have an affect on the life, but generally the current API Grade SM or higher will give a useful life of about 7,500 miles or more. Far more than 3,000 miles. And Full Synthetic will always have a longer service life than dinosaur oil, so if one is changing synthetic at 3,000 miles, he is wasting both resources and money.

ummmm....the standard Prius *is* a pure gasoline car. Nothing more.

The *only* source of energy put into the car to make it go is gasoline.

The Prius couldn't be farther from an "alternative to IC engines".

What did YOU think the Prius is? An electric car??

The plug-in Prius and the Volt are a bit different; they can take a source of energy that isn't gasoline and use it. But then they switch to gasoline when that runs out, so they're not "alternatives" either unless you never run them more than a handful of miles at a time between plugins.

Early in the thread, I said that young people tend to forget things like changing (or in my case, checking) oil. That is the parallax.

As we have discussed too many times....the car is yours...do with it as you will.

In my case, (Toyotas) the manufacturer does not directly recommend synthetic nor extended oil changes.

I follow the recommendations rather closely, and would not at any time run a car for long miles on the oil when the warrantying manufacturer does not recommend it.

You do what you want, I will too.