From: SMS on
jwardl wrote:
> How can oil be changed TOO often? Personally, think I'll stick with 3/3k.

There is some point at which changing it more often has absolutely no
benefit at all in terms of engine wear. It's not 500 miles, 1000 miles,
or even 3000 miles. It's probably somewhere around 7000-8000, but to be
absolutely safe, many people change it at 5000. 3000 is an absolute
waste of money, no study has shown any benefit to such frequent oil changes.
From: clare at on
On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:05:46 -0700, SMS <scharf.steven(a)geemail.com>
wrote:

>C. E. White wrote:
>
>> You need to read what is truly severe service. Jiffy Lube et al would
>> like to convince you that starting the car up and moving it out of the
>> driveway is severe service. Ford (and other manufacturers) have tried
>> to be more exact in order to dispell this misinformation spewed out by
>> the oil change industry. For a 2007 Ford Fusion, Ford has the
>> following say about "Special Operating Conditions;"
>
>This is one of the key problems. True severe service would be
>exclusively very short trips where the engine and oil never reach
>operating temperature. Apparently some people believe that if you _ever_
>make a short trip then you're in the severe service category.
>
>It takes about ten minutes for oil to reach full operating temperature,
>and few minutes more for any moisture in the oil to be burned off. But a
>once a week longer drive, after five or six days of short drives, is
>sufficient to counteract the effects of the short trips.

Minimum 20 minutes to get the oil to full operating temperature, and
then about another 10 minutes for every day of short run cold morning,
high humidity running.(as a rule of thumb - and it is pretty close)
So, if you drive short distances with cold humid starts every work
day, you would need roughly a 70 minute highway drive to drive out all
of the accumulated moisture. If this is not done soon enough (and that
varies with vehicle, oil, and conditions) the moisture will also cause
an acid buildup in the oil, which depletes the buffering capability of
the oil. Acids, combined with moisture, form sludge which can NOT be
"boiled off" This sludge, under conditions of high heat, can
crystalize into the "coke" that has had devastating effects on many
engines over the last 10 years.
>
>The vehicle manufacturers don't want to discourage proper maintenance,
>nor do they want to lump everyone into severe service for no real reason.
>
>
I used to tell my customers if they did not get out of town on a
weekly basis, and did not accumulate more than 1000 miles a month,
changing the oil every 3 months was safest. If they drove on the
highway on a daily basis, and accumulated 3000 miles per month, change
the oil every 6000 miles, or two months. If they went over 4000 miles
a month, every 2 months was adequate, UNLESS they were towing a
trailer, hauling a heavy load, or spent significant time in rush-hour
gridlock during hot weather.

The vast majority of my customers accumulated less than 1000 miles per
month. The vast majority changed their oil 3 or 4 times a year.
I had some customers who virtually never drove in town, or in
rush-hour - never towed a trailer, never drove less than 60 miles at a
time, and changed their oil twice a year. Sometimes less than 2000
miles on the change. And others put 6-8000 miles a month on,oil change
every 10,000, trading cars every two years at roughly 195-200,000
miles.
Feeding frenzie time when the car got traded in. The mechanics and
salesmen were buying them for their parents, wives, kids etc because
they were like new, 2 years old, and priced right. (They were Toyotas,
not Fords or GMs)


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

From: SMS on
clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:05:37 -0500, tetraethylleadREMOVETHIS(a)yahoo.com
> (Brent P) wrote:
>
>> In article <460ad725$0$27206$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net>, SMS wrote:
>>> Steve Barker wrote:
>>>> I'm a regular guy (retired) with 4 vehicles that always have, and always
>>>> will, get 3k oil changes on straight 30 weight oil.
>>> This will increase the engine wear at start-up, though if you're in a
>>> hot climate it won't be too bad. Just make sure that it's a detergent
>>> SAE 30, not non-detergent, as both are available.
>> There are some engines with small oil passages where it's probably not a
>> good idea at all.
>>
> Not an engine built that can't run straight 30 if the temps don't drop
> below something like 55-60F.

Sure it will run, but in terms of minimizing wear, you want to avoid
straight 30 in cold weather. Also be sure that it's a detergent 30
weight, and not a non-detergent.

It's best to just run 10W30 if you want to maximize engine life.
From: Matthew T. Russotto on
In article <19rj0351t0rdkt22lpo6j153it4id98a01(a)4ax.com>,
Scott en Aztl�n <newsgroup> wrote:
>
>That's right. For one thing, changing your oil so often means
>disposing of that much more used motor oil. I hope all of you OCD oil
>changers are at least disposing of your used oil in an environmentally
>safe manner.

Sure, the state provides oil disposal points on nearly every street,
built right into the roadway.

--
There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
result in a fully-depreciated one.
From: John Henderson on
jwardl wrote:

> How can oil be changed TOO often? Personally, think I'll stick
> with 3/3k.

Because there's more wear with new oil than with moderately
stressed oil.

If the lab results were different, I'd be changing my oil more
frequently. At some point, you've got to go with the evidence
and leave the fairy stories and wishful thinking behind.

John