Long Oil Change Interval

[Cyker]

Apparently 40k mile oil changes are bad for the engine...

 

 

[Haliotis]

I think most dealerships use synthetic engine oil these days.  These are usually long life oils, and satisfy both the variable service and annual service regimes.  For variable service, I believe the engine oil can go for something in the order of 2 years/20,000+ miles between oil changes.

When I was on Volkswagens, the VW service plan recommendations were that the engine oil was changed annually if the mileage per year was 10,000 or less.

[forkingabout]

An oil & filter change is cheap compared to a replacement engine.

Should at the very least follow the manufacturers recommendations for oil & filter change intervals.

I'm currently doing less the 8K mile's a year so a yearly oil & filter change is enough.

[yossarian247]

A friend of mine was a self employed mechanic who specialised in French cars (he was never short of work..). I remember once a customer brought in a Citroën BX turbo diesel with a knackered turbo and signs of very severe engine wear. As far as anyone could establish it hadn't had an oil change for nearly 50,000 miles. The service interval on those early XUD diesel engines was supposed to be 5000m, so it had technically missed ten oil changes. It's amazing it still ran at all really. 

[Roy124]

My old Merc, approaching end of life was burning oil with about 1l/1 000.!

I put in the cheapest oil, about 20w/50, that I could find.  The engine manage system gave miles to oil change.   The norm 10k but the computer delayed it to 20k.

[Haliotis]

Years ago there were three of us colleagues who worked together. At the time I (A) had a fairly newish Hillman Minx, (B) had an older Hillman Minx, and (C) the apprentice had an old, well worn Standard Vanguard. At oil change time we got together at my home garage.

(A) changed his oil for new, (B) drained his oil and passed it to (C), and filled up with oil from (A).  (C) topped up his oil from that taken from (B)’s car and saved surplus in a can.for later.

(C) never changed his oil because the car burnt it so fast.  He just kept on storing up any oil he could get from various colleagues when their oil was changed, and used that to top us his own car.  We nicknamed his car “Smokey Joe.”