DescentBB

So how many of you are still having your oil changed every 3000 miles per the little sticker that the local oil change business puts on your windshield? If you are, not only are you foolishly ignorant but wasting oil in the process:

http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop-ch ... r-oil.html

Yeah, my car is a rusty collection of bolts and duct tape. 3K miles isn't soon enough.

8000 KM for me. Mind you it's a 2012 Optima so I don't need them as often.

My '93 automatically removes the old oil. It's the only automatic thing about it.

i do my own oil changes ~ every 5000m.

Isaac wrote:Yeah, my car is a rusty collection of bolts and duct tape. 3K miles isn't soon enough.

^ That.

My old beater burns about a quart every 2000 miles and my oil turns to sludge fast. When the car was new I only changed it once or twice every 10,000 miles, if even. I check the filter to gauge how often I need to change the oil and regularly check the oil pan and change the gasket to get an idea of how the insides look. It's not so much that 3,000 miles is a myth, but consumers should pay more attention to they needs of their vehicle because the frequency of oil changes is different between cars and ages.

I don't drive my cars enough to even make it to 3000 miles a year. I just default to doing it once a year, since the oil additives tend to break down over time and short stints of driving tends to contaminate the oil with moisture. Once in a while I'll go out on the freeway, just to thoroughly heat the oil and get rid of any moisture.

My car (2007 Toyota) and my wife's car (2000 Honda) suggest changing every 5,000 miles, but we've gone as much as 8,000 miles between changes with those vehicles, and the oil was still in decent shape.

Now, my previous vehicle (1992 Mazda), on the other hand... sheesh, by the time I hit 300K miles on the odometer, I was adding a quart every 500 miles or less.