Oil Change or No?
July 28, 2010 7:32 AM
How soon do I need an oil change after a very long highway trip?
Last week, we put just over 2,200 interstate miles on our car driving to and from our vacation destination. We got an oil change the day before we left. We do oil changes approximately every 3,000 miles, as most of our driving is around town (stop and go). Do I really need to get another oil change in 800 miles? Or is it OK to drive the car a bit longer since most of those 2,200 miles were going 65mph, non-stop on the highway?
Last week, we put just over 2,200 interstate miles on our car driving to and from our vacation destination. We got an oil change the day before we left. We do oil changes approximately every 3,000 miles, as most of our driving is around town (stop and go). Do I really need to get another oil change in 800 miles? Or is it OK to drive the car a bit longer since most of those 2,200 miles were going 65mph, non-stop on the highway?
You should be able to look at your owner's manual and do a conversion of sorts between highway miles and "hard" miles. There is probably a schedule 1 and 2 in there, and if schedule 1 ("hard") says change every 3000 and schedule 2 (highway) says change every 5000, you've used half of schedule 2, so if you do the the other half on schedule 1, that's about 1500 more miles.
If you want to be somewhat scientific about it, that is.
(There's also a decent chance that your manual has a much longer interval than 3000 miles. Mine is 5000 for "hard" driving and 7500 for highway.)
posted by smackfu at 7:46 AM on July 28, 2010
If you want to be somewhat scientific about it, that is.
(There's also a decent chance that your manual has a much longer interval than 3000 miles. Mine is 5000 for "hard" driving and 7500 for highway.)
posted by smackfu at 7:46 AM on July 28, 2010
I'd hold off for awhile—highway driving is easy on the car. Heck, the Car Talk guys recommend every 5,000 miles anyway.
posted by General Malaise at 7:58 AM on July 28, 2010
posted by General Malaise at 7:58 AM on July 28, 2010
You should be able to push it out to 5K miles, no problem at all.
Distance is a worse measure of oil age than operational hours. Lots of things cause oil to "go bad" in lots of different ways, but at a constant 65 mph you're really not working the engine very hard at all. It's probably putting out only about 20% of its power. It's not being started and stopped, which is when you get both strange combustion products and water condensation in the oil. It's not being driven hard enough to have blow-by gasses passing the pistons and contaminating the oil. Yadda yadda yadda.
posted by pjaust at 7:58 AM on July 28, 2010
Distance is a worse measure of oil age than operational hours. Lots of things cause oil to "go bad" in lots of different ways, but at a constant 65 mph you're really not working the engine very hard at all. It's probably putting out only about 20% of its power. It's not being started and stopped, which is when you get both strange combustion products and water condensation in the oil. It's not being driven hard enough to have blow-by gasses passing the pistons and contaminating the oil. Yadda yadda yadda.
posted by pjaust at 7:58 AM on July 28, 2010
The 3,000 mile myth is...a myth. Modern synthetics actually don't even often reach maximum lubricity until after the 1,500 mile mark. Mobil1 or any of the top grade synthetics should be changed at 5,000 or, if you buy the 7,500 mile variant---7,500 miles.
Change it at 5, always at five, or at 6 months, unless possibly you've got a very hard working vehicle in a very hot or a very cold environment, or if the car is older and/or is burning a lot of oil. One way or the other, check your oil level monthly. Change the filter when you change the oil, and buy anything but a Fram filter.
posted by TomMelee at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2010
Change it at 5, always at five, or at 6 months, unless possibly you've got a very hard working vehicle in a very hot or a very cold environment, or if the car is older and/or is burning a lot of oil. One way or the other, check your oil level monthly. Change the filter when you change the oil, and buy anything but a Fram filter.
posted by TomMelee at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2010
I know this isn't what you asked, but my mechanic says that more important after a super long road trip is to change the fuel filter. He says that at multiple highway-side gas station stops your odds of getting crap gas is pretty high. The filter will handle the crap, normally, but replacing that filter when you get home is important to the maintenance of your vehicle.
posted by toastedbeagle at 8:28 AM on July 28, 2010
posted by toastedbeagle at 8:28 AM on July 28, 2010
my mechanic says that more important after a super long road trip is to change the fuel filter. He says that at multiple highway-side gas station stops your odds of getting crap gas is pretty high.
That's interesting, but I find it very hard to ratify; Highway side fuel stations will have a massive volume of fuel turn over, so I'd suggest that it is much less likely to get bad fuel. Whereas visiting a back country, small turnover, station would increase the chance of stuff in the fuel that is bad. Fuel sitting there for weeks on end (rather than a station that gets deliveries more than once a week) is more likely to have gunk in it, I'd have thought.
Oddly, I'd have thought that this was more likely to happen on a long trip anyway, as you'd be far from home and not know the area. Either way, fuel filters are not considered enough for many reasons, so any excuse to encourage people to consider changing them is good for the cars.
As for the oil issue, 3000 miles is very, very early to change any sort of synthetic oil. If you're not buying synthetic oil, then you're crazy and should change that at your next service. Any decent oil should be able to last 5000 miles in a car that is driven like a normal person. Unless you are driving like you're racing, it'll be fine. 3000 miles is extremely conservative for oil changes.
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on July 28, 2010
That's interesting, but I find it very hard to ratify; Highway side fuel stations will have a massive volume of fuel turn over, so I'd suggest that it is much less likely to get bad fuel. Whereas visiting a back country, small turnover, station would increase the chance of stuff in the fuel that is bad. Fuel sitting there for weeks on end (rather than a station that gets deliveries more than once a week) is more likely to have gunk in it, I'd have thought.
Oddly, I'd have thought that this was more likely to happen on a long trip anyway, as you'd be far from home and not know the area. Either way, fuel filters are not considered enough for many reasons, so any excuse to encourage people to consider changing them is good for the cars.
As for the oil issue, 3000 miles is very, very early to change any sort of synthetic oil. If you're not buying synthetic oil, then you're crazy and should change that at your next service. Any decent oil should be able to last 5000 miles in a car that is driven like a normal person. Unless you are driving like you're racing, it'll be fine. 3000 miles is extremely conservative for oil changes.
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on July 28, 2010
Or is it OK to drive the car a bit longer since most of those 2,200 miles were going 65mph, non-stop on the highway?
Lubrication ... lubricates ... no matter how you drive the car. The pistons pump up and down pretty much the same number of times when you travel 2,200 miles non-stop, or spreading those 2,200 miles across a month's worth of driving.
But ... daily driving breaks that 2,200 miles into lots of cold starts, inconsistent revving and being stuck in traffic, running the engine (pumping pistons even more) while going nowhere.
In other words, 2,200 miles on a road trip was likely easier on your engine than 2,200 miles in the city spread out over a month of driving around the city.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:53 AM on July 28, 2010
Lubrication ... lubricates ... no matter how you drive the car. The pistons pump up and down pretty much the same number of times when you travel 2,200 miles non-stop, or spreading those 2,200 miles across a month's worth of driving.
But ... daily driving breaks that 2,200 miles into lots of cold starts, inconsistent revving and being stuck in traffic, running the engine (pumping pistons even more) while going nowhere.
In other words, 2,200 miles on a road trip was likely easier on your engine than 2,200 miles in the city spread out over a month of driving around the city.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:53 AM on July 28, 2010
Not to threadjack, but Brockles, is it really true that I (we, everyone?) should be using synthetic oil? If so, why? I've been using the regular stuff just because it's cheap; is that not the right call?
posted by Aizkolari at 11:22 AM on July 28, 2010
posted by Aizkolari at 11:22 AM on July 28, 2010
Aizkolari: Synthetic oil was developed to specifically overcome the limitations and natural degradation of the more traditional oils. Old style oils aren't as capable of maintaing the lubricity nor advantageous properties under the high heat and pressure that modern engines demand. In addition, and particularly, the maintaining of these properties for prolonged usage.
While it was initially pushed in development by aviation and racing requirements that produced extreme conditions (at the time beyond those of car engines) the advantages were quickly recognised and it started to be used in high performance road car engines. Through the development of high mpg engines and legislative pressure, 'performance engines' have been redefined and all engines today outperform old generations in most specific elements. With the massive recent push on environmental requirements, road engines today are often every bit as 'high performance' in terms of power to weight, power/cc and internal stresses and heat as engines that needed lubrication beyond that of regular oils. Synthetic oils that I have used in racing environments are so good nowadays that beyond the highest levels it can become a 'fit and forget' issue. Further down the ladder, we can make the oil last multiple race weekends in far and away the harshest conditions - chemical analysis has proven time and again how significantly better the synth oils and remain so for much more of the service life.
Engines have moved on so much in recent years (last 15 or so) and have increased in a highly demanding fashion in terms of efficiency, heat rejection (cooling requirements and hence driving coolant development too), fuel quality (modern cars can't run on any old fuel as they used to) and lubrication. While traditional oil tech has improved, it is still limited without using the artificial component. As such, using anything other than the best oil will be a compromise.
Consequently it makes no sense other than short term economics not to use fully synthetic oils. It really doesn't. The only possible defence of it is to state that trad oils are 'probably good enough'. Well, maybe they are as long as your engine is only ever used gently and you are religious with monitoring and changing the oil. But... it'll only ever be 'probably good enough'. It makes no sense to my mind to put something so limited in a modern engine that demands so much of the oil. It will undoubtedly shorten the life of the engine in some regard (perhaps only in terms of speeding up degradation of power production or mpg through its life, rather than saying it will explode earlier) but it will certainly not last as long or perform as well for as long with trad oil as it would with synthetic oils (assuming both were maintained correctly). I do think we're at the point of it not being worth the money spent on it to put trad oil in a car.
posted by Brockles at 12:24 PM on July 28, 2010
While it was initially pushed in development by aviation and racing requirements that produced extreme conditions (at the time beyond those of car engines) the advantages were quickly recognised and it started to be used in high performance road car engines. Through the development of high mpg engines and legislative pressure, 'performance engines' have been redefined and all engines today outperform old generations in most specific elements. With the massive recent push on environmental requirements, road engines today are often every bit as 'high performance' in terms of power to weight, power/cc and internal stresses and heat as engines that needed lubrication beyond that of regular oils. Synthetic oils that I have used in racing environments are so good nowadays that beyond the highest levels it can become a 'fit and forget' issue. Further down the ladder, we can make the oil last multiple race weekends in far and away the harshest conditions - chemical analysis has proven time and again how significantly better the synth oils and remain so for much more of the service life.
Engines have moved on so much in recent years (last 15 or so) and have increased in a highly demanding fashion in terms of efficiency, heat rejection (cooling requirements and hence driving coolant development too), fuel quality (modern cars can't run on any old fuel as they used to) and lubrication. While traditional oil tech has improved, it is still limited without using the artificial component. As such, using anything other than the best oil will be a compromise.
Consequently it makes no sense other than short term economics not to use fully synthetic oils. It really doesn't. The only possible defence of it is to state that trad oils are 'probably good enough'. Well, maybe they are as long as your engine is only ever used gently and you are religious with monitoring and changing the oil. But... it'll only ever be 'probably good enough'. It makes no sense to my mind to put something so limited in a modern engine that demands so much of the oil. It will undoubtedly shorten the life of the engine in some regard (perhaps only in terms of speeding up degradation of power production or mpg through its life, rather than saying it will explode earlier) but it will certainly not last as long or perform as well for as long with trad oil as it would with synthetic oils (assuming both were maintained correctly). I do think we're at the point of it not being worth the money spent on it to put trad oil in a car.
posted by Brockles at 12:24 PM on July 28, 2010
So, er, for a short answer:
is it really true that I (we, everyone?) should be using synthetic oil?
Yes. It is true.
posted by Brockles at 12:24 PM on July 28, 2010
is it really true that I (we, everyone?) should be using synthetic oil?
Yes. It is true.
posted by Brockles at 12:24 PM on July 28, 2010
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On the one hand, you can look at the oil on the dipstick. If it's looking yucky, change it. On the other, it's cheap insurance to get an oil change, especially with normal, every day non-synthetic oil.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 7:35 AM on July 28, 2010