Oil change necessary at 3000 miles?

[freeplessinseattle]

I just noticed yesterday that I'm over by about 400 miles (oops) for my next due oil change...and have a longish (200 mile round trip) road trip tomorrow. I could get it changed today but am short on time and don't know how long the wait will be.

A friend told me you really don't need to do it every 3000, more like every 5000 nowadays, as long as you check the oil level? I googled to verify and found some confirmation, but wanted to check with the experts at DU first who may have had first hand experience, too.

Thank you!

[Kali]

1. you will be fine

but know this: changing the oil regularly is the single best and easiest thing you can do to keep your car running.

Do check the LEVEL before and after your trip, though.

[NewJeffCT]

2. If you car is less than 8 years old, the recommendation

is likely that you change your oil every 5,000 or 7,500 miles now. Some cars are now even recommending every 10,000 miles.

3,000 is just what Jiffy Lube and the other oil change places tell you to get you to come in twice as often.

[freeplessinseattle]

5. hmm, my car's a 2001

which meant it came out halfway thru 2010.

Maybe I am pushing it and will have to just cancel some other stuff today.

Thanks for the advice!

[Kali]

9. autozone has a lot of info on their website

and there is plenty of info out there in general. need year, make, model and a few other details - fast connection and you can have the info in a minute or two

[freeplessinseattle]

11. great, thank you!

I will check it out.

[JCMach1]

3. Follow the owners manual! Some cars these days do need it at 3k

However, a few hundred over should not matter... as normal just check your oil during a long trip.

[freeplessinseattle]

4. damn. owner's manual was taken when my car broken into

weird thing to take I know but they did.

[jobycom]

14. Just google your car and "oil change" and you'll probably find it.

Along with long discussions about how often to change it, probably. :)

[Roon]

15. I used to chang the oil myself

after getting the car on the ramps, scuffing around the dirty ground, getting burned and soiled by the old oil,wrenching to try and get the oil filter off..(i almost always had to puncture it and use a screwdriver to get the damn things off) and then trying to find a way to dispose of the old oil, ETC.

It's just worth having it done by jiffylube and saving yourself the grief and misery.

[jobycom]

24. Big advantage to my job...

I just toss the keys to my mechanics at work. They change it and only charge me for the oil and filter (at cost), not labor, because I work on their computers when they need it. Brakes, tires, a new clutch, control arms... It has perks. :)

[InvisibleTouch]

29. Yup, that was the conclusion I came to, myself.

Though at the time the price difference between doing it myself and having it done was about $5. These days, it's considerably more. To the point where I'm considering going for the grief and misery again.

[snooper2]

33. I don't like random un-trained jackholes messing with our vehicles

Plus the oil selection is usually crap...

Plus they usually don't let the car sit long enough to "fully drain"...

Plus they never fill the new filter with some new oil before screwing it on...

Did I mention the un-trained "you are not a mechanic" folks under your chassis yet :)

[JCMach1]

16. Also depends on where you live... Seattle shouldn't add much stress,

but if you live like me in UAE... or a climate like Phoenix...

Also, the new small 3 and 4 cylinders can burn pretty hot and require a change more often.

My friend has the tiny little Hyundai which requires every 3k.

[Art_from_Ark]

31. I have a 3-cylinder Japanese car

and the maker recommends an oil change every 1600 miles (and a filter change every 3200 miles)

[NoGOPZone]

18. you might be able to find an owner's manual online.

either on the manufacturer's site or a site dedicated to that type of info.

As for the interval, 5000 is the new 3000 as a general rule. What's best for you depends on a several factors, including the manual's recommendation, where you live, your driving style, and your typical daily commute

[RagAss]

6. Every 10k myself....200,000 miles on my truck.

[rug]

7. I'm at 5000 miles right now.

But then, my inspection expired last month too.

[stray cat]

8. 5000 is even too often usually

[Kolesar]

10. Best advice it to keep watching the oil for when it turns black and grimy

That means dirt is in the oil.

My Cobalt has an automatic system. It was at about 9000 miles before it told me it was due ~5% of oil life left. I use synthetic oil, though

[blueknight]

12. i have a 2011 hyundai sonata

mfg suggest change oil every 7500 miles:shrug:

[Kali]

17. how do you like your car?

what year is it? I drove a rental a few years ago and was favorably impressed with it. It was small but had enough clearance to get in our "safe" for cars detour (which isn't really THAT safe) and comfortable to drive for relatively long periods. If I recall, we had three different rentals around that time and the little cobalt was the best of the three. Don't remember what the others were but one was just awful and I can't imagine why anybody would ever want to own whatever it was.

[Kolesar]

19. I love my Cobalt

It is my favorite car ever. Automakers keep improving the power and definitely improve the handling. It has electric steering which is a little bit overpowered sometimes. The steering is supposed to be less powered at highway speeds so that the driver can feel the "road response" through the steering wheel.

I bought the manual transmission version and get over 35 mpg in my regular driving. I drive conservatively, and have adopted this driving technique where I try to keep the fuel consumption constant as I drive. The car has a display of "instanteneous mileage" on the driver information center (DIC). This driving technique is explained at www.ecomodder.com

For the last few model years, the Cobalt has had a manual transmission with an "extra high" fifth gear so that the engine can run at lower rpms. GM calls it the XFE version. It is rated 25/37 city/highway mpg .
The Cobalt is out of production, but you can still find them at the car dealers because the Cruze has just started arriving.

After January, there is going to be a Cruze-Eco rated above 40 mpg highway.

[jobycom]

13. 3000 miles was always a marketing ploy. 5000 to 7000 is more like it.

3000 miles was just what they said to make you buy more oil changes. Now they want to convince you that your car is a better value, so they are going with 5000 miles.

Oil just lubes the engine. The dirtier it gets, the less lube-y it is, but it still works, as long as you have oil in it. The cleaner it is, the less it wears on the engine, but dirty oil isn't going break your car down or do any immediate damage to it. The only issue is that over time and miles if you run it dirty more often you might wear the engine out faster, meaning the friction of the pistons against the cylinder walls will wear the walls and piston rings down so they don't fit as tightly and your engine will run a little less efficiently. Over a long time, it can run a lot less efficiently, of course, so running dirty oil for a long time can reduce engine life from, say, 250K to 220K.

That's not to imply that oil is unimportant or trivial. If you run too low the engine can be seriously damaged in no time at all, or it can lock up at once, cause major damage to all kind of components. That's not going to happen from dirty oil (unless there are contaminants in the system, just from very low oil (and by low I mean where you don't see any oil on the dipstick at all when you check it).

So going over the recommended change isn't a problem at all. The reason to change it is to prevent long-term wear. There's no immediate threat. Quick math. Say the oil gets dirty enough to increase engine wear around 5000 miles. If you always change it at 3000, you'll never get to that point. If you change it at 7000, you'll get about 2000 miles with slightly increased wear, and 5000 at no increased wear. At 50000 miles, you'll have changed the oil 7 times. Thirty-six thousand of that will be with no dirty-oil wear (7 times 5000, plus the last 1000)), and 14000 will be at a slightly increased wear (7 times the 2000 miles between 5000 and 7000 where the oil is a little dirty). That extra wear might knock a few hundred miles of life off the engine.

That wasn't a real formula, just a guess. Your oil gets dirtier if you speed on the highway a lot, or do a lot of stop and go traffic, or tow something--anything that makes the engine run hotter. And every car is different. In general, though, your engine is going to wear out from other things much faster than it will wear out from changing the oil at 5000 or 7000 miles. Running it a few hundred over once or twice won't make any more difference than forgetting to wash your underwear will decrease your life span.

I've never been good at keeping the oil changed. I went 30K miles on a car once (would not recommend that), and it still had 250K when I sold it. It was barely holding together by then, so I didn't hurt it much. Most cars I've owned I've held until well over 200K miles, and I've never changed oil at 3000 miles. I usually aim for 5K, but wind up around 7K. Now I use full synthetic, so I change it, on my mechanic's recommendation, at around 15K, and the oil is still clean. That's only synthetic, though, don't try that with regular oil. You can look at the oil on the dipstick and judge how dirty it is--if it's a little clear, it's fine. If it's solid black, it's too old. When it starts turning a burnt caramel color you've gone too long, so look at the dipstick to get an idea of how bad it is.

And since you should be wondering this, I'm not a mechanic, but I work with mechanics and my dad was one and I work on my own cars, so I'm about shade-tree level. :)

And if you don't trust anything I've said, toss it out and do what you feel comfortable with. It's your car. I won't be offended. :)

[old mark]

20. It won't matter that you are a thousand miles or so over your limit -

you just should make sure your oil is changed over the next month or so - keep it clean and the car will last a long time...FWIW, have your transmission fluid and filters changed every 50,000 miles, too - very few people ever do that and it WILL save you a lot of money over the years.

mark

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. No, not really - unless it gets dirty quickly, or it's more than 6 months old,

or you have a shitty engine that leaks oil and/or burns it as fuel, you don't need to change it that often.

As others have said, 5,000-7,000 is fine.

But, given that it only takes 20-30 minutes to get an oil change, no harm in having it done, either.

But, at this point, 200 miles won't make a whit of difference. No worries.

[applegrove]

22. What happens if you don't change your oil enough? I'm a car newbie. I don't know ****.

[gvstn]

23. You may get excessive wear on your engine.

Oil is a lubricant that helps keep the metal pieces of your engine sliding freely against each other. When the oil gets old (either by age or wear and tear from the heat your engine produces) it gets thicker and less slick so the metal pieces of your engine start to rub against each other and tiny, tiny, tiny fragments scratch off which hurts the efficiency of your engine. There will always be some friction and rubbing but clean oil minimizes it. If you never change your oil it will eventually become sludge-like and provide no protection so the metal pieces will actually scrape against each other and do considerable damage. (probably around 25,000 miles any oil will have become filthy and very dangerous to the health of your engine) A major engine repair is upwards of $2000.00 so $25.00 for an oil change twice a year is cheap insurance.

Think trying to cook fried onions. If you just put onions in a hot frying pan with no lubricant they will stick and burn. Add a little oil or butter and they slide around and you can brown them evenly. Engine parts are the same. Keep them sliding and they are happy. Cooking oil gets dark and retains odors from previously cooked foods. Engine oil gets dark and collects tiny shards of metal from previous runnings. You have to discard the old oil once and a while to get the best results.

Even if you get nothing else done to your car stop to get an oil change twice a year, Spring and Fall is an easy to remember rule. I don't worry about mileage but unless your owner's manual recommends the new HIGH standard of every 10,000 miles I'd go with changing it at least every 7,000 miles or twice a year.

It can't hurt to try and get to know your car. After an oil change ask the garage to pull the oil dipstick and show you what clean oil looks like on the dipstick and how to read the full and low mark (a reasonable request). Take note of the color of the oil. It should be pinkish but clear. Watch them put the dipstick back in. Then in 3,000 miles pull the oil dipstick and look at the color of the oil. It should still have some clearness to it. If the color has not changed much then it is still fine. If it has darkened considerably or is visibly thickened it should be changed. Most likely at 3,000 miles there is little change. At 5,000 it should be darker--light brown is OK but each degree of brown means it is getting dirtier so don't try to squeeze too much out of the oil. Don't let it get to dark brown or black but if you ever see such a color get i changed immediately.

[BlueCollar]

25. don't sweat it

as long as you have enough oil you'll be fine...

[Orrex]

26. You fool! You'll kill us all!

[doc03]

27. My Toyota manual recommends 5000 miles

or 6 months but since I use synthetic I am sure I could go much longer. I recently test drove the new Mustang 6 cylinder they recommend 10000 miles on them but have 8 quarts capacity.

[Rochester]

28. I change mine at 3,000 miles

and it looks plenty dirty enough, even though I have to add oil now and again between changes because it leaks a little oil because of its age.
But I don't sweat it if it goes a hundred or two over. It can wait a few days for nicer weather, weekend/more time available, etc.

[guitar man]

30. I try to do mine every 3000

Most of the time it winds up about 3500 but the important thing is that it gets changed regularly. And use good quality oil. I use castrol gtx, valvoline is good too.

We have a 1995 Lincoln mark viii that currently has around 225k miles and that old engine runs like new and doesn't use any oil.

[EOTE]

32. Standard oil is good for at least 5k now.

Synthetics can go much longer than that. How much time that passes between changes is also a factor, but if you use a full synthetic, 10k miles between changes is really sufficient.

[BreweryYardRat]

34. It's not essential to change it right at 3,000.

An extra 200 miles isn't going to be a big deal. Check the oil level and purity -- if it's ok, you can wait on the change. The maximum before you change it should be about 5,000.