This is most probably because of condense appearing at the metal. When she only do short trips, this will get into the oil. When the oil is warmed up(on a longer trip) the water will evaporate. This is the reason why you should do a longer trip, once in a while.
Oil change every 7,500 miles is fine for some vehi
- Thread starter Mike_dup1
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Something must be wrong with your PCV system. My mom does identical 1-2 mile trips in the winter and I changed the oil every 7500 miles or so (+/- 2000 miles) and the engine only has a light stain of varnish when I removed the valve cover a few months ago back at 96k. I use the cheapest oil and filters as well.
You live in Sacramento; Trondos and Jonny-b live in Norway. Winter conditions are very different, and condensation causing oil to look like a milk shake is common in cold climates when the engine doesn't get hot enough.
The solution is a trip of 30 miles or so, 2-4 times a month, to boil away any moisture in the oil. Or more frequent oil changes.
My Volvo owners manual states 10k miles or one year when used prodominatly highway. Under harsh conditions such as short trips under 7 miles, towing and in dusty conditions, 5K mile or 6 month oil changes.
considering in 1992, Mitsubishi recommended 7500 miles for OCI's on my galant, i think with advances in today's oils, it can easily do 7500 on oil...especially synthetic!
That would be my wife and her '04 Honda Odyssey. Last 5900 mile OCI on Havoline 5w-20 SM/GF-4 looked just fine, UOA results here
UOA results including TBN on our recent change of Durablend 5W-20 in an Accord seem to indicate that taking that out to 7,500 miles as Honda recommends wouldn't be a problem. I'm probably going to stay with 5k mile changes just because the math is easy ... next oil change at 70k miles is easy to remember
. As a DIY I only spend an average of $10 on an oil and filter change, so no big deal.
Remember, TBN doesn't necessarily drop linearly. From what I've seen, it seems to drop most quickly at first, then level out, and can stay at an acceptable lower level for quite some time. This is the opposite of what I expected...I expected it to hold high for quite a while, then drop precipitously as the buffering agents became saturated, or used up, or whatever happens to them, because that's more like the way that blood in humans behaves. Obviously, even if Oil in an engine is often called the blood of the engine, it's buffering systems don't act the same.
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