Can Oil be changed too much?

[69GTX]

Originally Posted By: Yah-Tah-Hey
I change oil and filter every six months even though we only drive less than five thousand miles a year. Don't worry about it. It is what some consider wasteful but that isn't a mortal sin.


Just changed my Mobil 1 on my 1999 Camaro - 1 yr at 900 miles. It was pretty dark too. And I always do 15-20 mile rides minimum. Never short tripped. Most warm weather rides. M1 oil filter now starting its 3rd year of use (2,000-3,000 miles).

 

[Duffyjr]

So what's worse here, running an engine to much on fresh oil or running an engine to much on oil thats contaminate with fuel and moisture?

 

[Whipcitywrencher]

Originally Posted By: Yah-Tah-Hey
I change oil and filter every six months even though we only drive less than five thousand miles a year. Don't worry about it. It is what some consider wasteful but that isn't a mortal sin.


I do about the same oci spring and fall.I do a lot of short trips.
Also my engine seems to run quieter after an oil change.

 

[4WD]

Originally Posted By: 69GTX
Originally Posted By: Yah-Tah-Hey
I change oil and filter every six months even though we only drive less than five thousand miles a year. Don't worry about it. It is what some consider wasteful but that isn't a mortal sin.


Just changed my Mobil 1 on my 1999 Camaro - 1 yr at 900 miles. It was pretty dark too. And I always do 15-20 mile rides minimum. Never short tripped. Most warm weather rides. M1 oil filter now starting its 3rd year of use (2,000-3,000 miles).


Saw one today … Platinum colored, T-Top’s pulled off … he was in it a bit and sounded wicked … nice ride.

 

[Tikka]

Originally Posted By: JC1
What oil are you using Tikka?

That oil isn't being changed too much. My wife's civic is usually a short tripper most times. It is stored in a Garage so usually winter starts aren't that bad on it. I normally use Full synthetic in the car.


Hi
At the moment it is running PETRONAS Syntium 5w-30 MB229.51 as used by the Jeep Dealers over here.

 

[Tikka]

Hi Gents.
Well it's fair to say we have the whole spectrum of opinions in this thread

.
I suppose the only way to tell would be submitting a sample for analysis?

 

[kschachn]

Which parameters of an analysis would you look at to determine that changing your oil too often is harmful to the engine?

Originally Posted By: Tikka
Hi Gents.
Well it's fair to say we have the whole spectrum of opinions in this thread

.
I suppose the only way to tell would be submitting a sample for analysis?

 

[Tikka]

Sorry kschachn should have made myself clearer.
I was thinking on the lines of at least an analysis would tell me if my Oil should be replaced at 6 months or if it had plenty life left in it.

 

[BrocLuno]

A read through these papers might give some indication of what happens when fresh oil is put in place to often ...

Link to BITOG forum articals

Shannow and I are both using a scheme to offset filter changes by some time to allow new tribo-reactents to be establish while there are some already in place in the residual oil.

I know it is "feel good" to have all new, all fresh oil in the system with a new filter, but it is not necessary. What is necessary is to have decent chemistry, control of contaminates, adequate TBN, and the like.

That can be achieved by fractional replacement as is convenient on some engines. The oil change on my wife's XJ6 is under the car, but the filter access is from the top and under the intake so quite fussy.

So I do one one day, and the other week or two later. It's a 7 qt system. 6 new and one old for two weeks will not hurt anything. About the same as the big Bronco and the F-150 4x4.

The Jag now has 187K, the Bronco 223K, and both pass SMOG easily and run well. I hope the Bronco will go to 300K before I have to get into the engine proper. The Jag, who knows ... The F-150 is under a 100K, so it's likely decades away from a tear-down

 

[Tikka]

Wow! I tried to understand the information in the link but it went completely over my head. A lot of things go over my head though. Maybe I should have been a Limbo dancer

 

[1JZ_E46]

Thanks Broc. That’s what I was referring to in my earlier post in this thread that didn’t get taken seriously.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Sure they can you run out of pocket book and your engine really isn't treated any better after a certain point.

 

[BrocLuno]

Oil life has a useful curve. All fresh, not the greatest at wear control. Old and oxidized, contaminated, out of TBN - bad too ...

The trick is to find the sweet spot and go with that. I think we can all agree that most modern oils from any reputable refiner can go well in excess of 6,000 miles (GDI excepted). But we don't really know where the upper limit is ...

If an engine is in good condition and contaminates are low, 25,000 miles is prolly a good cut-off. UOA's would tell more. But UOA's do not look at all the chemistry ... They hit the high points. And with modern chemistry like organic calcium additives for some oils, you would not know what they are doing from a UOA.

OTR trucks routinely change oil at 25,000 miles. That is a number learned from many, many decades of fleet mangers experience. It works well enough.

With the cost of UOA's being about the same as an oil change for most Harry Homeowner vehicles, it does not make sense to do trend analysis and such. Just cheaper and maybe easier to change the oil. So we are back to guessing and erring on the conservative side ...

Tuttlevette has thread going over in PCMO about what oil to choose if it would never be changed again? It parallels this one in some ways. I have quit being a fan buoy for most oils and just run what I have on hand. My current stash will see our personal fleet out more than a decade. With occasional filter changes and top-ups, I can safely and easily stretch oil life to three years per vehicle. But I have to be on the ball for color changes that might indicate coolant leaks, etc.

At this point everything in the driveway is port injected. No fuel dilution issues, etc. The engines are quite happy with broken-in oil that has built up a slug of active AW compounds. I plan to keep going on that path

 

[chrisri]

Changing oil too often will not make a difference, either way. When deciding on OCI duration one should first look what manufacturer have to say, as a guideline. Fleet buys, commercial leasing, strong competition urge OEM to compromise. You can't sell new vehicle in 2018 with 10k km OCI. It won't work in EU market.

Second to look at is way of use. City, short drives contaminate oil faster. Also oil has more hours in service.

For personal vehicles I use 1/3 to Max 1/2 of recommended interval. That works for me.

Vans we use for work are leased, 40k km for 1.6 Expert and 50k km for a 2.0 Boxer. They will get just that and nothing more. Yes, first OCI on 40 and 50k.

 

[billt460]

Trying to dictate what is the proper mileage or time for an oil change, becomes an impossible and inaccurate task for oil manufacturers. Mostly because of how much climate and driving conditions and times vary. This is especially true in the United States. Where weather, temperature, and humidity differ greatly. In a temperate Northern or Midwestern climate, involving someone who never warms up their vehicle because of a lot of short trip driving, a 10,000 mile oil change is ridiculous. They never get the oil hot enough to get rid of condensation. Especially in freezing cold Winter months.

This as opposed to someone who lives in a warm, dry desert climate. And travels 30 minutes or more to and from work every day. And gets the oil temp above the boiling point every time. Mileage is another consideration. I'll use myself as a good example. I'm retired, and live in an area where most everything I require is located within 5 or 10 minutes of my home. We also have a total of 3 vehicles. So on an individual basis, each one gets driven very little.

My 3 year old 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee just turned 8,000 miles. So if I were to go by mileage alone, (or that silly % indicator on the dash), I would be changing oil every 5 years or more. That's insane. So when you get right down to it, it doesn't matter in the least how long the manufacturer say's it will last on the bottle. Because they have no clue of the type of driving that is going to be encountered by the vehicle it is being poured into. As a direct result there are a lot of vehicles being driven with oil in them that needed to be change eons ago. But hasn't been because that big number on the bottle has not been reached yet.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: billt460
My 3 year old 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee just turned 8,000 miles. So if I were to go by mileage alone, (or that silly % indicator on the dash), I would be changing oil every 5 years or more. That's insane.


So the engineers who designed your oil life monitoring system can't be trusted ?

What does it say in your manual ?

My Colorado (2016), the OLM behaves very much as I would (as an engineer) expect...lots of short tripping, it would have me change the oil at 5-6,000 miles. Highway, 13-15,000 miles. The manual then states that you shouldn't exceed 12 month.

What's insane about any of those... ?

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
So the engineers who designed your oil life monitoring system can't be trusted ?


I've never reset it since I bought the vehicle new, over 3 years ago. It is still telling me I've got "14% range" still left on the oil the car was delivered with. Which was drained out 2-1/2 years ago. Not to mention I get a monthly "Vehicle Health Report" E-Mailed to me direct from Chrysler, with a nice big green check mark on "oil life". So you tell me? You wouldn't leave oil in that long. I wouldn't leave oil in that long. But I can guarantee you people are based on what it, and Chrysler is telling them.

 

[CONMCK]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: billt460
My 3 year old 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee just turned 8,000 miles. So if I were to go by mileage alone, (or that silly % indicator on the dash), I would be changing oil every 5 years or more. That's insane.


So the engineers who designed your oil life monitoring system can't be trusted ?

What does it say in your manual ?

My Colorado (2016), the OLM behaves very much as I would (as an engineer) expect...lots of short tripping, it would have me change the oil at 5-6,000 miles. Highway, 13-15,000 miles. The manual then states that you shouldn't exceed 12 month.

What's insane about any of those... ?


Just to add,
I believe that the engineers who design the OLM systems have the expertise at there fingertips and therefore are in a better position than the average person on this forum to decide, design and incorporate theses systems into our vehicles. From what I understand (with GM), that there monitoring systems are actually programmed to be on the conservative side of conventional oils useful life to prevent any undesirable events from taking place inside the engine. Used oil analysis is a great tool to use to confirm a persons opinions.

Back to the OP questions, I believe from a cost perspective that oil can be changed more than necessary, the only bad thing about this is wasted money. Your not hurting the engine by doing this, just your pocket book. The only caveat here would be operating in dusty climates where there can be dirt ingress into the engine which is undesirable and in this case would warrant more frequent oil changes..

My own experience with GM vehicles since 2001 is that I have never had a bad UOA oil sample when changing the oil when the OLM reached 0. Because of favorable results (all wear metals ppm's in the single digits) I'm now going ahead on my 2011 duramax and will be extending my oil/filter change by approximately 2000 miles on my next change. Typically 100% of the OLM is about 10,000 mile (16,000 km) and I will extend it out to 12,000 miles (19,000 km) for the current run. FWIW I am using Mobil Delvac 0w-40 diesel oil, CJ.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted By: CONMCK
I believe that the engineers who design the OLM systems have the expertise at there fingertips and therefore are in a better position than the average person on this forum to decide, design and incorporate theses systems into our vehicles.


By designing a system that stares you in the face every time you start your vehicle. And tells you that you still have 14% service length left in oil that would have been in your crankcase for over 3 years? And in the process end up with an electronic system that contradicts the owners manual these same "engineers" helped write. (Page 676):

"NOTE: Under no circumstances should oil change intervals
exceed 10,000 miles (16,000 km) or twelve months,
whichever comes first."

https://cdn.dealereprocess.net/cdn/servicemanuals/jeep/2015-grandcherokee.pdf

"Your vehicle is equipped with an automatic oil change
indicator system.... Based on engine operation conditions, the oil change
indicator message will illuminate."

So based on that. And based on the fact the manual clearly states that, "Under no circumstances should oil change intervals exceed 12 months", why didn't my light come on 2 YEARS AGO like it should have, and like the manual clearly indicates? (As I said, I have never reset the system since I bought the vehicle). Not only that, but as I stated in my post, this is compounded by Chrysler Jeep sending me E-Mails every month telling me my oil is just dandy, with a nice big green check mark. 36 E-Mails in 3 years.

People glance at manuals if and when they have free time. Yet they have this contraption telling them their oil is fine, each and every time they start their engine. And an E-Mail to reinforce it every month in their Inbox. A lot of people have no clue about time and distance in regards to oil change intervals. So many of them will be following this thing to the letter. And most likely are very happy they have been falsely led to believe their car can go so long without service. Because they have "engineers with expertise" who designed a system that tells them this. In spite of the fact in this case it obviously would be doing more harm than good..... If I followed it.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: billt460
"NOTE: Under no circumstances should oil change intervals
exceed 10,000 miles (16,000 km) or twelve months,
whichever comes first."


That's why I asked what your manual says when you were spraying about the silly number...My colorado clearly states that even if the number ISN'T zero, change the oil at 12 months.

If you haven't changed your oil in 12 months, just like in my Colorado, you are in breach of the manual...pure and simple.

You have stated in the other threads that owners MUST familiarise themselves with their manuals and obey them to the letter...so what gives ?

And if you followed the monitor down to zero, the cumulative harm in an engine that does 10,000 miles in 3, 4, or 5 years is virtually...zero.

Around town service, my (much smarter apparently) Colorado would have upped stumps at less than 4,500 miles (previous owner burned 62% of the oil life in 4,500km - would have hit zero at 12 months). Me driving like a normal person, it's heading to 16,000km, and coincidentally 12 months.