Oil change interval with low mileage

N

need2no

Joined
Jul 19, 2020
Messages
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I did try to search for this topic, but was not able to find one that relates to my situation. I have a few cars and am retired, I don't put many miles on any one car. At most, I post mileage of about 3000 miles per year. At this point I have been changing the oil every year with Amsoil synthetic oils, no matter the mileage (as mentioned, never over 3000 miles). Most of my mileage is highway, probably about 80% highway. The recommended manufacture OCI varies from 6 months to 1 year with a varied range of mileage. I have a couple of questions. If I only drive about 3000 miles a year on a given car is a 1 year OCI okay if the manufacturer suggests 6 months (but at 6000 miles)? There are some vehicles where I drive less than 1000 miles. Is one year still recommended (which I have been doing), or can I extend the time to more than a year on those low mileage cars? Sorry if this topic has been beaten to death, but I have not found one seems similar to my situation.
Thanks,
John
 
Your MFG's "suggests" and "recommended". There has been ample data produced by UOA's that not just suggest but prove oils do not have a clock or calendar.

In your case, a 2 year interval would be perfectly fine. There is NO way I would dump any synthetic at 3000 miles. At 2 years and 6000 miles the oil would still have significant life left in it.
 
Need more info.
Are you in Northern USA?
Live nearby an Ocean?
Are these GDI / TGDI engines?
Can you tell us more precise mileage per year, for each of these three vehicles?
 
Interesting! You joined in July 2020 and this is your first post.
WELCOME-ish ;)

Depending on the type of vehicle you own and it’s engine, you are most likely throwing away Amsoil every 3000 miles. You may want to consider another lesser expensive synthetic such as Supertech from Walmart or another store brand or the larger name brands that are much le$$ expensive but will all do a FABULOUS job for your needs.

I agree that knowing what type of vehicle and engine you have along with the climate/terrain that you’re driving in would also be of great help for us to do a recommendation for you. You mention highway miles, which is the easiest type of miles you can put on an engine/vehicle so I would say just from that and not knowing anything else about your vehicle, you could easily extend the miles for your oil change interval(OCI). (y)
 
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I am also retired, have 3 vehicles and take care of one more (for oil changes)...I never get to the 5K mark on any of them (but near on some) and have been using a 1 year/5K mileage interval for oil changes when using full synthetic in all of them...2 of the vehicles are turbocharged and 4 of them are GDI engines...

As long as you continue to monitor your vehicle oil usage, I can't see where you'd have any issues with the once a year or 5K mileage OCI unless one of your vehicle has shown any special needs/issues...

Good luck with your choice

Bill
 
Several of us have successfully run 2, 3, and even 4 year intervals in low-mileage applications such as what you state. I suspect you'll be perfectly fine stretching out your OCIs and ignoring the calendar.

However, the only way to know for sure (not guess) is to experiment and take some UOAs for your specific circumstances. Start in the first year taking a UOA. If all is fine, then stretch it out another year. And so on. Let the data be your guide, not some arbitrary number.
 
dnewton3 said:
Several of us have successfully run 2, 3, and even 4 year intervals in low-mileage applications such as what you state. I suspect you'll be perfectly fine stretching out your OCIs and ignoring the calendar.

However, the only way to know for sure (not guess) is to experiment and take some UOAs for your specific circumstances. Start in the first year taking a UOA. If all is fine, then stretch it out another year. And so on. Let the data be your guide, not some arbitrary number.
Click to expand...
^^^^Absolutely. Why know when you can guess? Speculation abounds on this board and every other site I participate in. Regarding your situation, you haven't told us if the engine(s) are GDI or turbo'd, which would shorten the useful life expectancy of the oil, nevertheless, a couple of UOA will tell you, not guess or speculate. There was a fellow on here awhile back who had a Chevy? truck he didn't use too much, he went 5 years and ~1700 or so miles, then did UOA. His numbers were so normal it was boring. YMMV, but UOA will answer your ??? BTW, I am also an Amsoil fanfboy, I do UOA and now have an almost 12 year history of doing so, and I usually do 12-15K OCI, not GDI or turbo.
 
need2no said:
I did try to search for this topic, but was not able to find one that relates to my situation. I have a few cars and am retired, I don't put many miles on any one car. At most, I post mileage of about 3000 miles per year. At this point I have been changing the oil every year with Amsoil synthetic oils, no matter the mileage (as mentioned, never over 3000 miles). Most of my mileage is highway, probably about 80% highway. The recommended manufacture OCI varies from 6 months to 1 year with a varied range of mileage. I have a couple of questions. If I only drive about 3000 miles a year on a given car is a 1 year OCI okay if the manufacturer suggests 6 months (but at 6000 miles)? There are some vehicles where I drive less than 1000 miles. Is one year still recommended (which I have been doing), or can I extend the time to more than a year on those low mileage cars? Sorry if this topic has been beaten to death, but I have not found one seems similar to my situation.
Thanks,
John
Click to expand...
If I were in your situation, and congrats on being in that situation, I would change that specific oil every 6000 miles or 4 years, whichever came first. YMMV Good luck with your decisions.
 
Hello CharBaby and congratulations on your retirement. I retired at age 58 and now at 85 and never regreated it for a day.
Gads, I got off topic didn't I.
Since the vehicle is driven to a FULL Warm up, I think there is no issue in changing oil (not filter) every third year. Ed
 
need2no said:
I did try to search for this topic, but was not able to find one that relates to my situation. I have a few cars and am retired, I don't put many miles on any one car. At most, I post mileage of about 3000 miles per year. At this point I have been changing the oil every year with Amsoil synthetic oils, no matter the mileage (as mentioned, never over 3000 miles). Most of my mileage is highway, probably about 80% highway. The recommended manufacture OCI varies from 6 months to 1 year with a varied range of mileage. I have a couple of questions. If I only drive about 3000 miles a year on a given car is a 1 year OCI okay if the manufacturer suggests 6 months (but at 6000 miles)? There are some vehicles where I drive less than 1000 miles. Is one year still recommended (which I have been doing), or can I extend the time to more than a year on those low mileage cars? Sorry if this topic has been beaten to death, but I have not found one seems similar to my situation.
Thanks,
John
Click to expand...
As others indicated , you are perfectly fine with 1 year OCI - in fact, more than fine. If I had a car with less than 1000, then I would even stretch to more than 2+ years without a doubt.

On a side note, an older (e.g., 2005 - 2007) Porsche manual says "2 years / 20,000 miles" as the OCI (they now recommend 12K I think). My buddy (who is a tranny fluid engineer) has an older Porsche Boxster and his OCI is 5K / 1 yr...and he thinks he is over-doing it...
 
Thank you for everyone's feedback. I really appreciate it.

Sorry for not including details about the vehicles I drive. Below is the list of cars that I drive (actually a little embarassed listing the cars):
2004 VW R32
2019 VW GTI
2003 BMW M3
2005 Mazda 3s
2012 Subaru Outback 3.6
1999 Chevy Tahoe (Tow vehicle)

Less frequent, but still driven:
1990 Honda CRX Si (original owner, yes I am old)
1992 VW Corrado SLC
1995 Mazda Miata

I don't drive any of the vehicles more than 3000 miles per year, and a few of them get less than 1000 miles per year. I live in a small town in rural eastern Colorado. Everything that I own is garaged. Most of the cars are NA engines, except the GTI which is turbo'd and DI.

I hope this gives everyone a clearer picture of what I am trying to convey

Thanks,

John
 
Those are some amazing cars John! I think you would be perfectly fine doing two year intervals with all of them. When my mom was alive she only drove about 3000 miles a year so I changed her oil every two years and did an oil analysis and it showed the oil to still be serviceable. She had an 02 VW Golf and I ran synthetic oil (Castrol 0w30) I also did a two year interval on my old 2005 Corvette, IIRC it was about 8000 miles and the oil analysis results also came back great.
 
need2no said:
Thank you for everyone's feedback. I really appreciate it.

Sorry for not including details about the vehicles I drive. Below is the list of cars that I drive (actually a little embarassed listing the cars):
2004 VW R32
2019 VW GTI
2003 BMW M3
2005 Mazda 3s
2012 Subaru Outback 3.6
1999 Chevy Tahoe (Tow vehicle)

Less frequent, but still driven:
1990 Honda CRX Si (original owner, yes I am old)
1992 VW Corrado SLC
1995 Mazda Miata

I don't drive any of the vehicles more than 3000 miles per year, and a few of them get less than 1000 miles per year. I live in a small town in rural eastern Colorado. Everything that I own is garaged. Most of the cars are NA engines, except the GTI which is turbo'd and DI.

I hope this gives everyone a clearer picture of what I am trying to convey

Thanks,

John
Click to expand...
Forget the cars at this point, we want to see the garage that can handle all these!

But on a more serious note, with them all being kept indoors, I'd be comfortable with 2 year intervals if they don't hit 5k miles.
 
Being stored inside, the cars are not as subject to condensation cycles from the cold. You are fine going 2 or even more years on those IMHO. I have several old vehicles and none get annual oil changes, some go 3-4 years; I basically go on mileage depending on engine condition. All stored inside, When they do get driven, it is long enough for complete warm-up and miles. Don't worry, the biggest issue is get those cars out and enjoy driving them.
 
Thank you to everyone who responded. I will probably go for more than 1 year for my next oil change. It will definitely save me some money.

I have had a couple of people who wanted to see my garages. Below are pictures of my two storage spaces for my cars. Thanks again.
 

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Nice fleet.

Being in a very similar situation, I change the oil in the fun fleet below annually just before Winter storage, and I use either Redline or Mobil1. None of the vehicles see near 3k/yr, but I see oil as cheap insurance. Am I disposing of oil with life left in it? Probably, but that isn't my primary concern.

R32 and Corrado, two favorites.
 
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