Oil "Life" Indicator

[Whimsey]

For our 2005 Explorer the "OLM" seems is just a mileage/time counter. As long as my wife was driving it for work and errands it went "off" at 5,000 miles, less than 6 months of driving. I'm now driving it now and it doesn't reach 5,000 miles in a 6 month period, even though it's mainly highway driving, it goes of at 6 months instead of 5,000 miles. My wife's 2017 Explorer has an "iOLM" and it seems to measure off loss of 10% oil life for every 1,000 miles driven. This seems to occur whether it's a majority of summer highway travel or "everyday" travel in the fall/early winter temps.

Whimsey

 

[jeepman3071]

Originally Posted By: HouseTiger
This time it came on with 0% oil life at 2,850 miles.




I'm thinking it's a Ford thing. I service a family friend's 2009 Escape with the 2.5 4 cylinder. The oil monitor comes on about every 3,000 miles regardless of her driving. I just tell her to go by the sticker I put in the windshield, since I usually just use a good conventional oil and filter for 5,000 miles. The car has more than 90k on it now and looking through the fill cap the engine is spotless inside.

 

[Excel]

Guilt meter!

funny we were just talking about folks who change the oil once every few years
then trade the car in.....

I do mine every 10K

 

[oliveoil]

Manufacturers created the OLM for the rest of the population that doesn’t frequent this site. The engineers did a lot of testing to create these computerized OLM’s. I trust them.

 

[SilverFusion2010]

The one in my fusion is just a mileage counter. 7500mi

 

[jjbaer12]

Can't believe a lot of these oil change indicators though. Take GMs oil life indicator in the 2500 HD Silverado with Duramax diesel for example. My 2019 will go a whopping 4 weeks during which time the oil life goes from 100% down to 2%. Then it will stay at 2% for weeks on end until I change it at which time I reset it. A post by another person a few years ago has a lengthy write up on it (sounds like he worked on it for the person who invented it) and he describes it as basically using such items as rpm, temp, miles, idle hrs, number of regeneration cycles, etc., as factors to determine remaining oil life. But something is flawed in the way it crunches the result as my driving habits during the first 4 weeks of an oil change (during which time oil life goes from 100 down to 2%) are exactly the same for the next 4 week time period during which time the oil life remains solidly at 2% for the entire 4 week period! This tells me the implementation of this oil life indicator is flawed and the results of it are not to be believed. NO reputable oil life indicator system will tell you you have lost 98% of you oil life in 4 weeks and then tell you that you have lost NONE of the remaining 2% in the next 4 week period!! The only way to determine when to change oil is by using an oil analysis or by just changing religiously every 3000 miles.

 

[4WD]

Ignore it or get it checked …
I have used them for years and they always seem inline with our driving patterns …
However … the range we learn winds up helping in picking a average OCI that is logistically feasible

 

[Hall]

Clearly something is flawed. I'll bet a software update fixes it....