13,000 miles on cheap dino !!!

[martyi]

That is just what a friend of mine did who lives in Ohio. He bought a truck and changed the oil and filter after a few thousand miles. All he ever did to it after that was top off (although he did change the filter a couple more times). Never a problem and it still ran good when he traded at 100K.

You know, I'll bet that a lot of today's vehicles could run just fine to 100K by using synthetic or even very good dino oil with LC, changing filter every 10K and never doing a thing more than top off. I guess it all depends on what kind of gambler you are and how long you intend to keep the car.

 

[wavinwayne]

Some of these stories make me feel sick.

 

[ekpolk]

Not that I'd ever endorse any of these outrageous abuses, but some of these examples do seem to show that contrary to the beliefs of the short-OCI-or-die follks, engines don't immediately go into their self-destruct sequence the day the oil rolls past 3k or even 5k miles since the last change.

 

[Vortec_4300]

I was too embarassed to let my post stand, so I am editing it to remove my story.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

A lot of the people in these stories would be hard to sell an oil analysis to

 

[bfg9k]

quote:

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Originally posted by dave1251:
[QB] posted 20 September, 2005 14:26
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My brother has a 95 toyota corolla. He hasn't changed the oil in 100,000 miles. It as about 225,000 on it now.

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I must admit, when I owned my old 1990 Camry I was somewhat lazy about oil changes. It held 4 qts and would burn through a quart every 3k miles, so I would top it off and change the oil and filter every 5-6k miles. I figured by the time I got around to an oil change 50% of the oil was pretty new.

It had 188k miles when I sold it - the engine ran great!

I am since reformed and am fairly obsessive about car maintenance

 

[brianl703]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan:
I've seen a lot of old Nissan's and Toyota's running like this in the DC Metro area.At least he changed the filter at 10K!

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Are they the ones producing blue "visible smoke" at idle and every shift?

 

[bobo]

Anyone who abuses their vehicle in the manner depicted in this thread should be b!tch slapped, IMHO!

 

[DakJack]

I typically go 10k to 12k between changes in my 99 Stratus with a 2.4l. Of course it is using about a quart every 5k to 6k and I top it off at that point so I'm not really killing it.
I always changed it at 7.5k (based on the manual, not on the dealer and their "recommended or void the warranty" crap) until it started using oil and at 140k miles it still runs great.
I used to have a neighbor who never changed his oil. He was like some of the others mentioned - his truck burned a little oil so he'd top it off when necessary and change the filter about once a year.

 

[ikarus1]

I had a 78 Toyota Corolla that I * never * changed oil in. Of course, I paid $200 for it in 1996. That was the cheapest to drive car I ever owned. It had 183K miles on it when I got it and then the odometer died around 200K. I would add oil when the oil light came on, and the only repairs I ever performed was once I bought a water pump for $20 and put it on the car at Autozone

using their tools of course! I took it baja jumping on a golf course once and stuck a branch of a sapling thru the radiator. Went to the store, bought some of that "radiator putty", took off the radiator, patched it, and put it back on and drove it until it was impounded!
Of course, most of my money was going for college-style entertainment purposes!

 

[Rick]

This is hilarious.

 

[kenw]

I guess if a car burns enough oil, topping off is all you'll ever need to do.

 

[ikarus1]

the funny thing is the car's floorpan was rusted so bad that you could watch the passenger side suspension work if you pulled back the carpet. I would love to have that car back for UOAs now!

 

[Alexbobus]

This is a great thread....I had a good friend that had a 1970 Buick Grand Sport that someone had backed into the front end and bent the hood down such that it couldn't be opened. It was just town driven and maybe once a year did a road trip of 100 miles. Anyway, he decides to take a big road trip to New Orleans and asked if I would service his car. I got a crow bar and bent the hood back up so that I could open it and what a mess. As best I could tell the hood hadn't been opened in over two years. The air cleaner had a rodents nest, radiator was very low, battery was about dry and the oil looked like thick, grey paint. This was years ago and STP marketed an oil and filters. I thought this was the best oil to use for this at the time and changed the oil and serviced the car. He took his trip w/o incident and when I tried to show him how to check things, he said that he didn't need to because I would always be there to take care of it. Hard to argue with a buddy and I wish he was still alive to service his car for him.

 

[Brons2]

quote:

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Originally posted by dave1251:
What do they make them vehicals out of down there?

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Hey, there's no kangaroos in AUSTRIA.

Hope this helps.

 

[racer12306]

i worked at jiffy lube for the past 4.5 years. i had one car that was about 35000 miles since its last oil change, their reason "we were moving and lost track of it".

there was another one similar but worse. the car had 45000 or so miles on it. when we pulled it in our computer the last record we had was for an oil change at 5000. normally we just figure that they went elsewhere in between. not this one, it had our filter on it and to prove it was from the store that was on the computer work, the filter was signed by the techs with techs initials, date, and store #. i told the customer it had been 40000+ miles since the last oil change and she said no it hasnt, i said it has our filter on it from the 5000 mile oil change.

 

[ekpolk]

quote:

---

Originally posted by racer12306:
i worked at jiffy lube for the past 4.5 years. i had one car that was about 35000 miles since its last oil change, their reason "we were moving and lost track of it".

there was another one similar but worse. the car had 45000 or so miles on it. when we pulled it in our computer the last record we had was for an oil change at 5000. normally we just figure that they went elsewhere in between. not this one, it had our filter on it and to prove it was from the store that was on the computer work, the filter was signed by the techs with techs initials, date, and store #. i told the customer it had been 40000+ miles since the last oil change and she said no it hasnt, i said it has our filter on it from the 5000 mile oil change.

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Oh for Pete's sake, you can't leave us hanging like that -- what came out of it (if anything...)?

 

[racer12306]

well the 37000 miles on came out in clumps, we tried everything we could to get it cleaner. put clean oil in it new filter, ran it for 5 or 10 min, didnt help. we had one of these over priced engine flush machines ($70 a pop+oil change) didnt help, i think they even tried tranny fluid (probably wasnt the best idea), didnt help. it ended up leaving with new oil (kind of) i bet it was still clumpy, they probably didnt get many more miles out of it. i dont know how the other one was, i wasnt working on it. but im sure it wasnt pretty.

 

[racer12306]

forgot about a personal one. my fiances brother went 11000 on conventional 5w20 in his honda, and the stuff looked great, no oil loss, not black, i was very surprised.

 

[JohnnyG]

quote:

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forgot about a personal one. my fiances brother went 11000 on conventional 5w20 in his honda, and the stuff looked great, no oil loss, not black, i was very surprised.

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Jeez! I just went 12,650 on 5W-30 dino in my Silverado and the UOA came back a little high on lead.

Judging from all these stories, GM cars and trucks with Oil Life Monitors should last forever.......IF people listen to them. Finally an idiot light for TRUE idiots!