You guys who pile the miles up weekly on your ride

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Apr 7, 2017
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Mississippi
bc you drive for work or just like to drive......what is your OCI regimen and what are you using, motor oil-wise and are you considering changing OCI's and oil wt or brand?
 
I'm facing uncertainty in regards to my Hyundai OCI. I'll be hitting 4K on this current oil change in about three weeks and will change it. But I might only be at an additional 3K when the cold weather hits in mid / late November. I never do oil changes in freezing, snowy season. So that next oil change will come in late November and it will get changed, regardless if I only racked-up 3k or less.

My wife's Kia gets even less use. She won't be due for an OC until late July. So the next one won;t be due until after the snow season ends next April or-so. The Kia OCI length is 5K. It's a MPI engine, versus the Hyundai GDI engine, which gets changed every 4k.
 
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Good topic starter Speak to the Mountain;

My daily commute to work is 45 miles round trip. When I'm sent out of town, I drive 350 miles one way, park my truck and use the company truck to and from the hotel.
Tomorrow I'm driving 1100 miles to Brandon, Manitoba for a week. 24,000 miles (40k kms) is the most I've put on my beater in one year, a 2011 GMC 6.6L now deleted Duramax.
Summer; usually CK-4 15W40 or Duron SAE 40. Winter; either 5w40 or 0w40. OCI; 10,000 miles or less.

My daughter is using my 2018 Chev 3500 for now.The free oil changes are used up, I change the oil whenever I get the chance. Same engine,but L5P, which is an awesome power plant
compared to the LML.

My son owns a 2013 5,3L GMC getting close to 150,000 miles, always towing or off road. SIL a 2008 Ram 6.7L, the daughter's nanny a 2014 2L Escape.
I bought the Escape from my boss who finally smartened up and bought a 2019 GMC truck.

Weather permitting 15w40 goes in everything most of the time.Whatever name brand is on sale at the moment.
By name brand, I mean the blender must own the lube plant like Shell, Chevron.Petro-Canada etc.
 
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I have a 2018 Silverado with nearly 63,000 miles. I just change when the OLM is 0-7% percent unless I know due to my schedule I won't be able to change the oil before the OLM hits zero. IRC the shortest OCI I did was about 5K because I knew I had a busy month ahead and if I didn't do it then I would go over the recommended 7.5K OCI.

I used to be a Pennzoil user. Now I just use a synthetic 0W20 on sale.
 
Mine sees stop and go in hot southeast USA, 48 miles per day. I use Mobile 1 HM 0W20. Its hot viscosity is higher than practically all 5W20's. The oil stays translucent to 10k. I figure it's just as good as a cheapo oil changed twice as much. I'd never change it earlier on a daily driver because it's not driven hard, just a lot.
 
I commute to Boston/surrounding areas from Western Ma.

I average around 35K miles/yr +/- My Escape is provided by my company as well as my gas card. Personal and family use (my wife) is included.
It's an ARI vehicle, so it gets 7500 mile OCI on whatever 5W20 Jiffy Lube installs, but after I picked it up from the dealer, I changed the initial fill after 1500 miles.
We take care of our personal vehicles and treat this car the same.


My wife works between Worcester and Boston. I tried running Castrol Edge 5W30 EP (rated 20K miles) up to 10,000 miles, but don't feel comfortable given the results other Hyundai / Kia owners have posted in the UOA section, especially as hers is GDI with a Turbo. I pulled a sample for Blackstone and need to mail it out. For now, the OLM is set to 4800 miles and i'm running PP 10W30. Some may think PP could go longer, but I have about 26 jugs of PP that were clearanced at $3.50/jug, so no cost concerns.

My daughter usually calls up Dad to make an appointment for her oil change. She lives down in CT with her fiance'. He's not a mechanically inclined dude and I'm retentive, so I change the oil for her and mount her snows too (I have tire machines at home). Her OLM on the Chryco 200 2.4L usually trips around 6500-7500 miles. Next up is PP10W30 and then Idemitsu 0W20 for winter. I'm comfortable with that OCI.

My Ford - I don't drive it much. I have about 3,000 miles on this interval (changed last Sept) and the OLM seems to counting time as well as it's down to 38%. It has PP10W30, and holds 2 gallons so I'm going to wait the summer and change to Havoline syn-blend HM 5W20. She only has 72K on her, but I've been wanting to try the Havoline.

My Jeep - I used to talk with Gary Allan about changing on hours driven vs miles, as it's more or less a trail only rig now. There is no windshield or front fenders, but I do keep it registered. I change the oil with whatever every 2 or 3 years.
 
30k kms each year on my daily driver. I change oil every 7 to 8k kms or 3 months. Cheap A3/B4 229.5 full synth 5W-40 or semi 10W-40 sometimes during summer. I think i will go longer next winter, like 10/12k kms on synthetic because i'm tired of crawling under the car to have my face in the mud while it's raining and i think it is ok considering the quality of modern synthetics.
 
My beater/daily driver 09' Camry. I'm logging around 18k a year and currently using some Mobil Super Syn 5w20. Changed the M1 0w30 our after 1,500 miles. Kinda liking the Mobil Super Syn and will go 4500-5k OCI.

Have tons of other 5w20 in the stash as well as lots of M1 0w30&40 too.
 
05 prius, 20k a year, M1 AFE 0w30 in the winter, random on-sale 10w30 in the summer. 5k mile OCIs per the car, and on the zero- and five-thousands on the odo. Cheapie wix or champ filters from rock auto.

Also keep two sets of mounted tires, plus a few more ready to mount so I don't have to scramble.
 
Other half has a 100 mile per day round trip commute. Post short break in changes when new it now gets 10k OCI with 0w20 or 5w20. Currently has TGMO, but have run or will run from the stash PP, PUP, M1, M1AP, M1EP.
 
My DD is a '99 Camry. It WAS getting 25k/year and as an older car I would just change the oil every 5k. It was spec'd at 5W30 at like 7,500 miles but IIRC the engine was known to be hard on oil (but somehow is a long life engine???) so this "feels good". I was using conventional but lately have alternated between high mileage and full synthetic, and I think it leaks less on HM but leaks less on FS (marks its territory more on FS but requires less topping off over an OCI, as if that makes sense). Supertech with OEM filters that I buy by the box.

My home vehicle (truck) is 10k or less, sometimes I change it because it's been "a long time". Was Mobil 1 but it'll likely be ST 5W30 synthetic next time. It gets low miles per year, like between 5 and 10k.

Wife's DD is an '11 Camry and that gets 10k in the summer and 5k in the winter, and it racks up 25k/year also. ST 5W30 again. Both late model vehicles are spec'd for 0W20 and while I don't think 0W20 is evil, especially not in these engines, I run thicker because I can. I think they might be more quiet... but I can't prove that.
 
2017 Accord...90 miles round trip to work. What I do is use Mobil 1 5W-30 EP and run the miles out to about 13K, then change. Been doing that since I've been driving that distance around 1998. Wife actually drives more than I, but she strictly follows OCI to about 5%.
 
I drive 30 to 35K miles/year, mostly for work. I use Napa synthetic and Napa Gold filters every 10K miles on my 2013 Dodge Grand Caravan. It's at 216K miles right now, not burning any oil and running well. The only things wearing out are the armrests from where I rest my elbows, the carpet where my boot rests when I use the pedals, and the cruise control button black coating is wearing off.
 
I did about 60 miles of easy hwy a day in the Focus and felt pretty good about running the oil for about 8k miles and a Fram Ultra for 16k. I usually run whatever synthetic oil is on sale or name brand dino oil in 0 or 5 W 20 or 30. Whatever I've got in the shed. I think I might do some mild track days this year so I'll probably put in a 5W30 next.
If you've got a car with DI that's known to add fuel to the oil or something that eats its timing chains then running it long isn't a good idea. The little duratec seems to be pretty tough so I don't worry much about the oil really.
 
Retired - don't drive much any more. My vehicles have always gotten yearly oil changes whether they needed it or not. We mostly drive the 4Runner.

05 Ranger - yearly around 2.5k miles (thinking of extending it to 2 years)
00 4Runner - yearly 5-6k miles
97 Ram Van - last change was June 2016 at 100 miles (camper van)
93 F150 - yearly around 1.5k miles (go to dump or Lowe's truck (thinking of extending it to 2 or 3 years))
 
Bought the new Ram in 2019. Put 24k miles in the first year, and that was mostly daily commute. Comfortable doing a 7-10 K miles OCI with any approved synthetic oil. Not surprises here as the FCA engineers set the OCI at 10k in the OLM.

Currently running VME XW-20. Next RGT.
 
35k miles/year. My last few DI engines I've been changing the oil at 50% of recommended or OLM, filter at normal interval. Previous port injected cars I would run the full OCI. Since I DIY my maintenance and spend ~$1 qt. on clearance oils I'm not spending much. Have been using Valvoline AFS/VME but now am running RGT. Still have 16 oil changes worth of RGT, VME, and M1 Truck to go through.

In my truck I do 5k on the fives which is about yearly. I've bumped the grade to 5w-30 since Ford changed their recommendation in 2015.
 
I don't qualify as "piling the miles up" any more, but in the 80s and 90s used to put about 23k miles/year on the Mazda. I used whatever brand conventional 10W-40 was on sale, changed about every 6k.. Changed filter every 3rd oil change. Mostly basic Purolator (& Kmart, which were repainted Purolator) filters, occasionally others. They must've been better than more recent basic Purolators. Zero engine lubrication issues in 606k total miles on that car.
 
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The Sienna has gotten about 20k miles a year for the past ten years or so. It's driven daily around our (small) town, and on trips of 500-750 miles every couple weeks, plus a few bigger trips a year (we usually do a summer trip of 4000 or so miles). It gets some synthetic 5w30 (it's been Mobil 1 usually, but I don't stress it) and, usually, a Toyota filter every 7-10k for the most part, but as low as 5k if it's the dead of winter and getting short tripped badly, if I have time. It's specced for 5k with dino 5w30 so I figure synthetic is good for about double that. My mom drives it so I try and keep on top of that sort of thing for her, as it's not on her mind.

The Camry gets 15-20k miles a year from me driving the 300 miles each to college and back, plus assorted road trips from there and when at home; it doesn't see much in the way of short trips, and they are always followed by long highway runs. I usually take care of that with a 0w20 synthetic (now, Mobil 1 EP) and Toyota filter at 9-10k.

The Silverado gets some bulk 0w20 from the local Chevy dealer usually at OLM 15 - 0%, which ends up being a bit under twice a year.

None of our vehicles have ever needed an ounce of makeup oil, but I do check just because (usually when cleaning the windshield etc. before a longer trip).

Good question; I've enjoyed reading the responses. All told, we drive right around 50k a year between the three of us. I think we buy in the neighborhood of 2250-2500 gallons of gas a year, as a point of reference. Yes, lots of driving.
 
I drive my commuter Civic about 2000 miles a month for work, then whatever mileage around town or trips on days off. I change the oil every three months regardless of miles to make it easy, so usually between 6000-8000 miles. Bulk oil from my work.
 
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