Opinions differ on how often to fully change the oil in a car. For exampe with my Grande Punto the service manual says every 30,000km or 2 years. But I wouldn't leave it that long myself and the Harnes manual says every 6 months. What do you think?
It's unlikely to kill it immediately so if your long term plan is..run it until something expensive breaks and call the scrap man then it's entirely compatible with that.
Company Vectra had variable service interval. Light came on at 32000 miles.
Older cars, or high mileage cars, used to be recommended to go to a slightly thicker oil, compensate for the wear.Does anyone know what affect being a 10+ year old car has on oil changes? I'm presuming they need more oil changes but why is that?
Do each car 6 monthly, and you should be fineI'm currently doing around 35,000 miles per year split over two aging Fiat cars, poor them! I don't think I can justify changing the oil every 6,000 miles like in the Haynes manual - that'd be 6 oil changes a year.
Does anyone know what affect being a 10+ year old car has on oil changes? I'm presuming they need more oil changes but why is that?
I travel on motorways and dual carriageways mostly.Do each car 6 monthly, and you should be fine
What kind of driving is this
Fast A roads and M. Way?
Or shunting around cities, that SHOULD change the intervals
Modern'ish Fiat's log Hours running..
in some respects.. That is more useful than miles covered
Interesting, I need to get a better calc going, thanks for this!The trip logs Hours and Average speed
My average speeds tends to be 31mph..
That's 200 miles of 65mph per week and another 75 on B roads.. So 40 max
No shunting.. So I am happy with 12k on that oil
All these vehicles are looked after by me, except the Rio which my boy doesn't want me to touch as it's still within it's 7 year warranty. However I'm now so old and creaky I'm starting to draw back from the heavier tasks and my daughter - Skoda Enyaq and citigo - which I never get to work on being as how they live at the other end of the country - is always giving me a telling off and telling me to "get real" and act my age!
So, now you have the picture of the very varied operating conditions for these vehicles and I treat them all the same. A thorough yearly service with all filters and oil changed regardless of manufacturer recommendation. I always use the best possible oils and always to manufacturer's spec. When a new vehicle joins the family fleet i will often contact my preferred lubricant manufacturers for their specific recommendations - I find Fuchs particularly helpfull in this respect and have had a number of very interesting conversations with them. I almost certainly renew air and cabin filters too often but I get my filters at very good prices from the local factor and like to keep them "super clean". I especially like to keep cabin/pollen filters clean to ensure ano possibility of restriction of air flow over heater motor resistor packs (can't remember when I last had one fail and, having seen the horribly manky state of many friend's pollen filters, I'm sure many fail due to lack of cooling air flow). The Audi is probably doing the highest annual mileage I'd feel happy with before doing a twice yearly oil change, especially as it's a turboed engine and clean oil is critical to turbos.
Lastly, many years ago, one of the older mechanics I worked with showed me a good, quick and very cheap "trick" for assessing oil condition. After the engine has been running and the oil is up to running temperature - so best done when you return home after a run so any solids in the oil will be in suspension. Take a piece of clean paper towel, kitchen towel or loo paper works well, although I use blue paper towel which I buy in big rolls for use in the workshop. I'm sure clean cotton rag would do just as well but if using rag don't use anything "hairy" which might shed fibres which could accumulate in the pickup filter. You want something light coloured too so you can see any contamination - a black or dark colour would not be suitable. Draw the dipstick and wipe it on the towel/rag and now set the it aside for a few minutes. The oil will be drawn into the toweling leaving behind any residue for you to see. It will be immediately obvious if the oil is heavily contaminated as you'll see the dark colour of the dirt on the towel/rag. Try it, it's amazing how oil which looks quite dark and dirty may actually be quite clean. This is a very non technical check and shouldn't be used to extend the change interval as it doesn't reflect the condition of the oil's additive package, but I find it very useful as a quick check to do every time I dip my oil. Have to say it doesn't work so well with diesels though.