Oil change every 3000 mi?

[KiltDog]

I'm writing this thread after having changed my oil on a humid 95 degree Labor Day. Simple question: Do you change your oil every 3000 miles?

When I learned about car maintenance many years ago, the 3K oil change was a given. I just read some car manufacturers are going as much as 10K! Crazy. Especially when considering a TV. Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting money changing it as often as I do. With my driving habits it works out to be about once every three months.

So what do you do?

[clubhouse]

I drive a company car about 30k miles a year. Our fleet department just changed our maintenance schedule from 5000 mile to 7500 mile intervals.

My personal vehicles, including tow vehicle, have the oil changed at 5000 miles.

Your owners manual will provide the recommended interval for your specific vehicle. Unless all the miles are severe duty miles, I suspect it would suggest >=5k miles.

The only place still pushing 3000 miles are the quick lube businesses.

[FPM III]

My 96 Ford PowerStroke said every 3,000 miles. My 2009 GMC Duramax tells me when to change the oil, but it seems to be in the neighborhood of around 5,000 miles. You can also display the percent of oil life remaining to give you some idea as to how much time you have left.

[Jhmlbrgr]

I do 5000 miles in all my vehicles and use MobileOne full synthetic oil in everything. My 2001 Olds Alero went 197000 before loosing a head gasket, I decided not to fix that. My TV is a 1999 Suburban and has 142000 miles. I usually do not even drive that 5000 in a full year but I always have them change the oil regardless during inspection.

[UPCamper]

I do mine with synthetic every 5,000 miles. Probably overkill but oil changes are much cheaper than engine damage. Not to mention my TV encounters a lot of "severe" usage between towing and cold weather operation.

[Tunce the traveler]

My Touareg TDI is every 10,000 miles and I asked VW Hq. and they said it's not the engine but the transmission you should be concerned about. Keep the oil change at every 10K but do the transmission at every 50k and not at 100K and you should be just fine. If I do the 50K they will still warranty it to the standard 100K. Just show your changes and your good to go. All of this is documented at Rodger Jobs VW in Bellingham, Wa.

[KiltDog]

Originally Posted by Tunce the traveler

My Touareg TDI is every 10,000 miles and I asked VW Hq. and they said it's not the engine but the transmission you should be concerned about. Keep the oil change at every 10K but do the transmission at every 50k and not at 100K and you should be just fine. If I do the 50K they will still warranty it to the standard 100K. Just show your changes and your good to go. All of this is documented at Rodger Jobs VW in Bellingham, Wa.

Nissan recommends transmission fluid every 15K on my PF. Haven't checked the Armada yet, but I assume it's the same. Seems like these fluid changes are just to keep the dealer's service departments profitable. My CPO PF came with a 100K power train warrantee, as long as I replace the fluids with genuine nissan liquid gold.

[nbhybrid]

oil formulations are different than the used to be. Any oil changes under 5000 miles unless you are always on dirt roads or during the winter time is a waste of money IMO.

[etex211]

On all of our daily drivers, I do the oil changes between 5000 and 7000 miles now. I use cheap oil (I believe Ranch Pro is the name on the bottle) from Atwood's and Wix filters.

I change the oil in my tow vehicle every spring. That works out to about 2000 miles between changes.

As long as automatic transmission fluid isn't brown and doesn't stink, then changing it is a waste of money.

[sebring96hbg]

5,000 mile OCI using synthetic on a tow vehicle sounds about right. That said, always defer to your maintenance schedule as adjusted for severe service in your owners manual.

The fun change I will be doing by the end of the month is that for the rear differential.

[mach8274]

I change the oil in my truck every 7500 miles and I use Valvoline Premium Blue Extreme full synthetic and factory filters. The cars are every 5k using Mobil 1. I send oil samples from my truck off to Blackstone Labs from every oil change and they are saying that I can go 10k...doubt I will ever do that but it's nice to know that the oil I'm using has some life left in it.

[LBL 1206]

mobile 1 5w30 in TV dx every 5k. been doing it that way since 1998. still tight, and clean.

[Seann45]

I use full synthetic every change and do it when my DIC tells me I have to..

[Camper_bob]

I also use full synthetic and WIX filters. I change mine generally when the DIC says there's 30% oil life left, not sure of the miles, but I'll start tracking that better. If based on total miles, it works out to about every 7000 miles. Manual says to use the DIC, but it's been so long since I read it, I don't remember a mileage interval being stated. I'm pretty hard on my truck, so I figure early is a good policy. When I change it, I do a quick unscientific inspection, and the oil seems to be pretty spent at that time, so I'm comfortable with this interval.

DW's '06 XTerra also gets the full synthetic treatment, but hers is about 2x a year. She's still swallowing the 3,000 mi koolaid, but we don't put a lot of miles on her car, and I do the changes myself, so it's not worth fighting about. $100 a year is cheap for a decent marital peace treaty.

IMHO I would only use 3k miles as an oil service interval if I were REALLY hard on my truck, or if I were using cheap oil and filters. For the average driver using higher end synthetics and filters, 5k - 7k miles is much more reasonable with today's motors.

[jal0710]

Our Toyota Camry Hybrid has an oil change around 5,000 miles, as recommended by the dealership. The computer on my GMC D/A combo indicates a change at 10,000 miles, buy I have put in Amsoil Synthetic and hope to get 15,000 or so between oil changes. At 6,000 miles I changed out the oil filter and put a quart of synthetic oil in to replace what was lost when changing out the filter. Did this with my 2003 GMC D/A combo and didn't have any problems.

[RVer-Bill]

I go by the DIC on both my 2011 Cruze and my 2007 2500HD Duramax. I change the oil on the Cruze when the DIC says 10% left, which is at about 4200-5300. I change it every 12 months on the 2500HD. I don't drive the truck enough to get to 10%. It's normally over 50% left when I get to 12 months and at about 5000 miles.

[Jagiven]

Lots of chatter on oils. I try to change my oil a couple times a year just to keep the acids down. My Dakota’s manual says every 5K miles is fine for light duty work/commuting. Change it every 3K miles for heavy duty work (towing, dirty working conditions). It does not specify synthetics. I have not towed much this year, so I changed it last week at 4K miles, and it had been 9 months since the last oil change.

[Bobx2]

I change mine whenever the DIC says about 5% oil life remaining. I also use the recommended oils. For my Malibu it's Mobil 1, for the truck it's regular dino oil, 15W-40 diesel oil. To change it any more frequently is just a waste of time, money and oil. To run synthetic oil through an engine designed for regular oil is also a waste of money if you change your oil as you should. The Duramax is not a high RPM, high heat engine, which is where a synthetic oil may have an advantage.
Use what your manual tells you to use, and follow the recommended schedule, and you can't go wrong. Every 3,000 miles is old school, and no longer required with todays modern engines.

[Crabman]

The 3000 mile interval is now only for "severe service" in most manuals. I would consider towing a RV to fall under that category. For normal use, I change oil at around 4500 miles and only use Pennzoil conventional. Have never had an internal engine problem. I know, I know, we could talk oil mileage and preferences all day and would be hard pressed to get a consensus. I guess I`m still somewhat old school. On another note, my Yamaha 4 stroke outboard with 5700 commercial use hrs on the clock has had only Yamalube conventional, changed about every 100 hrs as the book recommends.

[TCNashville]

Rotella T5 in my Powerstroke every 5000 miles. Motorcraft filters.