How often do you *actually* get an oil change, and how old is your car?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

This is terrible, terrible advice. Everyone needs to disregard this idiot above.

Here’s the truth:


For typical suburban/urban use vehicles that see lots of shorts trips less than 20 minutes, your oil change interval should be 3,000 miles for conventional oil, and 5,000 for synthetic oil during the winter and 7,500 miles for synthetic oil in the summer.

For vehicles that see predominantly highway use and regular long/high speed trips over 1 hour, the interval should be 5,000 for conventional oil and UP TO 8,000 miles for synthetic oil.


A diesel vehicle used for mostly highway use with 15w-40 synthetic or similar *could* go as high as 15,000 miles, but I still wouldn’t let it go that long.


Short trip driving is the most damaging type of driving for oil. And as your car ages, it gets even more damaging to the oil than when the car was new.

Inside the engine, there are pistons. They sorta resemble soup cans. They move up and down inside the cylinders, being pushed by the fuel explosions inside the cylinders, turning a crankshaft inside the engine that connects to the transmission to make your car move. So these pistons have these things wrapped around them on the sides called “rings”. Imagine a thin metal bracelet wrapped tight around that soup can. Each piston has 2 or 3 of these rings around it. The job of the lowest ring on the piston is to wipe oil off the inside of the cylinder wall as the piston moves up and down, like a squeegee or windshield wiper.

So as gas and air is forced into each cylinder, and compressed, it then explodes and pushes the piston down. But not ALL the gasoline gets burned. A tiny, tiny amount doesn’t get consumed. It, along with the black soot from the gasoline that DID burn, ends up as residue on the side of the cylinder. The next time the piston comes back up, it’s dragging oil behind it. The oil coats the cylinder wall, dissolving the gasoline and soot residue, and then as the piston comes back down, the oil ring wipes the now-dirty oil off the cylinder wall on the way down.

This is why oil changes color over time from gold to black. All the combustion residue contamination from cylinders firing millions of times. It accumulates the soot and gasoline residue.

That contamination is bad for seals, bearings and any rubber components inside the engine - which there are a LOT of. It is corrosive to these parts.

Now, the reason short trips are really hard on oil is because the oil stays “cool” and never gets hot enough, for long enough, to “boil” the accumulated gasoline residue out of the oil. On long trips, the oil gets hot enough for the gasoline contamination to evaporate away, and this will prolong the life of the oil quite a bit. It will still have the soot residue, but won’t have nearly as much gasoline contaminants as engines that only do short trips.

No matter what idiots like the person above say, the way engines work and utilize oil has NOT changed. Synthetic oil lasts longer because synthetic oil is more pure than conventional oil to begin with - but it still gets contaminated just as quickly. It’s just that it was cleaner to start with. It still gets contaminated at the same rate though.

Hope this helps some of you understand it. Please don’t listen to people like the guy above.

Wow, everyone should listen to THIS guy!!!!!! Disregard the manufactures, dealers AND the people who would profit from selling you more services. THIS guys knows the best!!!! He turned a few wrenches so he is the ultimate authority.

So glad he got through his post without calling ME an idiot five times. Really adds to his credibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

This is terrible, terrible advice. Everyone needs to disregard this idiot above.

Here’s the truth:


For typical suburban/urban use vehicles that see lots of shorts trips less than 20 minutes, your oil change interval should be 3,000 miles for conventional oil, and 5,000 for synthetic oil during the winter and 7,500 miles for synthetic oil in the summer.

For vehicles that see predominantly highway use and regular long/high speed trips over 1 hour, the interval should be 5,000 for conventional oil and UP TO 8,000 miles for synthetic oil.


A diesel vehicle used for mostly highway use with 15w-40 synthetic or similar *could* go as high as 15,000 miles, but I still wouldn’t let it go that long.


Short trip driving is the most damaging type of driving for oil. And as your car ages, it gets even more damaging to the oil than when the car was new.

Inside the engine, there are pistons. They sorta resemble soup cans. They move up and down inside the cylinders, being pushed by the fuel explosions inside the cylinders, turning a crankshaft inside the engine that connects to the transmission to make your car move. So these pistons have these things wrapped around them on the sides called “rings”. Imagine a thin metal bracelet wrapped tight around that soup can. Each piston has 2 or 3 of these rings around it. The job of the lowest ring on the piston is to wipe oil off the inside of the cylinder wall as the piston moves up and down, like a squeegee or windshield wiper.

So as gas and air is forced into each cylinder, and compressed, it then explodes and pushes the piston down. But not ALL the gasoline gets burned. A tiny, tiny amount doesn’t get consumed. It, along with the black soot from the gasoline that DID burn, ends up as residue on the side of the cylinder. The next time the piston comes back up, it’s dragging oil behind it. The oil coats the cylinder wall, dissolving the gasoline and soot residue, and then as the piston comes back down, the oil ring wipes the now-dirty oil off the cylinder wall on the way down.

This is why oil changes color over time from gold to black. All the combustion residue contamination from cylinders firing millions of times. It accumulates the soot and gasoline residue.

That contamination is bad for seals, bearings and any rubber components inside the engine - which there are a LOT of. It is corrosive to these parts.

Now, the reason short trips are really hard on oil is because the oil stays “cool” and never gets hot enough, for long enough, to “boil” the accumulated gasoline residue out of the oil. On long trips, the oil gets hot enough for the gasoline contamination to evaporate away, and this will prolong the life of the oil quite a bit. It will still have the soot residue, but won’t have nearly as much gasoline contaminants as engines that only do short trips.

No matter what idiots like the person above say, the way engines work and utilize oil has NOT changed. Synthetic oil lasts longer because synthetic oil is more pure than conventional oil to begin with - but it still gets contaminated just as quickly. It’s just that it was cleaner to start with. It still gets contaminated at the same rate though.

Hope this helps some of you understand it. Please don’t listen to people like the guy above.

Wow, everyone should listen to THIS guy!!!!!! Disregard the manufactures, dealers AND the people who would profit from selling you more services. THIS guys knows the best!!!! He turned a few wrenches so he is the ultimate authority.

So glad he got through his post without calling ME an idiot five times. Really adds to his credibility.

I’m not sure exactly what your disfunction is, but all I’m guilty of here is trying to help people prolong the life of their car’s engine and save money. Auto manufacturers would like you to buy cars frequently. Dealer service departments would like you to buy engines after your warranty is over. All I’m doing is offering people a way to avoid spending more money than they need to. I guess you must think that’s stupid, huh? Cool cool. You do you.



Grease is always cheaper than metal. Always.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

I turn wrenches for a living.

Do you understand what that means?

Doesn't mean you are good at it or know what you're talking about. Just because you learned something 30 years ago doesn't mean it's still true.

Please state your certifications. We can compare them.

Still waiting.

Still waiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

That’s me too. I am also from a country where the standard is once a year so it helps to not absolutize the 6 month rule

[Anonymous]

We're in the habit of getting the oil changed twice a year, even though we don't drive very much. We could probably do it annually TBH. We put about 5-6k miles on our cars each year. I WFH and my DH only drives a few miles to catch the train. Our families live within 30 miles of us. We do a few road trips, but that's about it. Our activities and things are all within a few miles, so even when we are driving, it's not very far. We are in Arlington, so I'm sure that helps keep our mileage down because it's a small area where friend/sports are contained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

I turn wrenches for a living.

Do you understand what that means?

DP. So if I drive no more than 5 miles a year and have a newer Toyota is to ok to change oil once a year or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

This is terrible, terrible advice. Everyone needs to disregard this idiot above.

Here’s the truth:


For typical suburban/urban use vehicles that see lots of shorts trips less than 20 minutes, your oil change interval should be 3,000 miles for conventional oil, and 5,000 for synthetic oil during the winter and 7,500 miles for synthetic oil in the summer.

For vehicles that see predominantly highway use and regular long/high speed trips over 1 hour, the interval should be 5,000 for conventional oil and UP TO 8,000 miles for synthetic oil.


A diesel vehicle used for mostly highway use with 15w-40 synthetic or similar *could* go as high as 15,000 miles, but I still wouldn’t let it go that long.


Short trip driving is the most damaging type of driving for oil. And as your car ages, it gets even more damaging to the oil than when the car was new.

Inside the engine, there are pistons. They sorta resemble soup cans. They move up and down inside the cylinders, being pushed by the fuel explosions inside the cylinders, turning a crankshaft inside the engine that connects to the transmission to make your car move. So these pistons have these things wrapped around them on the sides called “rings”. Imagine a thin metal bracelet wrapped tight around that soup can. Each piston has 2 or 3 of these rings around it. The job of the lowest ring on the piston is to wipe oil off the inside of the cylinder wall as the piston moves up and down, like a squeegee or windshield wiper.

So as gas and air is forced into each cylinder, and compressed, it then explodes and pushes the piston down. But not ALL the gasoline gets burned. A tiny, tiny amount doesn’t get consumed. It, along with the black soot from the gasoline that DID burn, ends up as residue on the side of the cylinder. The next time the piston comes back up, it’s dragging oil behind it. The oil coats the cylinder wall, dissolving the gasoline and soot residue, and then as the piston comes back down, the oil ring wipes the now-dirty oil off the cylinder wall on the way down.

This is why oil changes color over time from gold to black. All the combustion residue contamination from cylinders firing millions of times. It accumulates the soot and gasoline residue.

That contamination is bad for seals, bearings and any rubber components inside the engine - which there are a LOT of. It is corrosive to these parts.

Now, the reason short trips are really hard on oil is because the oil stays “cool” and never gets hot enough, for long enough, to “boil” the accumulated gasoline residue out of the oil. On long trips, the oil gets hot enough for the gasoline contamination to evaporate away, and this will prolong the life of the oil quite a bit. It will still have the soot residue, but won’t have nearly as much gasoline contaminants as engines that only do short trips.

No matter what idiots like the person above say, the way engines work and utilize oil has NOT changed. Synthetic oil lasts longer because synthetic oil is more pure than conventional oil to begin with - but it still gets contaminated just as quickly. It’s just that it was cleaner to start with. It still gets contaminated at the same rate though.

Hope this helps some of you understand it. Please don’t listen to people like the guy above.

Wow, everyone should listen to THIS guy!!!!!! Disregard the manufactures, dealers AND the people who would profit from selling you more services. THIS guys knows the best!!!! He turned a few wrenches so he is the ultimate authority.

So glad he got through his post without calling ME an idiot five times. Really adds to his credibility.

I’m not sure exactly what your disfunction is, but all I’m guilty of here is trying to help people prolong the life of their car’s engine and save money. Auto manufacturers would like you to buy cars frequently. Dealer service departments would like you to buy engines after your warranty is over. All I’m doing is offering people a way to avoid spending more money than they need to. I guess you must think that’s stupid, huh? Cool cool. You do you.

Grease is always cheaper than metal. Always.

I've always adhered to the manufacturer's recommendations and never had to replace an engine. Oil changes are not cheap and you are recommending twice or three times the frequency of the manufacturer. So at a $100/pop if you drive you car 10,000 miles/year that's a minimum of $200/year. In 6 -8 years that's $1200-1400 of possibly unnecessary maintenance. So calling people idiots for pointing out that it might be an unnecessary and expensive thing to do is not making you sound smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

Your thinking is very outdated. Oil lasts a lot longer now.

I turn wrenches for a living.

Do you understand what that means?

Doesn't mean you are good at it or know what you're talking about. Just because you learned something 30 years ago doesn't mean it's still true.

Please state your certifications. We can compare them.

Still waiting.

Still waiting.

I don't nee to be a mechanic to read the owner's manual.

Are you also against taking meds because big pharma wants to sell them to you?

[Anonymous]

I have a Subaru and I get a synthetic oil change every 5000 miles, which is about once a year for me. Honestly, if you are using synthetic oil, you only need to change it every 5k-10k miles. I promise, you will not harm your engine by doing this. You are blowing away your money by changing it every 2000 miles.

[Anonymous]

If you are using Mobil 1 or another synthetic oil, you could probably go 10,000 miles between oil changes. Do it more often if you'd like, but we are way past the days of changing oil every 3,500 miles. Oil is different now and doesn't break down as easily as it used to.

[Anonymous]

But is it ok to change it once a year if you don’t drive much?! It takes me a while to drive 5000, let alone 10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But is it ok to change it once a year if you don’t drive much?! It takes me a while to drive 5000, let alone 10.

Yes, once a year is fine. Just remember to ask for synthetic oil which doesn't break down as easily. It does cost more but you can change it much less often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usually once a year. We don't put that many miles on our cars so aim for an annual service. We've been told that 1x/year is enough with high quality oils today. it used to be that the norm was 6 months.

Here's the language for one of our cars:

"How Often Does My Porsche Macan Need to be Serviced? For our Porsche Macan drivers we recommend getting your oil changed every 10,000 miles or once a year."

10,000 mile interval????

Who suggested this? Porsche engine rebuilders?

No the Porsche dealership. Our 1st one lasted for 11 years and 140k miles and we eventually sold it for reasons having nothing to do with the engine. Our second one is doing well and both the Porsche dealer and independent mechanics who we trust say that 10,000 miles is the right interval. Works for us, but you do you.

[Anonymous]

When Should You Change Your Synthetic Oil?

The easy answer: at least once every year.
Most modern vehicles have change intervals in the 7500-to-10,000-mile range—generally, a good schedule to use if you don’t know the manufacturer’s recommended mileage. Some manufacturers even push these intervals to 12,000 or 16,000 miles. We recommend you follow the interval listed in the owner’s manual of your vehicle.

https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-advice/a27078539/synthetic-oil-change-interval/

[Anonymous]

Every year or 10,000. I’ve never hit 10,000 in a year, so once a year. Yes I do it as recommended.