Do what the manual says. It was written by people who know a lot more about your car/truck/whatever than you do. Trust them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Pathfinder is a relic from an era of 3k oil changes. That was the norm.

Within the past 20 years, cars have increasingly gone on with longer oil change intervals such as 5k, 7.5k, and now 10k or more. One thing is that synthetic oil has become much more prevalent, along with higher oil capacity, both of which contributes to longer oil change intervals.

This has nothing to do with whether it is a car or truck, just the march of time and technology.

That makes sense but one of the cars is older than the pathfinder.

It's not like someone snapped their fingers and all cars/trucks switched from 3k to 5k miles. As new cars were introduced, they gradually got longer and longer oil change intervals. The fact that your Pathfinder is body on frame means that it was an older design from "back in the day".

Anonymous wrote:The Pathfinder is a relic from an era of 3k oil changes. That was the norm.

Within the past 20 years, cars have increasingly gone on with longer oil change intervals such as 5k, 7.5k, and now 10k or more. One thing is that synthetic oil has become much more prevalent, along with higher oil capacity, both of which contributes to longer oil change intervals.

This has nothing to do with whether it is a car or truck, just the march of time and technology.

That makes sense but one of the cars is older than the pathfinder.

Anonymous wrote:The Pathfinder is a relic from an era of 3k oil changes. That was the norm.

Within the past 20 years, cars have increasingly gone on with longer oil change intervals such as 5k, 7.5k, and now 10k or more. One thing is that synthetic oil has become much more prevalent, along with higher oil capacity, both of which contributes to longer oil change intervals.

This has nothing to do with whether it is a car or truck, just the march of time and technology.

+1 I drive my cars till the wheels fall off. I had to buy a new car a couple years ago and was surprised to find out about the 10k/1yr oil changes. Very happy about it though as I drive about 8k miles a year so the car only needs one oil change a year. The reminder goes off after 6 months for a tire rotation but rotating tires on time instead of miles makes no sense as that would increase wear since the two tires on the front would be there every time I went on vacation. So I just do a tire rotation when I get the oil changed. I had to look online how to reset the service notification because I’m not rotating my tires after 1500 miles just because it’s been 6 months.

The Pathfinder is a relic from an era of 3k oil changes. That was the norm.

Within the past 20 years, cars have increasingly gone on with longer oil change intervals such as 5k, 7.5k, and now 10k or more. One thing is that synthetic oil has become much more prevalent, along with higher oil capacity, both of which contributes to longer oil change intervals.

This has nothing to do with whether it is a car or truck, just the march of time and technology.

So, I have a question for those of you car experts. I have two regular cars and one SUV built based truck chassis (2004 Pathfinder). Whenever I take it in for my oil change, my reminders for two cars are at 5k, my reminder for the SUV is 3k. I am just curious... Anyone has any idea why?