nidyanazo

Just wanted to see how often everyone is doing oil changes in their cars..

I'm using the Mobile 1 0w-40 synthetic.. I've heard 5,000 miles but I've always done my cars at 3,000 miles.

What about You?

alx

The people that know your engine the best say 1 year or 10k miles whichever occurs first. I usually do not try to be smarter.

The new Porsches ask every 2 years or 20k miles for oil changes.

Blkvip

think the old myth of 3k is slowly dieing. my last car did it every 5-7k, wasn't sporty so no biggie. My FSS says 8600 for my service B will prob go a few thousand early just to be safe as I just bought it

shardul

iTrader: (1)

7k

awiner

I used to change every 5k. Since about 50,000 miles however I have followed the factory FSS system.

nidyanazo

Cool, thanks fellas'

layzie12g

5,000 on my car with 0-40.

After that oil starts to get dark and I dislike that. There is a thread on a BMW M3 forum where it showed under the valve cover on a car that was changed every 15k compared to every 5k. It wasn't even comparable. The aluminum on the car from ever 5,000 still looked new and the head had an aluminum color to it like it should. The car that had it changed every 15,000 had turned the aluminum black.

Imagine how the bearings feel in that motor that had the later oil changes.

SLCL

I used to change oil (mobil one) on my SL500 every 2.5K miles but switched to 5K miles interval since about 60K miles

I am not too enthus about the Lexus so I changed it every 10K miles interval for about 30K miles which was 3 oil changes (but later changed to 5K miles interval also).

The valves on the LS430 was at 82K miles on the odo at the time of the picture
The valves on the SL500 was at 87K miles on the odo at the time of the picture

I would not go over 5K miles on the mobil one

alx

this is what they should look like at 80k miles if you never changed the oil and let it burn all up and the engine seized. i've seen that (the lady did not know that oil changes are required) and it looked just like your pic.

i have seen apart _plenty_ high mileage motors that were serviced every 10k miles and they all were pretty much all pristine. your result is atypical to say the least.

porsche recommends the same mobil 0w40 and all 997.2 turbo cars now request oil every 2 years or 20k miles.

ofcourse it is your money so who am i to say anything

SLCL

I found it a bit too extreme myself. I mean, I did not change it as often but I've never abuse any of my cars before.

One of the things that might contribute to the result is that V8 LS430 holds only 5QT of oil (vs 8.5QT in my SL500). Less oil, less forgiveness, I guess.

awiner

Send your oil samples to Blackstone for analysis. I bet youll be surprised how good of condition Mobil 1 with 10,000 miles on it is in.

I have a few friends whom are certified master mechanics with factory dealers. They used to laugh at me when I told them I changed my oil at 5,000 miles.

While it doesn't hurt to change early, it may not be necessary either.

Some of the ML's the dealers use as service vehicles have well over 150,000 miles on them and have been serviced purely by the FSS systems with oil changes at 10k. They still run great and have been problem free as far as the engine in concerned.

On another note, I had my oil pan off to replace the oil level sensor at approx 100k. The pan had zero sludge in it, the engine internals I inspected that were visible from the bottom with the pan off were shiny and clean. I was happy to visually see this.

Just food for thought. This topic has been and will be debated for ever.

RobertG

I service my vehicles 2x a year, spring and fall.

layzie12g

That Lexus looks like it went the first 50,000 of its life with no oil change.

dtohio

Was the Lexus used a lot for short distance driving, resulting in oil never getting up to sustained operating temperature. Thats the only explaination i can imagine for such a mess other than some engine problem such as a thermostat stock open, pcv fault, etc.

SLCL

That's impossible as I have not had alzheimer yet ... I guess for some unknown reasons it ended up like that

Not really, until that picture was taken (about a couple years ago), I had used it on a lot of highway drives (regularly VA-NJ) so I would say the mileages were more highway than local ...

Nothing is wrong with that car that I know of beside the catalytic converter went bad (11 days before the warranty expired - good thing I did not delay bringing it in ). About a year ago, the car would not start (crank but not start) and it took several lexus mechanic around 2 months to figure it out. It turned out one of the fuses was loose. Not completely loose that when they checked, the voltage still read fine but loose enough to cause the car not to start. I've always felt that the car was slow for a V8 and probably the second slowest V8 I've ever owned (beside the 1999 S420 I had before) but figured it only had 290 HPs so I didn't expect much. Other than that, the car has run fine throughout its life.

Sorry the OPs for the off-topic (talking about Lexus and all). I say no more

layzie12g

My shorts would look similar to that Lexus head if I pulled the valve cover on one of my cars and found that. Especially if I owned the car since new and had always changed the oil on the time the manufacturer said to.

HardCL55

I picked up a CL55 this past fall and it has sat all winter. I plan on changing the oil before taking it out but not sure if there is anything else I need to do at the same time. I called Mercedes and they said they now use 5W-40 but I think the car is supposed to have 0W-40. Is either fine and is there any benefit one way or the other?

Thanks in advance

alx

5w40 mobil one esp is the new oil which is recommended for all vehicles that required mobil one 0w40 and required for any benz 2007+ that calls for 0w40 or 5w40 synthetic oil.

grane

[url]http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/MotorOil/Oils/Mobil_1_ESP_Formula_M_5W-40.aspx#[/url


alx, I think it depends on the car. The 2012 CL63 and CL65 still use 0-40 European Formula whereas the 2007 CL63 uses 5-30 Esp according to the Mobil website.

alx

Maybe. The dealers are instructed to pour 5w40 esp any time 0w40 is called for.

Most of them do not even carry 0w40 any more.

mitviet

Does it really matter that much between 0-40W and 5-40W if you change oil religiously once a year or at 5K miles? especially if you are using Mobil synthetic type. For me , I change oil at yearly State Inspection time. I split the driving between the 2 MBs and the rest on my Quest minivan.. works out great w/ no thinking as to : 'darn, when did I have the oil change?'

alx

not really. both are good oils, but the 5w40 is really needed for the cdi motors with dpf filters.

i would not hesitate to put either one in a gasoline amg calling for 0w40

xabo

Perhaps it depends on your vehicle:


Current Vehicle:
Year: 2008
Make: Mercedes-Benz
Model: CL65 AMG
Engine Type: 12cyl. 6.0Liter AMG Turbocharged

Mobil 1 0W-40

Mobil 1 0W-40 is an advanced full synthetic motor oil that helps extend engine life by reducing engine wear and oil breakdown. Mobil 1 0W-40 provides outstanding performance under all operating conditions and meets or exceeds the warranty requirements of many leading car builders. For cars equipped with diesel particulate filters, use Mobil 1 ESP Formula 5W-30.

HardCL55

That was the problem I ran into last fall. Feldmann's had 0W-40 but only the quart bottles, no jugs. Somewhat of a pain in the you know what because this car uses 9 quarts and that's lots of little tops to unscrew and then pouring it in.

BTW since we're talking about changing the oil, is there any reason I can't just pour the oil in where the filter goes? Thats a much large opening and it almost looks like I could rest one in there and let it drain out while I unscrew the next bottle. There isn't a check valve or something to prevent me from doing this is there?

red60R

This debate is similar on any car forum, and in the end it comes to each individuals preferences for their own vehicle. I can remember about 10 years ago my friend trying to convince me of running Amsoil in all my vehicles. He would run it like 20-30k miles between changes (I believe he did change the filter out a couple times). He would send oil samples off and show me how the oil was still great after 10, 15k miles. I never had the courage to do that to my own cars.
My thought is this, if you're going to spend $190k on a car (obviously some of us spent much less than that on ours), then an oil change at 5k is a fairly cheap investment. Heck, even the local dealers where I live will usually include a special in their periodic mailings to get it done fairly cheaply. For me its just easy peace of mind. I owned a 911 turbo previously and I can remember the first time they told me about the 15k oil service interval and I was like "yea, right" and yet despite that I would still change mine around 5-7k. Maybe I am wasting money, maybe not, but I never worry about whether my oil is going to be the reason for an engine failure of any sort.