venezzia

I have a '99 E320 and I only put about 2K miles per year on it, at most.

Do I need to change the oil every year, as I have been doing, or can I wait until I put more miles on the car?

RichardM98

If you want to follow the factory recommendations, you should change per year on low mileage. Use FSS - see manual.

Use only a fully synthetic oil such as Mobil 1 0W-40 "European Car Formula" (MB Spec 229.3 or 229.5) and a polyester "fleece" filter.

bmroxm5

+1 on the Mobile One... my old service place always used this but then changed to Castrol one day without telling me... not happy.

Anyway I'm doing oil changes at 7,500km. The recommended is 15,000km but these cars are too old now to be stretching service intervals that long.

If you're not driving it much, every year would be ideal, but you could stretch it to 18months depending on conditions.

EdzBenz

Oil changes are relatively cheap. If I were only driving that kind of mileage, I'd probably change the oil every 6-8 months for good measure.

saintz

Your car should tell you when to change, and it should be about every year or 10k miles, whichever comes first. I always go by that. Synthetic oil doesn't really break down that much just sitting there, so it should easily be good for 1 year, and if you're using Mobil 1 0w40, the additive package should be stable for that length of time.

dynomite05

lol, it's recommended in my area to do it every 3k miles

Sathinas

When I change to a new car that has fresh oil in it. Let the old car be the next guy's problem.







Not really. Every 5K miles. I do it myself, so it's cheaper than a dealer change

saintz

Your dealer doesn't like you. Or his kid needs a tuition paid for.

dynomite05

lol, I don't get my oil changed at the dealer. Here in NY/NJ because of the congestion and all the stop and go 98% of people change their oil every 3k miles.

bmroxm5

with my girlfriends evo we're changing oil every 3,000miles. different type of car though... fundamentally the car holds less oil.

saintz

Have you had oil analysis done? If you have gas in your oil from prolonged idling, I can understand. The FSS I thought is supposed to account for prolonged idling and the fact that it's actually worse on the engine than mileage. Not sure how the algorithm works, though.

dynomite05

I haven't had an oil analysis done. My daily drive is about 20 miles total. About 98% of that drive is highway so I really don't have any prolonged idling. That's more than I could say for most people in this area. I probably could let it go for more than 3k miles but I like to err on the side of caution.

raymond g-

i think you should drive that car more, gurlfren....instead of putting around town in the beemer.

venezzia

I do use Mobil 1 and it sounds like I should continue the once per year oil change...

lol, Raymond... the benz is good for cruising, but the beemer is just more FUN!!!

BigBoss

ZCP as in Competition Package?

01BlackE320

I change my oil every 10k miles, which in my case is about 10-12 months. It's just a bit less mileage then the FSS calculates. On my Suburban and Grand Cherokee I go about 4-5k miles with 6 qts of conventional oil.

8.5 qrts of Synthetic should have no problem lasting that long and probably would be fine even longer. To me, 3k mile oil changes is 1) old school, 2) a waste of money and 3) a burden on the environment.

Sathinas

1. I agree
2. You know the saying, "more money than sense". It's their money.
3. Screw the environment. If Environmentalists were really concerned about the environment, they'd walk everywhere and live in huts they built themselves. The "environment" has been here for billions of years... Who are we, humans to think we can damage it with our silly antics?

venezzia

Yep

patrick_y

Wow! You only drive 2,000 miles a year on your E320! That's amazing!

I'd still change the oil every year or so. You might be able to stretch it to 18 months, but frankly, it's still best to change the oil every year.