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I've always heard that you should change your oil every 3,000 miles (5,000 km). That little sticker you get on your windshield after an oil change agrees. Growing up, my parents told me the same thing.

I doubt that you need to change your oil that often to maintain a healthy engine. I suspect it's a ploy by the companies to increase profits.

Is it really necessary to change your oil that frequently to get the most life out of your vehicle?

Oddthinking
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dpatchery
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  • a rule of thumb doesnt apply in every situation. What if u need 10 years for this 3000 miles with ur hobby motor bike, what if one year...but 3000 sounds very low to me – Werner Schmitt Jun 03 '11 at 18:54
  • @Werner Schmitt 3000 miles are almost 5000 km which is what I was told to be a recommended interval for oil changes... – Lagerbaer Jun 03 '11 at 19:00
  • @WernerSchmitt I'm assuming average usage (whatever that is... 10,000 miles per year?) – dpatchery Jun 03 '11 at 19:01
  • @lagerbaer changing your oil every 2nd month for a daily employee something i never saw doing anyone in my friends circle of motor bike drivers, once a year was my rule of thumb. Dont know how temperature stable motor oil and physical diffusion and consumption are actually. But these types of rule of thumbs are often pretty old. No idea on state of the art nowadays – Werner Schmitt Jun 03 '11 at 19:10
  • The sticker I get from the Ford dealership is based on a 5000-mile cycle, the same as the manufacturer's recommendation. If you're getting a sticker that says 3000 miles every time, and your manufacturer's recommendation is higher, it's quite possibly a marketing tactic. –  Jun 03 '11 at 19:52
  • Higher precision engines, high performance engines, need more frequent oil changes possibly down to the tolerances of their engine build. In more recent times, more and more common engines have much tighter tolerances, to the extent that *blueprinting* an engine isn't really necessary. With that, it seems even more mainstream engines now need more frequent oil changes because of this. – Hairy Jun 03 '11 at 21:02
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    @Hairy: Absolutely. I've never heard of any standard production engines that need *more* frequent oil changes than 3000 miles, but it's certainly a false economy to do it less often than the manufacturer recommends. I think this talk of 'marketing tactics' is just tosh. The manufacturers don't get rich selling *oil changes* - they get rich by selling *cars*. And all other things being equal you'd buy the car with longer servicing intervals, so if anything they'd like to quote higher mileages between changes. – FumbleFingers Jun 04 '11 at 00:33
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    @FumbleFingers: I would not assume that an independent repair shop's interests were aligned with the manufacturers' or dealers' interests. Their interest is definitely in having customers come in more often. –  Jun 04 '11 at 01:29
  • @jprete: oic. You're saying what if the maintenance guy puts a sticker on your car suggesting you should go back for your next oil change *before* the mileage given in the manufacturer's spec. In that case, I'd peel the sticker off and use a different maintenance guy next time. – FumbleFingers Jun 04 '11 at 01:33
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    @FumbleFingers: I have never been to an oil change place that did not put 3000 miles on the sticker. – stoj Jun 04 '11 at 06:13
  • @stoj: same here. I'm due right now (according to the sticker) and am quite pleased about the timing of this question :) – Hendy Jun 04 '11 at 13:55
  • I have never heard the 3000 miles story in the UK, however every manufacturer has recommendations in the manual for every car, for example my two are 10,000 and 15,000 miles, but to check the oil in my STi weekly, as if something does go wrong it is likely to escalate quickly in a highly tuned engine:-) – Rory Alsop Jun 03 '11 at 23:24
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    Let's see, my Honda's manuals mention it needs servicing every 20.000 kilometers. My previous car, a Ford, mentioned 15.000 kilometers. My father's old BMWs mentioned 25.000 kilometers.
    Every of those services includes an oil change, all of them are way longer than 4500 kilometers (3000 miles).

    Can't find those service manuals online of course. Manufacturers include them with the car. If you visit a dealership they'll be able to order one for you.     – jwenting Jun 05 '11 at 04:30
  • I haven't changed the oil in my car in at least 30,000km and I've experienced no adverse effects to date. – Coomie Nov 12 '12 at 01:32
  • Anecdotal evidence: Close to 160,000 miles, service including oil change once a year (seven times so far), engine does just fine. – gnasher729 Nov 26 '14 at 00:09
  • The problem here is that that 3,000 mile rule is very old. That was the standard instruction when I learned about cars but the technology has improved, we don't need that anymore. These days I don't even worry about it, the car's computer tells me when it wants an oil change and that's based on how you drove, not just the miles driven. (6,000 trips around the block in gridlocked traffic is **very** different than a coast-to-coast drive!) – Loren Pechtel Sep 24 '15 at 04:08

2 Answers2

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No.

  • Wiki on this myth.
  • California's efforts to debunk this myth HERE

Synopsis: follow the manual's recommended oil change schedule, not the 3,000 mile recommendation that has become commonplace advice.

To translate that into some figures, I looked around for publicly available service manuals (just a few as I don't want to take all my time with this...):

  • 2002 Mazda Protege (LINK): 6mos or 7,500 miles, whichever comes first, Sec. 8-4
  • 2006 Volvo, all models (LINK): 7,500 miles
  • 2011 Ford Explorer (LINK): when light comes on (up to 10,000 miles or 1 year), pgs. 417, 420
  • 2008 Cadillac CTS (LINK): up to a year, Sec. 6-4
  • 2000 Oldsmobile Alero (LINK): whenever the light comes on, typically between 3,000-7,500 miles, but never longer than 7,500 miles or 1 year, Sec. 7-6

Edit: I thought it might be helpful to know typical driving distances per year, since that came up in the comments. They are listed HERE by the US Dept. of Transportation (current as of 4/2011). The average for all age groups across both genders is ~13,500/year. This would equate to 4-5 oil changes based on the 3,000 recommendation vs. 1-2 for the typical manufacturer's recommendations above.

As one last add-in, some in the comments brought up idle time. I don't know where that figures in. I'm assuming this question has to do with general use, however, not extreme cases of little/no usage.

Hendy
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    Type of Oil plays a huge role. With all-synthetic engine oil you could get away with much more than with regular oil. – crasic Jun 03 '11 at 21:34
  • @crasic: Good point, though in my skimming did not see any mention of alternative schedules for oil maintenance when using synthetic. Thus, I'd still stick with the manufacturer's recommendations, regardless of the type, unless more information was provided about this particular issue. – Hendy Jun 03 '11 at 22:01
  • from a speculative pov i would assume that current state of art in lubricating properties of oil could have increased drastically, as in last decades especially physial nano-analyisis methods progressed pretty much (scanning-probe microscopy, SEM) and the 3000 mile rule is more of a legend than a myth. Of course always look in ur manual. We have a pure engine oil company here in germany, so the change rate will directly define their revenue... – Werner Schmitt Jun 04 '11 at 12:43
  • @Werner Schmitt: on that note, I would be *very* interested to know what analysis methods could definitively answer this questions. I'm supposing that auto manufacturers have some and come up with 7,500 miles based on some "safe bet" set of conditions... but it would be very neat to know that one could take a sample, analyze for particle content, average hydrocarbon chain length, and whatever else, and objectively *know* whether they needed a change or not! – Hendy Jun 04 '11 at 13:52
  • @Hendy as i said scanning-probe microscopy - atomic force microscope (AFM). Also there much more knowledge on plasma gas processes and using this for micro-engineering of surfaces.Clusterpyhsics (engineering of bigger molecules and their properties) is much better inspectable.[Tribology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotribology) might be good start. Material research is no more chemical trial & error, more dircet engineering of material properties from a physical pov.I dont expect moores law for engine oil, but therr are drastically better investigation method for mid-class firms than in 70s – Werner Schmitt Jun 04 '11 at 14:43
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    @Werner: My earlier cars typically suggested 6000 miles for light use and 3000 miles for heavy use (and at least two-thirds of the driving around here counts as heavy), and mechanics may have gotten used to saying 3000 miles to people who insisted on the 6000. My current car tells me when it wants maintenance, but I don't know exactly how it figures it out. – David Thornley Jun 05 '11 at 17:21
  • If you do not care about the life of your car post 100k miles that is true. But ever vehicle I have ever known that was operational at 150k+ had regular oil changes throughout its life. My father owned a parts store and had the oil changed on all of the delivery vehicles regularly. Despite being many being driven like they rental cars by the delivery drivers every one lasted over 150k miles. Most of them over 200k. He used standard Napa 10w30 oil no custom name brand or synthetics. Most of them even had working airconditioners when they finally surrendered to the abuse. – Chad Jun 06 '11 at 15:30
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    @Chad: I'm open to this, but your experience from even an above-average number of vehicles is not yet representative of the statistical distribution. Ideally we'd need records from thousands of different makes/models in different climates and to know their service histories. In other words, substantiate that following the manufacturer's recommendations constitutes "not caring about the life of your car post 100k miles." Lastly, I don't know of any connection between the air conditioner longevity and oil changes -- the two are independent. – Hendy Jun 06 '11 at 15:38
  • That is true. I can say that it was true of 1980-2004 Ford Rangers and Escort wagons. They had 2 trucks and an escort and replaced one every year (at around 250k ususally selling the other one for ~1k). It also worked well for my parents ford vehicles which ran like new at 140k when they sold them. The tbird they got me for my 16th birthday did not last as long but it was well used and I drove it like i was invincable... I must have been :p – Chad Jun 06 '11 at 17:49
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    IIRC, my car's manual (VW diesel engine) suggest changing oil every every checkup, checkups are every 15,000km (about 10,000 miles). However, VW only accepts synthetic oils as conforming to it's standards. – vartec Nov 12 '12 at 12:48
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I checked the owner's manual for some cars I or my family have owned (Suziku Alto, Mitsubishi Colt, Toyota Carena, two Ford Fiestas) and they all say to change the oil as part of the yearly service or after 10k miles. Most people in the UK with "normal" (non performance, non specialist) cars get theirs changed yearly during the service, unless they do very high mileage. The little "service" indicator in cars I have owned seems to be programmed with this behaviour as well - in the Colt it actually told you how many months left before the next service, counting down from 12.

FWIW I now have an all-electric Leaf, and that too requires yearly servicing. Yearly seems to be the standard in most of Europe, as harmonized rules require yearly inspections for safety and emissions that are normally done at the same time.

I tried to find some PDF owner's manuals to view online as reference, but failed. You will have to take my word for it. Of course this is only European spec cars, US spec models may be different.