3000 or 6000 mile Oil Change

[red]

Fresh out of High School in 1982 I worked in a small Mom and Pop Auto Parts Store . . a customer asked for one quart of 90 weight oil so I brought him gear oil . . no he says he is looking for motor oil straight 90 weight. . sure enough we had a case of straight 90 weight motor oil 
Cardboard Can with Metal Lid 

[barbender]

Haha that would quiet down that noisy lifter! Or bad rod or whatever else was going clunk😂

[Al_Smith]

I had an Oliver HG-68 crawler the rings were shot and oil pressure was low .Hercules IXK-3 flat head engine .Three quarts of 90 wt gear oil cured that problem until I rebuilt the engine .

[barbender]

Once, one of my buddies was down in Minneapolis visiting his dad. His Dad lived in the city, right in the Hood. Well my buddy was leaving town and he stopped at the local gas station to fuel up. As he was filling his tank, he said this big Cadillac pulled up on the other side of the pump. So this pimpin' looking dude got out and left the engine running, which my buddy said had a terrible knock. "RAP, RAP, RAP!!" My friend said he must've had a bit of a concerned look on his face, because the driver of the other car exclaimed, "Brutha says crankshaft!!" apparently in regard to the engine noise. He proceeded to explain that he had just gotten the car for a song, and he was going to add some 90 weight to it to quiet it down so he could sell it🙄🤷

 This was probably 25 years ago, but every time I hear an engine with a bad k ock or rattle, I can't help but think of, "brutha says crankshaft!!"😂😂

[Bill]

back aways I had a car with a particularly good ( ? ) oil pressure gauge.

after an oil chg it 'd read bout 40 till a few thousand miles later and the reading 'd drop to bout 35  = time for an oil chg and sure nough reading would be 40 again - then repeat the whole thing.

haven 't run across another gauge that sensitive and now I feel lucky if the warning lite works . . . .

[Al_Smith]

 Over the years they had all kinds of dirty tricks to quiet noisey engines,differentials ,transmissions and  so forth .Three quarts of SAE 40WT with two quarts of STP or Wynns friction proofing took the rattle of a knocking rod at least for a short time .Saw dust in a noisy differential or manual tranny .None of these fixes worked for a long time but enough to pedal them off .

[gspren]

 My new vehicle recomends 20,000 mi. oil changes  .

[red]

This was a very interesting topic with lots of opinions and it really is amazing how different engine oil is today 

[TreefarmerNN]

I change the oil in my Ford F350, 6.0 every 7500 miles.  Runs like a clock.

I keep by the 5,000 mile book in my 6.0 but it seems to come around pretty quickly.  And with the price of the filters and 15 quarts of oil, it's tempting to stretch it. 

[barbender]

The 6.0 and 6.4 Powerstrokes are exactly the engines you don't want to stretch your drain intervals on, from what I understand. It can give you sticky injectors and other not fun situations. 

Anything with an Exhaust Gas Recirculation system tends to get very high soot loading numbers in the oil, from what I've read. My 03 Dodge Cummins would be fine on a 10,000 mile drain. I've seen that shouldn't be attempted with my newer 6.7 Cummins. It's EGR equipped, and Cummins doesn't change the drain interval whether your running conventional or synthetic because the oil gets loaded with soot from breathing it's own exhaust. That can in turn clog up oil galleys etc. Bad news! 

Cummins gives similar guidance for their big truck ISX engines for the same reason.

Making my EGR go away is a life goal😊

[GRANITEstateMP]

When I was in tech school and working at the Toyota dealer, it was 3,500 mile on an oil change, 5k rotate tires  Then it went to 5k miles for oil change and tires.  We then had some rigs bump up to 10k oil changes.

A few customers asked my OPINION, not what the manufacturer was telling them.  I'm a simple guy so I gave them a simple answer: You got a 5yr, 60k factory warranty on drive train if you follow the maintenance guide.  Something happens in that time, you should be ok.  Now, if your planning on keeping this rig for 9-10yrs, change it every 3,500-5k and that's cheap insurance.  The manufacturer isn't that interested in your rig making it 300k, they're interested in it making it out of warranty!

[doc henderson]

I do it more frequent with town miles over highway miles.  used to work and hour away and past 6 years, 3 minutes away.  Or you could do a 5k change or 1 year, whichever comes first.

[barbender]

Oils are getting better all the time. When I started running Ponsse equipment with Mercedes diesels, I was surprised, kind of shocked really, by the 400 hour oil change service interval. Now they have it pushed out to 600 hours, and that's with a lighter, 5w-30 synthetic oil. I haven't seen any ill affects since they went to this interval, around 8 years ago iirc. Many of these engines, go 20-30,000 hours easily. 

[Resonator]

he was going to add some 90 weight to it to quiet it down so he could sell it

Reminds me of one of the guys I watch on You Tube. He bought an antique car that someone had done a major resto-mod rebuild on, complete with a modern engine and drivetrain. After he bought it, he planned to take it on a long trip. He had his mechanic do a full service on it, and the oil came out thick and strange looking. He just thought it was overdue for a change, had new oil put in and left on his trip. A few hundred miles from home the engine made a loud bang, and a piston rod played peek-a-boo through the side of the engine block.  
After he got it hauled back to his mechanic, they determined the previous owner had put some kind of "miracle in a bottle" treatment in the oil that made the engine build enough oil pressure to run fine. After they drained that stuff out, the engine was short lived.