The dealer tells me I can go up to 6,500 miles between oil changes as the oil is semi-synthethic. That sounds like a real stretch to me. Any real world suggestions on frequency of oil changes especially when the 1st one should be done (I'm just under 1,000 miles right now)?

 

getting mileage like that out of oil isn't a stretch... My family is up to 5k between oil changes, my big trucks always go 15-20k plus between oil changes (big diesels) but with it being new, I would change the oil every 3k to 12, then I wouldn't sweat 5k between oil changes.

 

I drive about 6K-7K a year and use Mobil 1 and change at 0% on the OLM. Even do the same on conventional oil on wife's 2004.

 

My $.02. I had a daughter in college with my Mazda. Knowing no way she would do anything other than put gas in it. I use full synthetic I change the filter at 7500, and both at 15000. I use Castrol hi mileage conventional in my suburban with 185K, change it 3-4000 and filter.

 

I would say that 6500 is a bit of a stretch. For a diesel on the other hand, the oil lasts much longer. But on a regular combustion engine, 3-5k mile oil and filter change would be right. I change mine every 3,000 miles religiously. This keeps all your parts well lubricated and keeps everything from needing to be changed out sooner rather than later. Better safe than sorry.

 

To each his own, but unless all of your 3,000 mi is in the city, with today's oils, you're wasting money. Oil's just too expensive to overdo it.

 

I appreciate everyone's feedback. I think I'll go with 3,000 miles for the first oil change then every 5,000 after that along with a tire rotation at each oil change. I'm guessing if I used a full synthetic I could go longer but I go with whatever the dealer uses and I'm told it's a semi synthetic for the Suburban. I'd say about 60% of my driving is in the city and are just short trips around town (work, kids to school, etc) and that's why I'll change it a little earlier than the dealer said was okay to do so.

 

It used to be that you changed out your "break in" oil at 500 miles... that is no longer the case, but changing your first oil at 3000 or sooner is fine...

Like 73shark I too, use M1 and go to 0% and change which gets me about 7-8k miles between changes... I also rotate at those oil changes...

The system does not know what type of oil you use and the system is based on regular oil so even 6k on regular oil should be fine...

Here is info I had on the Oil Life System...

 

That attachment was very helpful. I mostly fall into that "short trip service" timeframe so I'll continue to change my oil every 3,000-4,000 miles. I only put about 11,000 miles a year on my vehicle so that's not alot of oil changes. For the peace of mind I'll change more frequent as I just don't want problems down the road with a $56,000 vehicle because I didn't take care of it the right way. I've never trusted the oil life monitors as the 2010 Acadia I traded in for the Suburban would take me to about 16,000 miles before it hit 0% so I never went by that. Changed it every 3,000 miles and I know they didn't even use a semi synthetic oil for that vehicle.

 

The OLM on the Tahoe is based on 5W30 conventional oil that meets GM's req'ts and the algorithm takes into account starts, temp., speed, rpm, etc. So going to 0% shouldn't be a problem especially w/ synthetic. Good luck.