The oil change interval between dealer advice and the actual truck's oil "life remaining" time is different, obvoiusly. I was wondering if most of you were going by the dealer recommended intervals or waiting until the life remaining, as determined by each car. It seems to me that the car recognizes the type of driving and the loads/stress put on it and determines on its own when it needs its oil changed. Just looking for some reassurance. Thanks.

 

I use synthetic oil and change every 6,000 miles.

 

My belief is that it is based on engine run time only, but I don't actually know for a fact. I know my 2001 monitors engine run time, you can get the hours by holding down trip odometer reset.(I think the engine needs to be off or something for it to display)

 

BTW, I generally change the oil between 3 and 5k miles. That's usually around the same time the "Change Engine Oil" starts blinking..

 

I change mine once a year whether it needs it or not. [/align][/align]I use Amsoil thats good for 35k or one year. Some have said it voids the warranty, but I'm still running it for the added protection.[/align]

 

I changed my oil at 3000 and didn't reset the oil life percentage. I just got to 6100, changed the oil, and the DIC said I had 8% left.

 

35,000 miles between oil changes? Yikes. I'd be surprised if that's actually Amsoil's recommendation (I don't drink their Kool-Aid), and even if it is, there isn't any way a few quarts of anything is going to withstand 35,000 miles of heat cycles and grunge and grime.

Heck, my Benz held 11 quarts and used ridiculously expensive fleece-based filter cartridges and with easy driving it wouldn't go more than 20K without requiring an oil change. A Suburban or Tahoe has about half as much oil, a much more basic (and smaller) filter system, and much heavier loads on your engine. 10K would be pushing it.

 

I usually try to stay away from chiming in on these kinds of posts, mainly because everyone has there own "experience" of what they've done, with or without engine troubles as what is typically attributed to what they do.

But, I'm a little bored and need a break from what I WAS thinking about at work.

The owners manual specifically says to change the oil based on what the DIC says in terms of oil life. I'm not going to share all the details on what/where that thing gets its info from, but supposedly you're not at risk by following the guidance provided by the vehicle.

That being said, it should not be a substitute for common sense. I think if you let the computer do its thing, it will generally guide you towards changing the oil roughly every 7500 miles. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less contingent upon the driving habits experienced over that duration. So, if you go by that, perform either the Schedule A or B as directed in the manual, you SHOULDN'T (this being the operative word) be at risk of voiding any warranty or damaging your vehicle.

Personally,and this mainly due to what I understand about filters, I change the oil based onhow or whatI've driven over that oil changes duration, generally not to exceed 5000 miles. So, it could be as little as 3000 miles or as much as 5000.

Sure, it may be overkill... may be its not, but I plan on keeping my Hoe for a long time. So, in my opinion, its cheap insurance! Just like they say with the Toyotas, all you have to do is change the oil and they'll last forever! Well, I seriously doubt my Tahoe will last as long as the Toyotas I've had, but changing the oil will definitely bring me a step closer!

As for the Amsoil, there has been proven oil tests that show Amsoil does a good job. If I recall correctly, the filters need to be changed more often than the oil. So you might go through a couple filters before you "supposedly" need to change to the oil.

The key to Amsoil and over an extended duration is monitoring the condition of the oil. So, you really should be doing periodic analyses to ensure you're not over extending the life of the oil. That being the case, you'll need a baseline as well. So, hopefully what should have been done is run conventional oil for a normal duration, get the test results and compare them to what you see come out of running that Amsoil for 10, 15, 20K or whatever.

 

The part I never understand about these oil-change-interval debates are, why on earth would you simply not change it regularly? It isn't like it's expensive or even time consuming. 20 minutes and maybe $30 every few months, and you're done. It's roughly equivalent to the amount of effort required to order and grab a to-go pizza. But then, I do most of my own work on a whole bunch of vehicles (a full round of oil changes at my house uses about 12 gallons) so maybe a simple oil change seems like less of a hassle to me, I don't know.

By the way, the OnStar site says that oil life is determined based on a number of factors including "your vehicle's engine type and temperature, driving conditions, air conditions," and I know from talking to a friend who works at Brumos Mercedes that the Benz system also tracks engine RPMs (counting the actual number of revolutions throughout the oil life) and oil viscosity (apparently the pump produces some kind of related voltage level that can be monitored).

So it really is a bit more complex than a simple one-to-one correlation with mileage, engine hours, or other simple factors, and the more I read about the systems, the closer I get to trusting them.

But for me, for now, it's still a regular 5,000 mile interval on everything but the race cars...

 

wait a second, I thought when the oil indicator comes on its time to trade it in......

Werun Mobil 1 and change it every three months no matter what. We may not put a lot of miles on it within those three months, but there are times the truck is running for long periods of time during demos and such.