Engine Life - how much do you gain

[Jim Miller]

[QUOTE=Jake Raby]Trust me.. Its not a bad thing.

Ever thought about all the contaminants the oil is susceptible to? Coolant intrusion, fuel intrusion, condensation are just a few that need to be purged from the engine at an oil service. Seeing what we gather from UOA and what I noted while using an Intellistick device in one of our test cars, even 5K is pushing it for the oil in these engines.


I will most probably change my oil at 5,000 miles because I have always in the past and I am really enjoying this car. The original question comes from discussing cars during lunch at work. The majority feel Im just wasting money. If you don't keep the car till it dies or if other parts fail before the engine your wasting money. Of course every car I have owned I plan on keeping it for life but it never works out.
My bad weather car is a 89 BMW 325i (oil change every 3000). engine internals clean and strong, everything else looking old.

[Brucelee]

Spending money for your own peace of mind is not "wasting money."

[mikefocke]

Keep the kind of statistics that enable them to cost justify their oil change intervals. How would you or I ever quantify Jake's track car versus my go to the dump car (with occasional blasts and one 6k+ revs romp every trip) versus your usage?

The closest we can come is for people like JFP and Jake who see dozens of engines a month and who do UOAs and record the engines history to tell us their conclusions after they analyze their data. And they universally say change early and often.

Its good enough for me.

(How long has it been since you changed your brake fluid? Said as one whose son lost his ABS system because the brake fluid had absorbed moisture over 8 years and took out about $1.5k in parts on his '94 Mazda.)

[Jim Miller]

Brake fluid is one thing I don't think about, how often should it be done if you just use your car as a daily driver?

[jmatta]

Change your brake fluid every two to three years if just driven on the street...doesn't matter if it's a sports car or your truck.