When To Change Oil

A guy at a Porsche dealer told me that they dyno the engines in Germany for 500 miles, drain the oil, and refill before shippijg to the USA. Is this true? That's why I thought you don't need to do the 1,000 change with the Boxster.

[deliriousga]

Sorry, I don't know that one.

[donv]

There is (or at least was) an incentive for car companies to set longer oil change intervals, from the EPA or similar forces in governments everywhere. Back when we had effective CAFE regulations and the like, there was great pressure to reduce the amount of not just gas but also oil consumed. An easy way to do this was lengthen change intervals. The same folks that figured out it was cheaper to not fix the Pinto gas tank problem probably also were able to model when the engine would fail, on average, at change interval x+y%, so the car company execs could please the EPA. I'm sure it was/is targeted to be at some comfortable point past the factory warrany period.

I experienced this the hard way with my first "bought new" car... an '84 Honda CRX. Factory change interval (just extended at the time) on that was said to be 5K miles (conventional oil). I had previously always changed at 3K on all the used cars I'd owned before, with good long engine life. Following the 5K on the Honda got me a smoker by the time it hit ~70K miles.

I'm back to a religious 3K interval on my conventional oil cars since and they've all lasted well past 100K with no oil consumption. I'm doing every 10K or min. yearly on the Boxster with M1. With the oil being recycled now, I'm not worried that I'm ruining the planet with this practice - quite the opposite. By having the car last longer, that is one less vehicle that needs to be made as long as it lasts, saving energy and other resources consumed in the mfg. process. And of course, fewer steep new car depreciation cycles for my wallet, too.

[Brucelee]

Conventional DINO oil IS shot at 3K.

I use M1 in my wife's Subaru and change it at 5K.

Seems to work fine.

Originally Posted by donv

There is (or at least was) an incentive for car companies to set longer oil change intervals, from the EPA or similar forces in governments everywhere. Back when we had effective CAFE regulations and the like, there was great pressure to reduce the amount of not just gas but also oil consumed. An easy way to do this was lengthen change intervals. The same folks that figured out it was cheaper to not fix the Pinto gas tank problem probably also were able to model when the engine would fail, on average, at change interval x+y%, so the car company execs could please the EPA. I'm sure it was/is targeted to be at some comfortable point past the factory warrany period.

I experienced this the hard way with my first "bought new" car... an '84 Honda CRX. Factory change interval (just extended at the time) on that was said to be 5K miles (conventional oil). I had previously always changed at 3K on all the used cars I'd owned before, with good long engine life. Following the 5K on the Honda got me a smoker by the time it hit ~70K miles.

I'm back to a religious 3K interval on my conventional oil cars since and they've all lasted well past 100K with no oil consumption. I'm doing every 10K or min. yearly on the Boxster with M1. With the oil being recycled now, I'm not worried that I'm ruining the planet with this practice - quite the opposite. By having the car last longer, that is one less vehicle that needs to be made as long as it lasts, saving energy and other resources consumed in the mfg. process. And of course, fewer steep new car depreciation cycles for my wallet, too.

[MNBoxster]

Hi,

There is some pretty good evidence that changing the oil at the 3k mi. interval actually increases wear to the Engine and it's internals.

I know this seems counter-intuitive, but Engine wear actually decreases as oil ages. This has been substantiated in testing conducted by Ford Motor Co., ConocoPhillips, and reported in SAE Technical Paper 2003-01-3119.

What this means is that compulsive oil changers are actually causing more engine wear than the people who let their engine's oil get some age on it.

To add some perspective to this, I agree with the 10k mi. or annual (if less than 10k mi.) oil and filter change. Additionally, most of the dirt and particles which pass thorugh your Air Filter end up in your oil. If you live in (or have driven extensively through) dusty areas, or use a K&N Type oiled Filter, you should shorten the change interval. Hope this helps...

Happy Motoring!...Jim'99

[Brucelee]

Jim 99 is dead on with his post.

I too have seen this research on engine wear right after an oil change.

[mjw930]

Regarding the factory run-in of the motors Yes, Porsche runs every motor on an engine dyno prior to installing it in a car. As for the number of miles, that's unknown but they do run it through a computerized "break-in" then make power pulls to confirm output. The oil is then drained and replenished when it's finally installed in a car.

That would pretty much eliminate the need for a 1000 mile oil change.

BTW, if a motor doesn't make it's spec rated HP it's torn down to analyze why. Because of this continuing analysis they have very few motors that don't make the grade.

Here's a quote directly from the Porsche website:

The following hot test is the final step in the engine production process. The engines are first of all heated up to operating temperature and then subjected to a functional test including full-throttle testing. Information in the form of up to 220 parameters is generated in this test of around five minutes' duration.

This ensures that Porsche's high quality standards are also met in the area of engine construction.

[Brucelee]

I would think there is virtually no chance this is happening.

Originally Posted by bmussatti

A guy at a Porsche dealer told me that they dyno the engines in Germany for 500 miles, drain the oil, and refill before shippijg to the USA. Is this true? That's why I thought you don't need to do the 1,000 change with the Boxster.