When To Change Oil - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

mjw930 · 09-17-2005, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MNBoxster

Hi,

You'll excuse me if I'm somwhat underwhelmed. Porsche may in fact run up their engines to confirm performance specs.

Too bad they don't also perform Quality and Durability tests, especially with respect to the RMS and Intermediate Shafts. These persistent Quality failures (prevelant through the entire 986, 996 model runs, with no apparent improvement through the years) are unconscionable for a Company with the past reputation for reliability. I mean, even Kia got this one right!

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Jim,

I'm not saying that they don't have their problems and I don't want to get into a pissing contest regarding Porsche's QC.

The question at hand was regarding factory specified oil change intervals and the discussion surrounding the factory's run-in proceedure. Here there can be no question, Porsche specifies the oil change intervals, including the initial change, based on their analysis of test data. If you choose to deviate from that formula then you do so at your own risk. As evidenced by some published scientific data more (sooner) is not always better.

I personally never bought into the 3000 mile change intervals. Those have been engrained on the population by the Jiffy Lubes of the world for the sole purpose of boosting their bottom line. No major engine manufacturer ever specified those intervals for normal driving conditions.

I think if you were to get access to the engineering data within Porsche you would find that even with the 15,000 oil change interval the oil's ability to protect the engine is well within spec. I wouldn't doubt if their data shows acceptable wear well past 20K intervals. Rest assured that they are not going to specify longer intervals at the risk of higher warranty claims.

Oh, and one more thing regarding the "5 minute" dyno runs. That is the portion of the run after the initial warm up phase that puts the engine through it's paces. On a modern computer controlled engine dyno you can properly break in an engine in a matter of minutes. Again, more is not always better.