Interesting Oil Change View

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I stick to my 3000 miles, just because it makes me happy. My Valiant only gets about 500 miles a year put on it so far.
So I just change it about every 6 months due to moisture forming in my pan due to the climate in my area here. These are older engines, with looser tolerances.
My wifes Nissan Xterra is a 2003, with close tolerances. I run Castrol dino oil in it. I change hers about 3000-4000 miles. It gets used daily.
 
I work at a cadillac dealership and i cant count how many times we get customers that come in complaining about vehicle hesitations while driving and jerking concerns and when and when i bring it in my stall the oil is low screwing up the cam phasers and crank sensors and causing oil pressure concerns all because they past the recommended 5000 mile oil change interval. All i do perform a oil change clear codes and the concern is gone the dealership recomends these things for a reason
 
When I was putting 20k per year on the car, I changed 4 x /year. Now that I'm not, I change 2 x /year largely out of crankcase condensation concerns. X ? (whatever) on the cheap insurance part. I'd rather pay too much to keep what I have running rather than try to pay too little for something else.

I'll agree that additive packages are crucial to oil and that keeping the oil clean is paramount. That said, I'll kick open a couple of cans of worms. Base stock is important. I don't know why it is, but every valve cover I've removed with oil congealed in it so thick it needs to be scraped out with a putty knife has been either Pennzoil or Quaker State. If I ran these oils, I wouldn't push them past 3k miles.

The other thing is that oil filters are not created equal, even within a brand. Some brands OEM their filters through third parties. Sometimes that works out well, other times not so well. Look for filters with lots of pleats in the filter material, metal bypass spring, solid crimp between the filter body and the top plate, and a concentric gasket. Where you can comparison shop, pick up a cheap filter compare it to others that fit your ride. You can feel the difference in weight.

For what it's worth: Mercedes uses a filter that has cotton as a filtering material. They tell their owners that this filter is good for 15k miles under normal conditions regardless of whether they use a conventional or synthetic oil.
 
On my daily driver, I change the oil myself between 3000-4000 miles.
What's the harm? I think this article is written from the perspective of the "green" weenies / tree huggers.
 
There are many good threads on here about oil filter products. Since there are many types, made only by three companies really, I found by reasearching that it is almost impossible to compare them. What you may, or may not find in a filter that has a quality you think is good, you will find that that filter will give up something else of quality in order to compete for sales. Some filters have all natural filters, some are synthetics, and some are blends.You just cannot compare them. A filter that weighs more may have more junk in it, or it just might have a thicker gauge steel body. More pleats mean nothing. As a matter of fact, all the material that makes up the pleats, can pass almost no oil at all. Change the oil, and change the filters often and you will have far less problems. When my personal cars hit about 350000 we just give them to the kids. They don't use oil, and run great. We gave our son our town and country and last week I pulled the valve cover just for fun. Spotless. It has 370K. Good old Wal-Mart oil. I ignore the engineers. Their job depends on you buying another car as soon as you pay for the one you have. Those of you with serious race cars have other methods, and my comments don't apply to these types of vehicles.
 
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