Synthetic Oil Filter Change ?

[427HISS]

I haven't started using synthetic oil, but shouldn't everyone change the filter say,..every 3,000 miles ?

I never hear anything abut filters, just that change the oil from 5,000, 10,000 to 100,000,000 light years.

[machoneman]

Used to be 3K for oil and filters long ago. Many a modern car now has 10K (no kidding!) factory recommended changes with highway/city miles. Only more frequent with city only (taxi cab as I call it) miles.

Change oil and the filter as you see fit. Cheap insurance. My Mach 1 with a near 500 hp 351W based engine gets a syn oil change every 2-3 years with only about 2K total miles. The oil is barely darkened even with a 750 Holley (EFI engines do run cleaner) yet then I get to check the magnetic drain plug.

Don't be cheap if you've $$$ in your motor, I say! 

[RustyCrankshaft]

Depends on the filter you are using and your driving habits.

I'm not a fan of long drains on personal vehicles. Need to do UOA's to see whats going on and the price of oil it makes more sense to just change the oil, 2 UOA's and I paid for the oil change. The length of drain/filter changes varies significantly with operating parameters. A lot of new cars take into count cold starts, counts engine revolutions, etc to decide what % oil life to display.

Synthetic oil is fine, but so is most regular oils. And in the US, most synthetic oils are truly "synthetic" by the oil industry's view. A lot of the off the shelf parts store synthetics are actually Group III base oils, which are really still considered conventional. Some higher end synthetics that use Group IV or V base oils are truly synthetic. There are also some "cheap" synthetics that are very good. Much as I hate to admit it, the Penzoil Platinum base oil is a GTL (gas to liquid) base oil that's made from natural gas and is a very stable and clean base oil.

If a person wants to do the crazy long drains like 10k+ miles but do a filter swap then a synthetic media filter is helpful. The most commonly available options are the Wix XE filters.

At the end of the day for a daily driver non race application I think pretty much ANY modern oil changed at a reasonable interval is just fine. 4-8k miles depending on usage is what I personally prefer. Oil is cheap.

Last year we finished up a test at work that Phillips66 asked us to help with and we ran some of our on-road equipment and never changed the oil, only topped off the additive package doing a base oil test. After it's all said and done, given our duty cycle, use profile and life-cycle cost, it doesn't save us any more pushing our changes out past 6500 miles. Which equals about 3000 gallons a month of engine oil we go through here.

Another thing to consider about oil usage in an FE. A lot of the stuff powered by FE's these days are race cars or limited use stuff. Even though the oil isn't dirty yet, storage considerations come into the equation. The race car, my boat, quads, dirtbikes, etc. I change the oil before I store them for the winter so that they don't sit relying on the anti-corrison and dispersion additives trying to keep whatever may be in the oil from the last time I ran them from causing problems all winter.

The other thing I find funny, especially reading on the internet, is people who talk about long oil changes generally only owned the vehicle for a few years. They might have put 100k on it. Not a good endorsement of your super wizbang oil as I've seen engines go 100k with ZERO oil changes (hey, the salemen told me it didn't need service for 100k miles. Yep, that happened). Now, keep something for 10-15+ years and 250k+ miles and see how well those 10k mile oil changes are doing.

[Katz427]

A lot of the "push" for extended oil changes is coming from government agencies ( both US and abroad). So once a year oil and filter changes, fiquring 10500 miles a year. Where I work, we added 2 quarts to the oil pan capacity, and went with a Nelson extended life oil filter over a foot tall. This to meet the requirements of the laws in various countries. You, as an individual can do as you see fit. If you're doing oil analysis, you can probably go 10000 miles easy, but I prefer the 6500 miles mentioned by a previous poster.

[427HISS]

Rusty, I believed in you until I,looked at your username. "RustyCrankshaft'' ?

Tell me what brand of oil and filter you use, as if it doesn't keep your crank from rusting, I don't want them !

[plovett]

With a high end filter like a Mobil 1, I would change the filter and synthetic oil every 5000 miles.

JMO,

paulie

[Falcon67]

I shoot for 5~7K on the new cars.  I run dino oil in the race cars because if something bad happens, it's way easier to clean off the track than synthetic. 

[RustyCrankshaft]

Rusty, I believed in you until I,looked at your username. "RustyCrankshaft'' ?

Tell me what brand of oil and filter you use, as if it doesn't keep your crank from rusting, I don't want them !

Rusty Crankshaft Machine and Marine - unreliable service and ridiculous prices are our motto!

Toilet paper filer and I'm going green and recycle the machine oil out of the Sunnen.

[RustyCrankshaft]

With a high end filter like a Mobil 1, I would change the filter and synthetic oil every 5000 miles.

JMO,

paulie

Have to be careful about "specialty" filters. Not all of the Mobil 1, K&N, etc. filters are actually better. A lot of them are over-priced entry level filters unless it's a common high volume filter. K&N and Mobil also don't make filters. I'm not sure who Mobil currently contracts with. I think a lot of K&N's are still built by Hiflo Filtro.

Honeywell Filter Technology, AKA Fram, is the largest manufacturer and a LOT of stuff is private labeled through them. Purolator also does quite a lot of re-branding. Caterpillar and Mobil used to have a lot of their filters done by Purolator.

Not that they can't be good filters, just saying you have to look a little deeper into who actually built the filter and to what specs it was built. Personally Wix/Napa and Cat filters are a good performance vs cost value I think.

[machoneman]

Depends on the filter you are using and your driving habits.

I'm not a fan of long drains on personal vehicles. Need to do UOA's to see whats going on and the price of oil it makes more sense to just change the oil, 2 UOA's and I paid for the oil change. The length of drain/filter changes varies significantly with operating parameters. A lot of new cars take into count cold starts, counts engine revolutions, etc to decide what % oil life to display.

Synthetic oil is fine, but so is most regular oils. And in the US, most synthetic oils are truly "synthetic" by the oil industry's view. A lot of the off the shelf parts store synthetics are actually Group III base oils, which are really still considered conventional. Some higher end synthetics that use Group IV or V base oils are truly synthetic. There are also some "cheap" synthetics that are very good. Much as I hate to admit it, the Penzoil Platinum base oil is a GTL (gas to liquid) base oil that's made from natural gas and is a very stable and clean base oil.

If a person wants to do the crazy long drains like 10k+ miles but do a filter swap then a synthetic media filter is helpful. The most commonly available options are the Wix XE filters.

At the end of the day for a daily driver non race application I think pretty much ANY modern oil changed at a reasonable interval is just fine. 4-8k miles depending on usage is what I personally prefer. Oil is cheap.

Last year we finished up a test at work that Phillips66 asked us to help with and we ran some of our on-road equipment and never changed the oil, only topped off the additive package doing a base oil test. After it's all said and done, given our duty cycle, use profile and life-cycle cost, it doesn't save us any more pushing our changes out past 6500 miles. Which equals about 3000 gallons a month of engine oil we go through here.

Another thing to consider about oil usage in an FE. A lot of the stuff powered by FE's these days are race cars or limited use stuff. Even though the oil isn't dirty yet, storage considerations come into the equation. The race car, my boat, quads, dirtbikes, etc. I change the oil before I store them for the winter so that they don't sit relying on the anti-corrison and dispersion additives trying to keep whatever may be in the oil from the last time I ran them from causing problems all winter.

The other thing I find funny, especially reading on the internet, is people who talk about long oil changes generally only owned the vehicle for a few years. They might have put 100k on it. Not a good endorsement of your super wizbang oil as I've seen engines go 100k with ZERO oil changes (hey, the salemen told me it didn't need service for 100k miles. Yep, that happened). Now, keep something for 10-15+ years and 250k+ miles and see how well those 10k mile oil changes are doing.

Reminds me. Long ago, say 1968 a very well dressed business woman stopped into our Standard Oil station as the oil light was flickering on her company car (Chevy Impala IIRC). We checked the dipstick and no oil! Frank the station owner said to start filling it up. 5 quarts later (4 in the pan, 1 in the filter per the book) and we re-fired the the car. Later, Frank said the heavy, brown and crusty interior of the valve covers, breather and oil fill cap would likely soon break loose, clog the pickup screen  and destroy the engine. The gal had something like 26,000 miles in about a year and never knew the oil had to be changed and only had someone add a quart here and there!     

[RustyCrankshaft]

Depends on the filter you are using and your driving habits.

I'm not a fan of long drains on personal vehicles. Need to do UOA's to see whats going on and the price of oil it makes more sense to just change the oil, 2 UOA's and I paid for the oil change. The length of drain/filter changes varies significantly with operating parameters. A lot of new cars take into count cold starts, counts engine revolutions, etc to decide what % oil life to display.

Synthetic oil is fine, but so is most regular oils. And in the US, most synthetic oils are truly "synthetic" by the oil industry's view. A lot of the off the shelf parts store synthetics are actually Group III base oils, which are really still considered conventional. Some higher end synthetics that use Group IV or V base oils are truly synthetic. There are also some "cheap" synthetics that are very good. Much as I hate to admit it, the Penzoil Platinum base oil is a GTL (gas to liquid) base oil that's made from natural gas and is a very stable and clean base oil.

If a person wants to do the crazy long drains like 10k+ miles but do a filter swap then a synthetic media filter is helpful. The most commonly available options are the Wix XE filters.

At the end of the day for a daily driver non race application I think pretty much ANY modern oil changed at a reasonable interval is just fine. 4-8k miles depending on usage is what I personally prefer. Oil is cheap.

Last year we finished up a test at work that Phillips66 asked us to help with and we ran some of our on-road equipment and never changed the oil, only topped off the additive package doing a base oil test. After it's all said and done, given our duty cycle, use profile and life-cycle cost, it doesn't save us any more pushing our changes out past 6500 miles. Which equals about 3000 gallons a month of engine oil we go through here.

Another thing to consider about oil usage in an FE. A lot of the stuff powered by FE's these days are race cars or limited use stuff. Even though the oil isn't dirty yet, storage considerations come into the equation. The race car, my boat, quads, dirtbikes, etc. I change the oil before I store them for the winter so that they don't sit relying on the anti-corrison and dispersion additives trying to keep whatever may be in the oil from the last time I ran them from causing problems all winter.

The other thing I find funny, especially reading on the internet, is people who talk about long oil changes generally only owned the vehicle for a few years. They might have put 100k on it. Not a good endorsement of your super wizbang oil as I've seen engines go 100k with ZERO oil changes (hey, the salemen told me it didn't need service for 100k miles. Yep, that happened). Now, keep something for 10-15+ years and 250k+ miles and see how well those 10k mile oil changes are doing.

Reminds me. Long ago, say 1968 a very well dressed business woman stopped into our Standard Oil station as the oil light was flickering on her company car (Chevy Impala IIRC). We checked the dipstick and no oil! Frank the station owner said to start filling it up. 5 quarts later (4 in the pan, 1 in the filter per the book) and we re-fired the the car. Later, Frank said the heavy, brown and crusty interior of the valve covers, breather and oil fill cap would likely soon break loose, clog the pickup screen  and destroy the engine. The gal had something like 26,000 miles in about a year and never knew the oil had to be changed!   

You hear stories like this and think, naw, has to be a tall tale. Then it happens and someone like that woman in your story rolls in and you get to see it first hand and it gets you thinking about all the stories like it you've listened to over the years and wonder how these people make it through life!

[Heo]

Friend worked at a Gulf station, in came this lady with a Volvo Amazon
wanted to by oil to top of the engine. Friend asked if she wanted one liter or four
liters, if it use oil its cheaper to buy a four liter can? She bought four liter,friend
asked if she needed help filling. No her husband had showed her how to do it.
She came in and said she wanted another can beacuse it took the whole can
friend sold another can and thought she had almost no oil in the engine to begin with.
Then she came in and neded another can friend said whait a minute something wrong here
went out, oilfiller cap was of so she had filled in the right hole, he pulled the dipstick and lady asked
whats that? she thought she should fill up to the neck

[67428GT500]

I would never run an FE for 5000 miles. Too much contamination. My Saab Nordic has a 10,000 mile interval listed and in the pan is a sensor that somehow can read the condition of the oil and well as a level sensor. However, despite running Mobil 1 per manual all seven quarts are dumped and a new filter cartridge installed at 3000. I don't risk it because of the turbochargers.


                                                                                                               -Keith

[BattlestarGalactic]

I'm stuck with old school and go 3K miles on my '95 F150/302 truck.  I just consider it cheap insurance(though oil changes aren't cheap anymore).  Even just 10w30 Valvoline and a FL1A can go $40 these days.  I can remember it being just over $10.  At 15K miles a year, I don't see the advantage of going full synthetic.

The hot rods get it changed ever few years just for spite.  With only getting maybe 500 miles a year, I stretch it. 

The race car gets it every spring.  I've heard the comment about doing it at the end of the season, but never have.  After pulling the motor down after 6 years, it was clean as a whistle and not even a hint of rust.  I've heard the corrosion issue, but never seen it in any of my motors.