pretty good article about changing oil

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/newsletter....tm_medium=email

 

It's interesting, but unless I start doing oil analysis, it still doesn't help me. So do I spend money changing my oil more often, or doing analysis?

 

I do it once a year. Not sure I should do it right before or after hibernation.

 

^ I do both before and after Last year i put in 2700 miles talk about overkill eh

 

do the oil analysis because it can tell you if you are actually having engine related issues such as excessive wear and oil contamination by fuel or anti-freeze, etc

not to mention reducing unecessary oil changes is being environmently friendly.

 

Dave,
what do you think is happening to the oil in your engine as it sits over the winter?
that would be different from, say for example, sitting in a plastic bottle on the shelf?

how many seconds of run time does it get between the fall oil change and the spring oil change?

 

I do it before it goes into hibernation. Gives the motor a chance to run
the clean oil through the engine and pick up any impurities so when the
oil drains down to the pan, you don't have that gunk sitting on your
engine all winter.

I run Mobil 1 for 7500 miles between changes. I'm figuring there is still
plenty of life left in it when I change it even at that interval. Please
correct me if I'm wrong.

 

After 6700 miles on my M1 10w30 my numbers were quite scary. I'll post up the report later.

I've moved to AMSOIL.

 

Same here. I run synthetic every season, usually 3000 - 3500 miles worth and change to the fresh stuff before she sleeps. It's probably overkill, but I like to start her after 4 months with no worries of grit and grime in the oil.

Jerry, is there a chance the oil could gel over those months as well? Not that my garage gets below freezing but still... The bottle on the shelves see room temperature until they are bought.

 

scott,
do you think trucks and warehouses are always heated? sorry but the answer is definitely no.
Conceptually if you had different fractionations you could get some marginal separation due to temp.
But a Mobil 1 is just homogenic and remarkable consistent.
Freezing the oil is not going to modify it's chemical composition unless you got it really, really cold and I still wouldn't bet on any changes.
It takes energy in the form of heat, and a lot of it, to break the bonds and denature the oil.

so assuming you change it in the fall ( good time, I agree), doing it a second time in the spring doesn't have a demonstrable benefit that I am aware of.