I will have had my car for 2 years on May 19th and only have about 6600 miles on it. How often should I change the oil? Right now, it's approximately every 6 months. When the time comes and I hit 10K miles, would it be better to switch to synthetic and change it once a year? This should be right up xviper's alley. Thanks.

 

At the rate you are putting miles on the car your current schedule is just fine. Every six months is perfect. There really isn't a designated time to start using synthetic from what I can gather, but I plan to start using it in mine around the 15,000 mark. That shouldn't be for at least another year though. I'm at 5,500 now but 2,000 of that is from a trip I made over Spring Break. I plan to average about 6,000 a year.

 

I'd switch at the next 6 month interval, when oil consumption hasn't changed for two consecutive changes, just to be opinionated. For me, I just made he switch at 24k miles, because it took that long for consumption to stabilize at 3/4-1qt over 3700 miles or so.

 

Dario

I have my car about 9 months and just got to 3750 miles. I just changed the oil. I expect to get on a 6 month, 3750 mile schedule. I happen to think that the milage is more important then the time but I wouldn't let much more then 9 months go by.

Like you, I am going to switch to synthetic at 10,000. After I switch to synthetic I expect to stay on the same schedule. I'm probably over doing the oil changes in terms of milage, but I never heard of an engine going bad because of clean oil.

 

Testify

 

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.........

 

Time is of the essence. It's whichever comes first.
I think you are doing just fine with your 6 month interval. Of course, this changes back to mileage if you suddenly start driving more. You will be fine to go synthetic at 10K miles. I did. If the engine is still using oil at that time, it will probably continue to do so at more or less the same rate. Each car breaks in differently so the previous statement is only a generalization. Mine suddenly stopped using oil at around 20K miles but this also coincides with the installation of the S/C so I can't say for sure if it would have stopped had I not put on the S/C. Being the old scientist that I was and sorta still am, I can't take the S/C out of the equation.