Hi guys, I will be doing a track day in a couple of weeks and am curious: if I'm going to change the oil one time should it be before or after the track day? The oil (Mobil 1) in my car now has been there for almost a year and has about 4k miles on it. Is there enough life left in the oil to deal with a track day and go fresh right after or should I change it now knowing that it won't get changed again for a while after the track day?

 

I would change it before the track day.I have one car that sits alot,and even though I don't drive it much,I'll do a Oil & filter change every 6 mos anyway.

Fluids are cheap.Make sure you have a good flowing Oil filter.My 03S likes either the Amsoil Ea15k20 or the Wix 51334.

Don't forget about your brake/clutch/trans & diff fluids.Make sure they are fresh too!
\rlr
carolina

 

I would change it before the track day if it was my car, there are no hard and fast rules though. One track day won't harm the new oil and you can continue on running that oil for a full oil change interval after the track day without issue. That would be my choice.

 

i'd change it before but thats me and leave it in there after track day if its going back to storage-ish stage

 

Both.

 

This is just opinion of course:

1. If you're going to run track days on a regular basis then change the oil about every 10 track days or so (use the color of the oil as a rough guide) and I highly recommend a good full synthetic oil--I like Castrol.

2. If you plan to only run an occasional track day I think as long as your oil isn't real dark I'd say run the track day and then change it cause a hard track day will darken (dirty) my oil but that depends on how hard you push the car.

But like Ajjra said the best thing for your car would be to change it before and after.

 

The color of your oil has nothing to do with when you need to change it.

 

Oil changes color because it gets heat cycled not because its "dirty"

 

That alone is a reason to change it IMO.

+1 Don't evaluate your oil based on color.