Oil change intervals

[madmaxx]

As demonstrated in the Nuclear industry 55% of the time a technician works on a piece of equipment they create a problem which must be addressed within 45 days. The risk is not you change the oil to often it is the problem you may create while changing it. Examples include, forget oil and start engine dry, filter on loose resulting in leakage and loss of pressure, drain plug loose or leaking, plastic ring holding lid falls in fill hole as you are filling the engine with oil, to much or to little oil installed, jack falls on you and injures you, or damages car. I can go on. By the way nuclear industry is the most standardized and documented industry today, so in other industries the percentage is much higher.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by madmaxx

... 55% of the time a technician works on a piece of equipment they create a problem which must be addressed within 45 days.

Once again, truer words were never written.

[itstock]

Most of these cars aren't driven anywhere near hard enough to warrant 3000 mile oil changes, let alone 300 mile oil changes.

In fact, I'd say that the majority of our cars are driven even under "normal" driving conditions, as in; they are driven in perfect weather (certainly not cold weather for the vast majority), they are warmed up and babied, taken on nice cruises with minimal stop and go traffic, and driven for a bit of mileage before being parked again. This type of driving isn't just rated as normal driving, but it's damn near perfect for oil.

At worst, most of our cars will fall in to the oil industries severe driving category; roughly every 3,000 mile oil change intervals. Unfortunately for many of these cars, they will probably fail to see 3,000 miles over the course of their life with the current owner.

Even after a couple of hard track days amounting to over a thousand or so miles, people won't change their oil until...a couple more track days.

You would be wasting money and time changing your oil every 300 miles, but if it's a garage queen, every 2 or 3 years at that mileage certainly wouldn't hurt anything, even if it were unnecessary.

Every motor is different though, and as posted, a place like Blackstone can determine exactly how often you should be changing your oil.