Oil Change Intervals

[wbute]

What does everyone do regarding oil changes these days? I always changed the oil in my WB every 5000km with a new filter. My current Hilux and Mrs Prado, I do it every 10000km (diesel) but really it comes out bloody black looking. If you follow Berrima Diesel they give the manufacturers recommended oil a bad rap. Apparently the super thin oil makes huge blow-by which causes all sorts of inlet manifold sludge build up.
I wonder if the long oil change intervals these days is just to sell cars. They only expect them to last a few years it seems.

[Valencia]

My 2004 Mazda Bravo 4x4 turbo diesel it gets changed every 5000 km overkill maybe but i had the rocker cover gasket done last service due to small leak my mechanic took pictures of my head it was clean as a whistle
i have used the same oil from day one
198000 km trouble free so far

My SS ute every 10000km

[axistr]

I change my mineral base oils every 5,000km and where synthetic oil is used every 7,500km, basically half of what the manufacturer recommends, probably a bit of an overkill. I use Shell Rimular X in most of my vehicles. Its a diesel engine oil but I still use it in my petrol and diesel engines and have done so for the last thirty years.

Some people will tell you that diesel oil will wash out old petrol engines and use more oil. Old wise tale that isn't necessarily correct. Diesel oil has more detergent in the oil to stop sludge build-up. Due to diesel engines having higher compression ratio, more soot will naturally pass by the rings. All engines will use oil new or used, but its the carbon, fuel and soot that passes over time into the oil that raises the level and minus the oil usage that keeps the oil at a constant level on the dip stick. Oil never wears out its the contaminants from the combustion process that slowly adds to the oil and when there is more contaminants floating around than the original oil the contaminants leach out and sludge forms on internal parts, building up and can't be drained out during an oil change. Much worse and earlier when using a real bad cheap manufactured oils. I never used cheap oils.

I found the opposite In just about all cases, when I switched customers vehicles that had been using oil to Shell Rimular it dramatically reduced the oil burn after around 3,000km. It cleaned out and freed up rings that were previously gummed up in the piston ring lands not allowing the rigs to seal in the bore.

Most diesel engine oils have Zink added to the oil during manufacture to better help lubricate camshafts and lifters which is also a bonus for standard or performance petrol engines, especially Holden V8 engines which have had cam issues over the years. I use full synthetic oils in my beamer and Ranger only because the manufacturers state they must be used or warranty is void. I use Shell helix ultra (full synthetic) for these vehicles. Quality full synthetic oil do have a lot of detergent in them and suspend contaminants for longer and will have longer oil life intervals. Most later model cars now come with larger capacity oil sumps, the more oil the longer it takes for the oil to contamination ratio to reach its limit. Its for this reason large diesel trucks commonly come with 50lt sumps and 25-35,000 km oil change intervals.

Hope this helps some of the myths about oil changes.

[Valencia]

I change my mineral base oils every 5,000km and where synthetic oil is used every 7,500km, basically half of what the manufacturer recommends, probably a bit of an overkill. I use Shell Rimular X in most of my vehicles. Its a diesel engine oil but I still use it in my petrol and diesel engines and have done so for the last thirty years.

Some people will tell you that diesel oil will wash out old petrol engines and use more oil. Old wise tale that isn't necessarily correct. Diesel oil has more detergent in the oil to stop sludge build-up. Due to diesel engines having higher compression ratio, more soot will naturally pass by the rings. All engines will use oil new or used, but its the carbon, fuel and soot that passes over time into the oil that raises the level and minus the oil usage that keeps the oil at a constant level on the dip stick. Oil never wears out its the contaminants from the combustion process that slowly adds to the oil and when there is more contaminants floating around than the original oil the contaminants leach out and sludge forms on internal parts, building up and can't be drained out during an oil change. Much worse and earlier when using a real bad cheap manufactured oils. I never used cheap oils.

I found the opposite In just about all cases, when I switched customers vehicles that had been using oil to Shell Rimular it dramatically reduced the oil burn after around 3,000km. It cleaned out and freed up rings that were previously gummed up in the piston ring lands not allowing the rigs to seal in the bore.

Most diesel engine oils have Zink added to the oil during manufacture to better help lubricate camshafts and lifters which is also a bonus for standard or performance petrol engines, especially Holden V8 engines which have had cam issues over the years. I use full synthetic oils in my beamer and Ranger only because the manufacturers state they must be used or warranty is void. I use Shell helix ultra (full synthetic) for these vehicles. Quality full synthetic oil do have a lot of detergent in them and suspend contaminants for longer and will have longer oil life intervals. Most later model cars now come with larger capacity oil sumps, the more oil the longer it takes for the oil to contamination ratio to reach its limit. Its for this reason large diesel trucks commonly come with 50lt sumps and 25-35,000 km oil change intervals.

Hope this helps some of the myths about oil changes.

Rimular X is what i have been using in my Bravo to Lenny

[Camper]

Hope this helps some of the myths about oil changes.

Thank you for this explanation, as someone who has changed/cleaned/serviced many a deep fryer - including filtering dirty oil through coral substrate to reuse - this made a lot of sense to me.

The oil is a matrix suspending impurities and carrying heat.

[jason.ruff]

I completely agree. We run 2 tugboats with 3 x V12 Caterpillar engines, one vessel has centrifuges and one doesn't. 600 Litre sumps so high volume of oil, but we get twice as long for servicing on the engines with spinners because we remove the carbon and crap. Ours is all sample based oil changes with samples taken every 250Hrs, so we can closely monitor oil condition. We change the oil every 12 months unless required to prior.

[axistr]

I completely agree. We run 2 tugboats with 3 x V12 Caterpillar engines, one vessel has centrifuges and one doesn't. 600 Litre sumps so high volume of oil, but we get twice as long for servicing on the engines with spinners because we remove the carbon and crap. Ours is all sample based oil changes with samples taken every 250Hrs, so we can closely monitor oil condition. We change the oil every 12 months unless required to prior.

Wow that's a big sump, 600 lts and you still had to change it every 250 hrs.

I have had excellent results using Shell oils over the past 30 years but the one experience below was very interesting.

We used to service a fleet of new trucks with 550hp C15 Caterpillar engines. Westrack allowed us to do warranty and service on the engines with strict instructions to only use genuine cat parts and engine oil. Caterpillar had a great system on engine service intervals. The engine oil change interval was based on fuel usage. when the engine computer reached 20,000 lts since last reset it brought up a message on the engine data tagging oil service. In this fleet most trucks travelled 28,000km. Some of the trucks that did more local work set off the warning at 21,000km so it was a very accurate way of determining the best service life of the oil. Of course we also has to do a oil sample every oil change and send it to Westrack. We would get an oil sample test report 48-72 hours later.

One of my mechanics mistakenly put Rimular X in one of these cat powered trucks instead of the genuine Caterpillar oil. I said don't waste 50 lts of oil and run it with the Rimular. The oil sample report come back and Westrack didn't say anything. On the next service the same mechanic decided he would put the Shell Rimular X in again and see how the oil stood up against the cat oil. We told the owner and he didn't have a problem of one truck being on the Shell oil, but we didn't tell Westrack. After the second oil sample test on this truck I got a call from the oil test lab. The Forman in charge of the test lab said what's going on with fleet number 4. I played ignorant and said I don't know why what's wrong. He said what oil are you using and I said the cat oil, he quickly said no your not. Again I said yeah it is. He said bull shit its defently not 15w40 cat oil. I said what's wrong with the oil. He said again they really needed to know what oil I was using in this truck. In the end I said ok sorry one of my mechanics accidently put shell Rimular X 15w40 in it. He then told me that we had made the same mistake twice in the same truck and was picked up in the oil trend reports by the computer in the lab.

I explained we were sorry and it wouldn't happen again. The phone went quiet then he come back and said, the Shell oil we were using out performed their Cat oil by considerable margins. I asked who Caterpillar used to supply oil to them but they wouldn't tell me. He also added that the Rimular X could have easily gone an extra 10-15,000 km than their cat oil. They asked if we would run the whole fleet on the Shell oil and do long term testing. We set the engine computers to 28,000 lts of fuel usage and the oil still out performed the Cat oil. Westrack were very surprised with the results over 18 months. Oil usage was also down and when we removed the rocker covers at 600,000 km for a valve set all the truck engines were spotless like they had only done 5,000 km.

We had Cummins m11 & n14 engines exceed 1,6 million kms and a Detroit 60 series exceed 2.1 million kms on this oil until it broke a piston top.

wbute if your Toyota engines are a 2L 3L or 5L I wouldn't go any further than 5,000km on an oil change, they are renowned for excessively slugging the oil.

And yes oil spinners are oils best friend, a fantastic invention that should be on every diesel engine.

[wbute]

No short running is important. Any engine that stays hot like heavy vehicles or taxis get massive hours up.

[Beachy]

I have always ran John Deere diesel oil which is made by Fuchs oil for years
Nissan patrol 450000 Klm
80 series cruiser 525000 klm
200 series cruiser 300000 klm
79 series cruiser 200000 klm
No moter issues with any oil changed between 12 and 15000 klm

[Camper]

Nissan patrol 450000 Klm
80 series cruiser 525000 klm
200 series cruiser 300000 klm
79 series cruiser 200000 klm

That is an impressive amount of driving, respect.