Stop Changing Your Oil

By Philip Reed, Senior Consumer Advice Editor, Ronald Montoya, Consumer
Advice Associate | Published Aug 24, 2010

Oil chemistry and engine technology have evolved tremendously in recent
years, but you'd never know it from the quick-change behavior of American
car owners. Driven by an outdated 3,000-mile oil change commandment, they
are unnecessarily spending millions of dollars and spilling an ocean of
contaminated waste oil.

Although the average car's oil change interval is around 7,800 miles - and
as high as 20,000 miles in some cars - this wasteful cycle continues
largely because the automotive service industry, while fully aware of the
technological advances, continues to preach the 3,000-mile gospel as a way
to keep the service bays busy. As a result, even the most cautious owners
are dumping their engine oil twice as often as their service manuals
recommend.

After interviews with oil experts, mechanics and automakers, one thing is
clear: The 3,000-mile oil change is a myth that should be laid to rest.
Failing to heed the service interval in your owner's manual wastes oil and
money, while compounding the environmental impact of illicit waste-oil
dumping.

Scared Into Needless Service
Part of the blame for this over-servicing lies in our insecurities about
increasingly complicated engines that are all but inaccessible to the
average driver. Pop open the hood of a modern car, and a mass of plastic
covers wall off the engine. On some vehicles, the only thing an owner can
easily access is the oil cap.

"Vehicles are so sophisticated that oil is one of the last things that
customers can have a direct influence over," said Matt Snider, project
engineer in GM's Fuels and Lubricants Group. "There's maybe some feeling
that they're taking care of their vehicle if they change their oil more
often."

The 3,000-mile myth is also promoted by the quick lube industry's
"convenient reminder" windshield sticker. It is a surprisingly effective
tool that prompts us to continue following a dictate that our fathers (or
grandfathers) drummed into our heads: It's your duty to change your oil
every 3,000 miles - or your car will pay the price. But as former service
advisor David Langness put it, the 3,000-mile oil change is "a marketing
tactic that dealers use to get you into the service bay on a regular
basis. Unless you go to the drag strip on weekends, you don't need it."

Because busy car owners seldom read their owner's manuals, most have no
idea of the actual oil change interval for their cars. And so they blindly
follow the windshield reminder sticker, whether it's an accurate indicator
of the need for an oil change or not. "I just go by the sticker in the
windshield," one well-to-do, educated Denver Lexus owner said. "Otherwise,
how would I know when to change it?"

A career Navy mechanic who bought an Edmunds.com long-term car just
shrugged when he was told that the vehicle had safely gone 13,000 miles
between oil changes. "I'll just keep changing the oil every 5,000 miles,"
he said. "It's worked well for me in the past."

Our oil change addiction also comes from the erroneous argument that
nearly all cars should be serviced under the "severe" schedule found in
the owner's manual. In fact, a quiz on the Web site maintained by Jiffy
Lube International Inc. (owned by petrochemical giant Shell Oil Company)
recommends the severe maintenance schedule for virtually every kind of
driving pattern.

The argument that most people drive under severe conditions is losing its
footing, however. A number of automakers, including Ford and GM, have
contacted Edmunds data editors to request that the maintenance section of
Edmunds' site substitute the normal maintenance schedule for the severe
schedule that had been displayed.

About the only ones that really need a 3,000-mile oil change are the
quick-lube outlets and dealership service departments. In their internal
industry communications, they're frank about how oil changes bring in
customers. "Many people...know when to have their oil changed but don't
pay that much attention to it," said an article in the National Oil and
Lube News online newsletter. "Take advantage of that by using a window
sticker system [and] customers will be making their way back to you in a
few short months."

Another National Oil and Lube News article tied the frequency of oil
changes to success in pushing related products and services. For a midsize
SUV, the stepped-up oil change intervals will bring in $1,800 over the
life of the car, the article says. "A few extra services [or oil changes]
can go a long way toward increasing the amount of money a customer will
spend during the lifespan we estimated here," the article concludes.

Today's Oil Goes the Distance
While the car-servicing industry is clear about its reasons for believing
in the 3,000-mile oil change, customers cling to it only because they're
largely unaware of advances in automotive technology. Among 2010 models,
the average recommended oil change interval, based on a normal service
schedule, is about 7,800 miles - more than double the traditional
3,000-mile interval. The longest oil change interval is 20,000 miles, for
all Porsches. The shortest oil change interval is 5,000 miles in some
late-model Toyotas, but the carmaker has begun shifting its fleet to
10,000-mile oil change intervals using synthetic oil.

"Oil has changed quite a bit and most of that isn't transparent to the
average consuming public," said Robert Sutherland, principal scientist at
Pennzoil Passenger Car Engine Lubricants. Synthetic oils, such as the
popular Mobil 1, are stretching oil change intervals, leaving the
3,000-mile mark in the dust. "The great majority of new vehicles today
have a recommended oil change interval greater than 3,000 miles," said
Mobil spokeswoman Kristen A. Hellmer. The company's most advanced
synthetic product (Mobil 1 Extended Performance) is guaranteed for 15,000
miles.

Today's longer oil change intervals are due to:

    Improved "robustness" of today's oils, with their ability to protect
engines from wear and heat and still deliver good fuel economy with low
emissions
    Tighter tolerances (the gap between metal moving parts) of modern
engines
    The introduction of oil life monitoring systems, which notify the
driver when an oil change is required and are based on the way the car is
driven and the conditions it encounters

For 2010 vehicles, 14 of 35 carmakers are now using oil life monitoring
systems. One GM car driven by Edmunds went 13,000 miles before the
monitoring system indicated the need for an oil change. We sent a sample
of that oil to a lab for analysis. The results showed the oil could have
safely delivered at least another 2,000 miles of service.

Oil experts and car manufacturers are solidly on the side of the
less-frequent oil changes that these formulation changes make possible.
"If customers always just stayed with the 3,000-mile recommendation,
there'd be these great strides in the robustness of oil that oil companies
have made [that] wouldn't be utilized," said GM's Matt Snider. Consumers,
he said, would be "throwing away good oil."

Chris Risdon, a product education specialist for Toyota agreed, adding
that oil technology advances that permit fewer changes are a tool to
protect the environment. "If you're doing it half as much, that's 5 quarts
of oil times 1.7 million vehicles a year - that's a tremendous amount of
waste oil that's not being circulated into the environment."

Waste oil is a problem exacerbated by too-frequent oil changes, according
to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which has campaigned
against the 3,000-mile dictate. The agency says that 153.5 million gallons
of used oil is generated in California annually, but only 59 percent of it
is recycled.

Our Fit Gets Taken for a Ride
To see what might happen to the average car owner, we took a 2007 Honda
Fit to Jiffy Lube for an oil change. The car has an oil life monitoring
system, and the system has recommended the past two oil change intervals
at 5,500 miles and 7,600 miles on non-synthetic oil. In both cases, an
engine oil analysis revealed that the oil could have provided at least
another 2,000 miles of service.

On this occasion, we told the Jiffy Lube service advisor we were
considering synthetic Mobil 1 because we heard it could extend our oil
change intervals. The service advisor said the synthetic oil could enable
the Fit to go 4,000 or 5,000 miles before the oil "burned out." The Mobil
1 oil change had a price tag of $92.39. The technician also took the
opportunity to upsell us, recommending a cabin air filter for $49.99. The
total for our visit, after a $15 coupon, was $132.72.

When the car was returned to us, the sticker in the window called for an
oil change in 3,000 miles, not the 4,000 or 5,000 miles the service
advisor had promised.

If we were foolish enough to follow Jiffy Lube's 3,000-mile change
schedule (which is essentially the advice given by all quick oil change
outlets and dealership service departments), the Fit would undergo four
unnecessary oil changes per year (assuming 15,000 miles per year of
driving), wasting $369 and 15.2 quarts of perfectly good oil. Over five
years of the car's life and 60,000 miles of driving, this would amount to
$1,847 and 125 quarts of wasted oil. This does not include other
"upselling" items at each visit, such as cabin air filters.

Defending the 3,000-Mile Interval
The quick oil change industry justifies its perpetuation of the 3,000-mile
standard by saying that most people drive under "severe" conditions. Jiffy
Lube's quiz, mentioned earlier in this article, is one example of how that
notion is reinforced in drivers' minds. An oil change company
representative said the 3,000-mile recommendation is meant to be just that
- a recommendation.

Scott Cudini, innovations manager for Jiffy Lube, repeatedly called the
3,000-mile interval a good "fallback position," meant to be a guideline
but not a hard-and-fast rule. He added that Jiffy Lube technicians would
initiate a "dialogue" with customers about the oil change intervals that
apply specifically to their cars.

"In most cases," Cudini said, "even if customers' cars have been plastered
with that 3,000-mile sticker, they may have been told by the service
advisor that, 'By the way, Sir/Madam, your interval is 5,500 miles.'"
Based on our experience at Jiffy Lube and other quick-change outlets,
technicians rarely initiate dialogues that could provide accurate
information about oil change intervals. In fact, according to a Jiffy Lube
spokesperson, the system for supplying technicians with answers only gives
them information from a vehicle's severe schedule.

The quick-change industry's deep fallback argument in favor of frequent
oil changes is that they are a hedge against trouble. You can't hurt your
engine by changing your oil too often, so doesn't that imply that it might
actually help it? Well, no.

Steve Mazor, manager of American Automobile Association's Research Center,
said that more-frequent-than-necessary oil changes will not "gain any
additional life for your engine or any improved fuel economy." He added,
"In reality it will make little or no difference to the performance of the
vehicle."

The Right Time To Change Your Oil
So where does this leave the car owner who was raised on the perceived
wisdom of the 3,000-mile oil change? For a full discussion, your next stop
should be our related article, "When Should You Change Your Oil?," which
will save you hundreds of dollars over the next few years and fully
protect your car and its warranty, while limiting the use of a natural
resource.

The short answer, meanwhile, is to consult your service manual or Edmunds'
maintenance section to learn your car's actual oil change schedule. If
your car has an oil life monitoring system, don't try to second-guess it.
Understand how it works and follow its guidelines. To probe more deeply
into this subject, consider sending a sample of the oil from your next oil
change to a lab such as Blackstone Laboratories, for an inexpensive
analysis. Our last suggestion? Rip that sticker off your windshield.

c Edmunds Inc. All Rights Reserved. This information was extracted from
www.edmunds.com and is subject to the terms of the Visitor Agreement at
http://www.edmunds.com/about/visitor-agreement.html.


                R\%/itt


--- GoldED+/W32
 * Origin: Texas Lone-Star - Texan, American, USAian  (1:387/22)