Oil change intervals on new vehicles
 

Hi ,

I am a new member with a new car a Hyundai Tucson - 2 weeks old. I am appalled that the service recommendations say that the first oil change doesn't occur until 15K kms/12 months.

I was always taught by my motoring mentors that you change oil and filter on a new motor fairly quickly to dump the metal particles shed in the running in period.

Given we live in a regional city area our travels are quite short and we will be flat out reaching 10000 kilometers a year.

I plan to change the oil at the first opportunity as I regard new oil and filters as insurance against engine wear down the track.
Opinions please.

Oz

Manufacturing tolerances are much better now. Oils are much better now. My new 2016 CR-V uses 0W-20 oil which is synthetic and also increases the intervals. It certainly can't damage anything doing a change fairly soon and I'd do one a year even if I didn't make the full 15k even though it's probably not necessary but it would make me feel better. Main thing is it's your car so do what makes you happy.

I remember the first oil change on my 1999 F150 Ford truck. The stuff I saw in that drain pan was so bad I thought the engine would blow up in a few months if not sooner. Not just metallic particles making the oil look like metallic paint, but literally chunks of material from inside the engine. I cleaned the drain pan before I drained the oil.

After that I never saw the stuff again and never had any problem with the engine until I sold the truck.

With that experience I like to change the oil much sooner the first time on a newly purchased vehicle. After that on my Mirage I go 7500 miles on the oil and two changes on the filter, requiring 5 quarts of oil and one filter every 15,000 miles.

You should do some research on the sulphur content of the fuel in Australia, in places like the US where sulphur content is high, fuel and oil quality low, intervals are shockingly low. Whereas the same cars in parts of Europe can do up to ten times the milage between oil changes. It all depends.

My previous car was every two years or 18,000 miles, my current car is high performance so is lower at 12,000 miles, or annually.

Manufacturer tolerances are tighter, and many run the engine through a break in process as part of quality control. There'll still be some initial wear particles and sealant bits, but nowhere near what it was in past engines.

I change plain dino oils at one year, but synthetic can go two years.

Sulfur in the fuel affects how quickly the motor oil turns black from little particles. The particles alone aren't harmful, but mixed with a little water, they form acids. So higher sulfur fuels shorten oil life by using up the acid neutralizers quicker.

The US is moving to ultra low sulfur gasoline this year. Hopefully we'll see longer oil change intervals in newer cars, but the car dealers will be against this.

I pretty much go by the book (12 mo or 10K miles) ((semi-synthetic blend))

On a new (rebuilt) motor, I like to do:
- After breakin
- After 50 miles
- After 500 miles
Yes, manufacturing techniques have "improved" but there is still a lot of just basic stuff that still applies. The biggest thing is that cylinder honing is still done circumstantially and pistons still travel vertically. It is what it is.

I am TOTALLY comfortable exceeding the old 3000 miles / 3 months rule. My current vehicle is at 272K miles and I do oil changes at 5K and filter changes at 10K miles.

-BC

That seems backward. Oil doesn't wear out, it just gets dirty and the additives eventually give up from what I understand. It seems like oil 10k and filter 5k with one fresh quart to replace what went out in the filter would be more efficient.

Hmm, that would depend on whether you are changing the oil because you think it is dirty, or because you think it's lubricity has been compromised.

So what BC is saying is that the oil is still reasonably clean but has lost it lubricating properties, so he changes the oil, every second change he does the filter as well.

In your scenario (LDB), you are saying that dirt in the oil has filled the filter, but the oil still has lubricating properties, so just change the filter.

I take a kind of middle ground anything between 6-10k miles, both oil and filter. Unless you are in very harsh conditions, or have a specific engine that demands shorter changes you should be perfectly fine with those intervals.

Oliver.

Yes, I can see that but with many new cars now allowing for a 10k interval it seems like a good quality oil should retain adequate lubricity for at least that long. The filter at 5k may be unneeded but it's an inexpensive investment and with the 1qt added new oil made me feel completely comfortable with a 10k interval. That was on a GM 6.2L V8. On my new Honda I'm just going to go with the whizgiz dash monitor telling me when I'm at 0%.