I guess I am the exception here ......... I have changed the oil in all my vehicles for the past 40 years at 3000 mile intervals using the best oil and filter I can acquire.

The removed oil always looked and smelled like it was due for the change. And I have never had an engine failure.

 

In general, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the oil and see if there's a problem. My 99 with 140K - oil is a little dark, but smells fine, looks fine, and has no metal in it. I had an 03 Sport Trac that had chunky stuff (some metal) in the oil - needless to say that POS was traded in for the Aspen as soon as I saw that. Unfortunately that car was used and supposedly dealer certified.

 

I change my Aspens oil @ 6K also. Have 72K on it now with no issues motor wise since new!

 

I did not have the oil analyzed. The bimmer had free maintenance, the dealer always told me everything was good. As for the other cars they don't use oil & they run good so I'm assuming all is good. I'll investigate oil analysis for my next oil change.

 

Hi,
Just joined this Forum.
I drove a 2003 T&C AWD with the 3.8L engine to 300,000 with no problem on Mobil 1 5W30.
I made sure that the oil pan drain plug didn't have any seepage or leaks and never changed the oil or pulled the drain plug in the whole time I owned the T&C. I, however changed the oil filter as soon as the oil started to look dirty... if I couldn't see the writing on the dipstick through the oil, I changed the filter and added a litre to top it up to full when hot. After the filter change, it would take from 500 Km to 1,500 Km's to "clean up" the remaining oil and then it start getting dirty (dark) again... anywhere from about 3,000 to 7,000 and then needed another filter change. Time of filter change varied as to what I was doing with the T&C - I pulled a 17 foot holiday for about 4,000 to 8,000 Km's in the summer.
When I picked up the 2008 Aspen 4WD with 5.7 L HEMI, I liked the design and wanted the extra pulling power that I didn't have with the 3.8L T&C. I sold that T&C with no oil consumption, engine oil leaks or engine noise.
I have already put Mobil 1 5W20 into the Aspen and driven it enough (about 9,500 km's) that have to pick up a filter to change the filter and add a litre due to oil loss from filter replacement. I can't see dropping 7 litres of oil when the oil is not breaking down, just getting dirty, nothing that a new filter won't fix.

 

yaBobby, am I reading correctly that you didn't do a proper oil change in your last car through 186k miles of ownership other than top-offs and filter changes? Wow. AND you used it for towing?? Even with Amsoil and a filtration system, you went about 6 times past extreme. Thank goodness for the top-offs after filter changes, as you (very) gradually did replace some oil over time.

Even if it looked ok, the TBN had to be close to 0 for much of the time you drove the vehicle. That's not good.

Did you ever change the coolant or any other fluids??

 

Did a long winded post and lost it. Oh, the joys of being new to a forum.

T&C has 300,000 Km's on it and yes I towed a trailer.

TBN... I had no problems with anything on the Van, pulled the trailer good although under powered in the mountains on the trans Canada hwy.

Coolant was good, had to change a water pump at 130,000K and added A/F up to strength. Serviced the tranny on a yearly basis, wanted no surprises pulling the trailer.

When I left home for 2 weeks, I didn't even lift the hood to check on anything and would make about 5,000k. No leak underneath, no worries.

 

testing 2

 

I haven't been driving the Aspen as much lately, but I just took her to 10K miles on Mobil-1 Synthetic and as much as it makes me cringe to think about a 10k oil change, so far she seems as good as ever, but who knows

 

Oil threads always make interesting reads. Everyone has their own opinion - and they are entitled to it.

The 3000 mile / 5000km oil change might have been needed and a good idea in the 50's and 60's, but in 2013 it is just not required as all but the cheapest of the cheap oils have far superior refining and in most cases the additive package will be better than anything that was generally used back then. There is also a huge environmental impact with oil changes that are done this frequently... to the tune of millions of barrels of needles oil changes each year. If every vehicle owner could double the mileage between oil changes (which in many cases is not a stretch), think of what could be saved on a national basis.

Many vehicles now have oil life minders (they are really estimators as they don't test the oil, but use algorithms to determine oil life remaining). These systems are designed to estimate based on the minimum required oil specs, not on a specialized oil. Remember, the specs are Minimums required, not necessarily the best there is.
If your vehicle does not have an oil minder, then it will probably be recommending longer oil changes than 3000 miles, unless it is an older vehicle.

You cannot see, smell, feel, taste or otherwise guess if an oil is good or not without analysis. Manufactures have taken a very conservative approach in coming up with their recommended oil change intervals. Of course.. if your vehicle is under warranty this will also probably be the Maximum you should run an oil change.

I know that we will all never agree on which oil is better/best or what oil change routine is best. That is just like trying to agree on who makes the best car (although there would probably be a pretty good consensus on Chrysler on this forum )

As for me, I generally only run group IV synthetics. They are superior oils in so many ways. However, I tend to keep my vehicles a pretty long time & as I change my own oil.. the less times I have to crawl under the car the better. However, if I traded vehicles every 3 years or something like that, I probably would care less what went under the hood.

Sorry for the long ramble.