The 3,000-Mile Oil Change Is Pretty Much History
17th September 2010
“There was a time when the 3,000 miles was a good guideline,” said Philip Reed, senior consumer advice editor for the car site Edmunds.com. “But it’s no longer true for any car bought in the last seven or eight years.”
September 20th, 2010 at 11:19
Old news. Even so, it’s not totally accurate. Some engines are notorious for having small ports for oil circulation. Build up a little sludge in there and engine life can be cut short. I talked with the engineer who took apart the engine from a Chevy truck that went 1MM miles. The owner did regular oil changes and the Pennzoil place kept track. The engineer told me that he checked the dimensions on everything inside the engine and was surprised to find that they were all still within spec. The owner drove a newspaper delivery route (delivering bundles) and tried to get $$ out of GM for the truck. GM didn’t want people to know they could get that much mileage and turned him down. Pennzoil paid him for it and gave him another truck.