How often should I change my oil?
Today’s oil is better than ever and almost any brand will do. If you are married to Pensoil, Valvoline, Havoline, Castrol, etc., that is ok. Just use the brand you want. The shops all want you to come in for a oil & filter change every 3,000 miles, which is overkill.
There are great, great engines out there today. You still need to keep clean oil and a clean oil filter in all of them. I personally use 0w30 Amsoil in my 1997 Honda CRV with their best Amsoil spin on oil filter and they recommend once a year oil change or 35,000 miles, which ever comes first. The engine is a 2.0L and has 180,000 miles, runs like a top, and has 170 lbs compression on each cylinder! One also gets 5-8% better gas mileage by using 100% synthetic oil, which is another savings, besides not changing the oil many more times per year like most folks do. I also have a 1994 Toyota Camry and a 1996 Toyota Camry and we use Amsoil in all of them and they all run like new! If I become a millionaire one day and buy a Mercedes Benz or a really nice BMW I will still use Amsoil in them also and never will I be addicted to the 3 month or 3,000 mile oil changes again.
Please note though that I take my Toyota Camry (both of them) and my Honda CRV to my mechanic twice a year for a a full inspection. So if you are not taking your car to a mechanic shop to change your oil every 3,000 miles you should not forget to get your car checked out by a good, honest mechanic twice a year if you are driving a Chevy Cavalier, BMW, Mercedes or whatever you drive. Good maintenance is key to long life, but I said “bye-bye” to 3,000 mile or 3 month oil changes a long time ago and I have Amsoil to thank for that. Here is a great web site to learn about Amsoil.
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Comment from liftaddict
Time February 24, 2010 at 4:40 pm
My 2000 celica GTS TRD spun its rod bearings at 75000 miles. Ok it was a track day and the redline in the engine 2zzge has a redline of about 8500rpm. My conclusion was the Mobil 1 that I had been using for 20 years wasn’t as good as I could get. Previous to this I had spun the rod bearings in my honda prelude. My uncle had been telling me about amsoil since 1975. I decided to take a look. I found that there was engineering test data for every oil comparing it to the oils I was using or considering.A lot of the data is here: redacted. Now the engine has 100,000 miles on the rebuild and is running strong. The biggest leap of faith was switching to longer drain intervals. To do that i installed a remote nanofiber filter and sent an oil in sample for analysis every five thousand miles. That simplified my life. Now I change my oil once a year ( about every 20,000 mi. santana redacted