Thread: query - TD5 Oil Change Intervals Time vs Km?

My first comment way back was a bit tongue in cheek ex the "good old boys" - I've never serviced my TD5 less than 6 months/10,000 km - apart from the one time Dazza inadvertently did one about 2K after the one before. I also do less than 20K pa so generally used to work on about 10K/9 months.

The question (which has in the interim since the original post in 2014 been admirably answered - and confirmed my own beliefs) was more aimed at whether the later oils degraded as quickly in time based scenarios where Km was not a deciding factor. We now know that they don't, and especially given the excellent centrifugal filter, I'm very happy to go to 15K km in non arduous conditions and still have a considerable safety margin!! This in turn for me means about annual. Having said that, if I tow my 3.5T brick any distance with my mighty 2.5L, I'm into arduous in my book.

Sometimes it pays to act a bit of the dummy to get the gurus here to provide their excellent comment

Originally Posted by twr7cx

I think your old school approach deserves a review. A few things to consider:

1. The Td5 is a circa 1998 or so motor - 20+ years later the available oils are significantly improved. If your using Penrite HPR Diesel 5 which is the commonly recommended oil around here, and I believe at least one member who works within the oil industry has had tested and was happy with the results, it likely exceeded the original oils from 1998 in every way. So Land Rover specify 20,000km/12 months for the Td5 reduced to 10,000km/6 months for arduous work in rough conditions, for potentially inferior engine oils - therefore with a superior engine oil this should at least be equaled if not exceeded!

2. Dual filter on the Td5 - it's got a full size spin on and the fancy spiny one. The filtration of the oil likely far exceeds that of anything which was 5,000km/6 months. It probably exceeds a lot of cars.

3. Oil capacity - the Td5 holds 7.2L of engine oil which is a lot for a 2500cc five cylinder motor. Comparatively the D3/4 2.7 TDV6 (which has a service interval of 22,000km/12 months) holds only 5.5L or a much larger engine like the Ford Falcons 4.0L inline 6 cylinders only hold 5L. More oil in a small motor should mean that each ml of oil is doing less work, getting stressed less, dirt/grim/muck is spread out amounts a larger capacity, etc. Now combine that with the better filtration in point 2 above...

4. Fuel side - I think the Td5 was designed as a whole of world motor. I believe Australia has reasonably good diesel quality and it's likely gotten better over the last 20+ years since the Td5 was designed (e.g. low sulphur) so similar to point 1, what's going into the motor has improved which is more cause for the longer service intervals.

My main point being that I think you're wasting time and money changing the oil every 6 months if your only traveling 5,000 to 7,000km pa and it's unlikely giving you any additional benefit over annual servicing. Given the superior oil your using, annual servicing would be perfectly suitable as your still following the manufacturers time specifications and are well well under the kms specification.