Thread: Views on frequent oil changes

There is the environmental and consvervationalist view that using more oil than you have to while throwing perfectly good oil out isn't a good thing. Plus it costs you more. My personal experience over the last 20 years with 8 different cars that never used any oil to speak of between services is that I keep to the manufacturers recommended interval.

Depends on the type of oil and the usage. My D1 was on mineral oil and 5000 km changes but the Defender is on synthetic oil and 10,000 km changes.
Heavy usage including towing requires more frequent changes. Dont forget the gearbox, transfer case and diffs.

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Old diesels and petrols that carbon the oil up quickly, yes worth doing. Newer common rail diesels and injected petrols.. Whilst young no, stick to the recommended service intervals. Once they r older and high mileage, then probably.

It should be noted that a lot of euro manufacturers have different service intervals here due to the heat and conditions.. Some tractor manufacturers have halved the hours worked between services..

Originally Posted by mikehzz

There is the environmental and consvervationalist view that using more oil than you have to while throwing perfectly good oil out isn't a good thing. Plus it costs you more.

i give my old oil to the council cause i thought it got recycled???
is this true?

From a driveline perspective.

I think 10,000km gearbox oil changes are the reason my R380 @260,000km is quiet, changes nicely, has a perfectly smooth top gear, and otherwise shows no signs of wear, is going so well. It's towed 2-3T frequently throughout its entire life (since new), tows in 5th gear always, at least until I need to pull 4th.

I don't know how people kill em, there must be some really shoddy drivers out there that don't maintain their gear boxes.

The previous one I had was second hand and had done a lot of light towing and had a noisy top gear as well as being a general dog of a gearbox at the same mileage. Oil changed every 20. Come to think of it that whole car was a POS.

Originally Posted by MR LR

From a driveline perspective.

I think 10,000km gearbox oil changes are the reason my R380 @260,000km is quiet, changes nicely, has a perfectly smooth top gear, and otherwise shows no signs of wear, is going so well. It's towed 2-3T frequently throughout its entire life (since new), tows in 5th gear always, at least until I need to pull 4th.

I don't know how people kill em, there must be some really shoddy drivers out there that don't maintain their gear boxes.

The previous one I had was second hand and had done a lot of light towing and had a noisy top gear as well as being a general dog of a gearbox at the same mileage. Oil changed every 20. Come to think of it that whole car was a POS.

That funny sized RHP bearing in the back of the box is what causes most problems and regardless of service intervals they can just fail from talking to Dave Ashcroft.
But I agree, 20,000km is oil change the limit as far as I'm concerned with the R380.
Too small an oil volume, cast iron case (retains the heat) and they just punish the oil.

I think that it isn't a false economy to service appropriately. My Disco2 has a service interval of 20,000km, it gets done every 10,000km with full synthetic in the engine plus all filters. I think you extend the life of the motor beyond the value of servicing by doing this.

If you don't plan on seeing the vehicles life out, then I think it it doesn't matter.

I bought a turbo diesel 90 in 1990. The stated service interval for oil and filters was every 3,000 miles. I kept to this in the six years that I owned the vehicle and never had any issues engine wise.
The service interval could be extended to 5,000 miles for an oil or filter change if you used Super High Performance specification oil.
This was mineral oil.