Tim went from changing oil every 3,000 miles to once a year with synthetic motor oil. He had problems with wal mart oil change screwing up his car every time.
Tim is a friend of mine and has a daily commute to work of 30 miles each way so he drives about 60 miles a day. With other driving this tallies up to 2,000 miles per month of driving. He was following the 3,000 mile oil change myth for years and his ritual was having to change his motor oil in one of his cars every month and half.
He is a busy guy with a demanding career, wife and three children so time is very precious especially being caught up in the overtime trap. He tried quickie oil change places to save some time and get the shopping done while his oil change took place… but he could never trust that his oil change was done properly. He had many issues on multiple occasions.
Oil filled too high caused him to have to drain his oil out (good cause this could be damaging to the engine). Good thing he checks.
Oil plug loose. This could have backed out on him and dumped all his oil while on the highway. Good thing he checked.
Oil plug was replaced with the wrong size oil plug and ruining the threads in his oil pan. He discovered this after going back to changing his own oil.
Oil plug was crossthreaded. He discovered this after being in a rush and having a quickie lube do his oil again.
There have been a number of other issues and incidences for Tim over the years. I don’t know if he attracts this kind of trouble into his life, I don’t know if where he lives has a low talent pool of mechanics, or maybe Tim pays more attention than most and this is happening on a more regular basis and we just don’t know about it.
Tim won’t let anyone but himself change his oil now and considering his previous experience I don’t blame him.
Tim is a mechanical engineer and ultra conservative about his engine protection. What was interesting is that over the course of the next two years of changing his own oil he found an oil that had guaranteed extended drain intervals. Tim slowly increased his oil change intervals from 3,000 miles to 4,000 miles then to 5,000 miles and all the way up to one oil change a year. Now changing his own oil is not much of a hassle since he reduced his oil changes from 8 changes a year total on 3 vehicles to 3 synthetic oil changes a year total for all three vehicles.
He says he saves time and overall saves a good amount of money while loving how his cars run…
You can pick your own extended oil change synthetic motor oil from the revealing report found here.
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