In the instruction manual that came with my 93 ssei it says its safe to change the oil every 7500 miles. so my question is; is it safe to do this or should i stick with the old every 3k rule

do 3 grand...thats insane...i try to change mine every 2500....but right now im at like 3500 it needs it bad!!!

Simply stated:

Back when cars used leaded fuel, the lead and other products of combustion tore down the quaility of the oil when blow by occured. Also the quaility of motor construction in the 50'* and 60'* was not what it is now. In addition the oil at that time did not have the additives it has now to prevent breakdown.

In the late 70'* and early 80'* with the use of unleaded fuel, and better engine construction, oil change and tune up freq. changed. Instead of oil changes at 3000 and tune up'* at 12,000 miles, it has grown to oil changes at 7500 and tune up at 100,000.

Another thing to check is an article in Consumer Reports back in the early 90'* which tested many brands of oil. They had a fleet of 60 taxis in New York City. All 60 taxis had new rebuilt motors installed at the same time. Half of the motors had the oil changed every 3000 miles and the other half had the oil changed every 6000 miles. Guess what? There was no difference between the motors that had the oil changed every 3000 or the ones that had the oil changed every 6000, when the motors were removed after 100,000 miles of service.

Moral of the story:
change oil every 3000= more money in the pockets of the oil companies

Every car I've had in the past 10 years have all gone over 100,000 with no engine problems. Guess what-I changed the oil every 7500 to 8000 miles and most of them are still on the road well past 100K. One of them has now went past 192,000.

My oil use indicator seems to back this up. GM suggests I change the oil as the indicator tells me (the computer checks the quality of the oil and lets me know how much use is left by percentage). I've never really tested this all the way to 0 but when I change at 3000 miles I still have about 50% left on the indicator....

-- Rogue

And there was the article testing Mobil1 all the way to 10k. I'm going to 6 with my Mobil1 this time.

7500 - 8000 mile on the oil, but what about the filter. Will it be able to last that long? Holla back...........

That'* starting to be what I hear more and more is that the 3k rule is bunk. The shops that do oil changes are more aggressively trying to assert their "recommendation".

I change mine every 2000 to 2500 miles no matter what. I am trying to keep my engine nice and clean inside.

I think every 3500 - 5000 is good.

All the new BMW'* are on a 15,000 mile interval with synthetic oil
The older ones were on a 10K interval with regular oil

Those intervals also are for the oil filter.

I try to change my oil around the 3000 mark
usually gets done around 5000 though