Well my friend and I had alittle arguement about oil changes and this is what i say..... A cars engine will last longer if the oil and filter is changed every 3000 miles.............he says a engine will last the same amount if you change the oil at 7000 miles and change the oil filter every 14000 miles

Conditions under a normal driver

Your friend may be right but I would say it only applies to synthetic. One of the benefits of synthetic is the longer oil change interval. I actually found a website once that went into great detail to try this theory. They kept the same oil and filter for some odd 18,000 miles and every 1,000 miles or so they sent a small oil sample to a lab to determine metal content and whatnot. They concluded that after that long the oil wasen't severly contaminated and was still basically 'good'. I'll find the link again later.

lol its been 9000 miles for the contour but i dont have time for a oil change but i have the oil in my back seat

I don't know about you, but if money is available, 3000 miles between changes sounds like a fair amount, especially if you have a new[er] engine. Older ones may also benefit from longer life, if engine damage has not already occured. VW recommended my mom change the oil every 7,500 miles. I told her, you can do that, but at 100,000 miles your engine will crap out. She didn't believe me, and took it to the mechanic that screwed up my bonnie, and even he recommended 3,000 miles. So, even stupid drunk ******** of mechanics recommend 3,000 mile oil changes. Just do it, it is cheap insurance from engine damage.


-justin

The only oil i'd personally use above 3000 is some sort of synthetic blend, or pure synthetic.

A filter should be changed with EVERY oil change, Otherwise you're leaving between a pint and a quart of dirty oil in the engine.

When I replaced my oil pan, the car had less than 50 miles on that oil, so I didn't want to change the filter. I dropped the filter, let the oil there drain out, and also tipped the filter upside down, and let it drain overnight, and it let out a little bit of oil, but not a whole lot. Plus a $5-$10 filter is just cheap insurance.


-justin

I change at 5-6k, but I use Mobil 1 and a K&N oil filter. Filter gets changed every time, too.

Running dinosaur juice for longer periods wouldn't be a good thing.

A lot of older owners manuals I've seen actually suggest higher numbers. I forget what I was looking at (maybe my 88 t-bird?) but it said to change it every 7xxxmi...I dunno I wouldn't sweat my arse off if I went over 3k but I probably won't wait toooo long to change it...I still think your friend is right though

My '89 FSM gives a chart on whether you meet the 3,000 or 7,500 mile criteria for changing the oil. Its basically if you never drive the car anywhere, you can change it ever 7,500.


-justin

my car gets new dino juice every 3000-4000 km... :o