I think the 3k change comes from the quick change oil dealers. They know everything.

One thing to watch out for, besides the guy doing the change, is the lousy filters they use.

If your vehicle is worth 30k and you use one of those places you should try the following expirement:

1. buy one of their filters
2. take it to a machine shop and have it cut in half.
3. look at what you're doing to your engine
4. let us know what you think.

About 48% the people in the poll agree. I use Castrol GTX on two of my cars and they recommend 3,000 miles. I remember just recently in one of our threads, a Toyota dealer wanted the person who had a Toyota mini-van with the 3.0 Liter engine to change the oil every 3,000 miles.

I have actually meet people with 2 extremes, my best friends father in High School drove a truck for a living and he recommends every 1,500 miles and one mechanic in Key West told me he never changes the oil, it is a farce to change the oil. He had to change the oil once when his filter rusted off.

The 3,000 mile change has been around for awhile and a lot of specialists now say it is not needed meanwhile things happen like Toyota engines getting sludge and dealers are recommending changing oil every 3,000 miles. Our local dealer here in Kennesaw recommends 3,000 miles.

Also, I think I should of put in the poll and difference between regular oil and sythetic oil, I would think very few people change sythetic oil at 3,000 miles.

Of course you can read the Oil Bible and they think it is nuts to change oil every 3,000 miles. Hey, different views, different ideas, that is why I had the poll.

Dealerships relie on 80% of the business from maintenance service from return customers such as oil changes, now do the math you buy into the 3k oil change intervals at a minimum the dealer gets 20 bucks for herding the cars in and out, thats 300 bucks for every 15k on your car compared to 60 bucks if you change the oil every 5k, thats 240 dollars more for throwing away oil the dealer just made several thousand dollars for the day and paid some kid not even 100 bucks, but cause you feel better good for you

Step up to Lexus or BMW and the oil changes vary from 60 to 100 bucks, yeah it's pure profit.

If the oil companies start to advertise 5k, 7k or even 10k they would loose millions, people bring their cars in like clock work to change the oil.

Toyota advertises 5k and 7.5k on dino oil so whats the problem, if they decided to make a 3L sludge engine that supposedly sludges up with routine oil changes thats their fault, the extreme heat in the head with the oil being sheared is what sludged it up, is 1 of many reasons I have been told but yet I've heard from people who changed the oil frequently and still needed new engines.

Both my 4Runner and ES will get changed ever 5 or 7.5k on dino.

People will change their oil every 3k and neglect every other fluid in the cars, thats brain washing the public, at least the car makers are changing the standard with longer intervals

I guess what I'm saying is that for 25 or 30 bucks every 4 months or so is a very small amount to pay to protect something that is so expensive. I do my own maintenance and use M1 and toyota filters. It is probably overkill but thats just me.

Just an update on my previous post an changing oil every 3000 miles. After researching much of the information in this forum on oils and maintenance I came to the conclusion that I AM wasting time, money and resources on oil changes. Soooooooo I've revised my schedule to 5000 miles, which will be about 6 months of driving for me. This is a bold step for me since I've been maintaing my vehicles for about 50 years on a 3000 mile schedule. This is a great website very informative thanks to all who participate.

Don't forget, 5000-mile oil change is also easy to remember...well, at least for me...easy on my brain!

I have been doing 5000 for a while now...it's a good compromise.

Now I'm reading that a cetain lab is saying that more wear is caused by changing oil too often! It must have something to do with the new oil actually needing to break in a little before it gives max protection.

Anybody else heard of this (somebody quoted this same website earlier in this thread)?

UPDATE - I found the quote:
"Engine wear actually decreases as oil ages. This has also been substantiated in testing conducted by Ford Motor Co. and ConocoPhillips, and reported in SAE Technical Paper 2003-01-3119. What this means is that compulsive oil changers are actually causing more engine wear than the people who let their engine's oil get some age on it."

Tery, take a look at PAGE 1 of this thread...and read the last post by me on that page. It should answer your question.

Yup - seems like we've been here before (is that an echo?). LOL

I get various threads going on in different forums, and me widdle mind can't keep track of all of them!

the 3k mile oil change is just a myth. oil companies have engrained it in the consumer's mind so that they can make hundreds of millions of dollars off of our own ignorance.

if you guys didnt know already, everyone in europe does 12-15k mile oil change intervals using synthetic oil. if you own or know anything about german cars here in the US, you would know that they do the same thing.

ive done lots of research and found that amsoil is the best synthetic oil you can buy... outperforms mobil 1 and redline synthetic and costs the same. They are the first company to EVER produce the synthetic oil and the first and only company to have a 25k mile/1yr oil change interval. I've used it and the stuff is awesome.

do some research, you may like what you find.

Hmmm, just ask the Toyota sludge victums if it is a myth. With higher temperature, harder working engines, sludge has reared it's ugly head.

I would say the myth is Amsoil 25,000 mile oil. When a person got sludge in his 3.0 V6 Toyota engine, Toyota said it wouldn't pay because he exceeded the 7,500 mile oil change and Amsoil didn't cover it. If you belive in long change intervals understand Toytota won't cover 25,000 miles oil change, if your cazy enough to do that, I recommend doing after the 60,000 mile Toyota warranty.

Until someone can show me tests where they have ran full synth & dino in two identical engines, and ran periodic particulate & other oil tests along the way, this debate will just keep going & going. In fact, I find it hard to beleive that some lab hasn't done that long ago, and I'm just not aware of it!

So for now, I think the safe thing is right between all the extremes. I now run a synth blend around 5-6k. My Pathfinder has 208k on it, but admittedly it was doing the 3k dino changes most of the time prior.

There is one answer that comes from 20 years of fleet use.

If you keep a car only two or three years and don't have an extreme situation, don't use synthetic.

If you have an extreme situation, weather, load or driving habits or you plan to keep your car, use synthetic.

Our oil analysis sez that 10k works for synthetic oil but not for the warranty. There is a detail in there, though, if you go 10 or 15k , have a problem and can prove that the oil was still okay than you are okay. That might be a difficult 'if'.

I have four cars, two are over 360k and never taken down. I use Mobil 1 15w-30 and change every 5k. My new 4Runner gets Mobil 1 5w-30 and my 96 Turbo Volvo gets Mobil 1 0w-40 and they are doing fine. The Volvo has 122k miles with the same compression as new.

So if the answer is, if you don't keep the car don't use synthetic.

I heard of mobile one doing the test on a BMW engine.
His name was Gus( something) from Road & Track.

One used regular oil the other synthetic ran like 100K
then tore down the engines and you could still see the honing marks in the piston cylinders of the synthetic oil engine.
In other words there was no wear on the syn. engine.

I love the whole idea of if your gonna keep the car treat it well but if your not who cares, oil changes are BS, why else do you think the Prince who owns the Persian Gulf makes like 90 billion in profit a year, car manurfactures want consumers wearing their cars out and oil companies don't care if the water in the oceans turns sludge brown, they want to brain wash us into believing that if you go 1 mile over the 3k mark your engine will blow up, ever watch any automotive event on TV, they advertise dino oil and tell you to change the oil every 3k but when the advertise M1 synthetic in a Mercedes which has virtually no wear after 100,000 miles but they never tell you to extend the intervals, just imagine Mobil1 running commercials telling people they can change their oil every 15k

As far as it goes for synthetic, I would only do the max miles allowed til the powertrain warranty runs out then exceed it, and as for Amsoil not backing up their claims when the guys engine needed to be replaced, sucks for him but the same thing with oil filter companies, the filter is bad and kills your engine, they will give you a new filter

I've taken plenty of engines apart for fun, but all engines are different

Another thing with the Germans with extended intervals, their cars hold more oil, at least MB vehicles hold a minimum of 8 quarts, my friends 528i holds over 8