How often should you change your oil? Some car manufacturers recommend between 4,000 miles and 10,000 mile intervals depending on your type of driving from mild (Freeway) to severe (dirt roads.). So what is best? Read the below and you decide.

Here's my take and it's a fairly common sense approach - at least I think it is:

What I do:

I change my oil every 4K or close to it. I use regular 10w30 dino oil in my 90 Accord and 99 Chrysler van and Mobil 1 synthetic in my 1995 H22A Accord.

I change the oil in my 95 Accord w/ the H22A engine myself, but I let a trust worthy neighborhood Chevron auto shop do my other cars because they do it within 30 minutes and they gave me some crazy new customer package deal for two cars for two years which works out to about every 4K miles for about $ 6.79 per oil change and that includes the oil, filter, lube and safety check. I couldn't resist the deal as I couldn't buy the parts for that much.

Some things to think about:

If you lease the car and don't ever want to buy it back at the end then do the minimum required by the lease.

However, if you own the car ask yourself the following questions: 

1. How long do I want to own this car?

A car's engine oil does 3 major things. Protects your car from Heat, Friction and Impurities (dust, etc.)

When your engine is running even with freshly changed oil your car's metal parts (piston rings, piston walls, etc.) are moving. This causes friction. With friction comes heat and small particles of metal and impurities from your engine. These float around in your oil. The more of these in your oil the greater the friction and the more engine wear you will experience. 

So, common sense tells me that if conditions were perfect and you had two identical engines that wore exactly the same under the exact same conditions sitting in a dust free lab, using the exact same oil then I would conclude that the engine that got it's oil changed every 4K to 5K miles will last longer than the engine that got it done say every 10K to 12K miles.  

I'm sure there's some scientific studies out there somewhere that show how many rotations of the engine effect engine oil and how much wear it might contribute to at a given X rotation or mile mark. 

Synthetic VS Regular oil (AKA Dino oil).

The whole idea of using synthetic oil at $4/qt VS $1/qt for dino oil is the synthetic produces less wear on the engine and can handle temperatures and such when better when people drive harder.

2. If I go to resell this car (to a private party not a dealer) would changing the oil every 4K to 5K sound better to a prospective buyer or 10K to 12K?

It doesn't matter that changing the oil sooner might be perceived that it's better for the engine rather than proven, it does matter if it will help you sell it quicker and get possibly more money when you go to sell it.

I could go on and on with more details but why bother? Just decide for yourself what level of protection you want for your engine and how you want a prospective buyer for your car to perceive how you took care of your car and I think you can answer the question yourself of how often you should change your oil.

Bruce