How often do you change your oil?

I change my oil every six months. When it starts to get cold and when it starts to warm back up. Even then I only change it that often because my car has a leak and it looses about 2/3 of the oil in the 6 months. I change the oil filter every time too. It only costs about $3 (for my car anyway) and it takes maybe 3 minutes to change it.
 
I've heard that oil doesn't have a shelf life so it's pointless to change it based on time(months). I go by mileage, every 7500-9000 miles with Full Synthetic.
 
Why are you all changing your oil so often? I mean the Wankel guys are excused, they..erm...don't really change but re-fill :D
My puny 1.4l engine has a factory interval of 15.000km and I extended it to 20.000km or 1 year because the LPG burns cleaner. Oil Filter change every oilchange ofc. My Dad's A6 TDI has 30.000km Longlife Service, our 1-Series BMW has ~25.000km iirc.
The key is to use quality oil and not some cheap ass supermarket crap....the only reason to do so many oilchanges like you guys is when you either drive a highly tuned car or keep tracking it (or drive in extreme weather).
 
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I change it once a year, but i have to refill at least 1x inbetween (crappy GM engines).
 
There's no general guideline that's useful, since oil change frequency is heavily influenced by environment and how you drive the car.

I drive the hell out of my car and change the oil whenever the engine has burned enough that I have to top it off. That's usually after 4 or 5 track days, so every month or two (~1500 miles) depending on how nice the weather is.

For a transportation appliance that lives most of its life in the interstate in a warm climate 5,000 mile interval is a perfectly reasonable expectation and still a bit on the cautious side.
 
^Those are expensive oil changes. And you barely break the oil in.
 
^Those are expensive oil changes. And you barely break the oil in.

+1 on that, 3000 mile oil changes are a marketing technique used by mechanics. You're wasting money, so please stop it! Regular oil lasts 5000 easily. Full Synthetic can go even longer.
 
Once a year on all our cars, mechanics do it when they get serviced. Cheap, oil filter chnged if needed, excellent quality oil used. So on my car it about once every 10 000 kms (less this year), the Outback every 5 000 kms (more once my sister gets here licence most likely) and the Starlet (my sister's car) once every 20 000 kms (less once she gets her licence and is the only driver). Bikes would be more often likely, as they are treated like royalty by my dad. Especially the Ducati :lol:

Actually, should check my car's oil levels soon, keep forgetting to (had an oil leak a few years back that got fixed, but we still keep an eye on it)
 
Oil every 5000kms, oil and filter every 10,000kms
 
^Those are expensive oil changes. And you barely break the oil in.

+1 on that, 3000 mile oil changes are a marketing technique used by mechanics. You're wasting money, so please stop it! Regular oil lasts 5000 easily. Full Synthetic can go even longer.

Not really. Shell Rotella is only about $20 for five quarts and a Purolater Pure One is about $5. To me, it's cheap insurance. These engines don't have it easy besides, they aren't daily drivers. When I take them out they get beat on, taken to the track or the auto-X course. That's why they never go over 3,000 miles on an oil change. However, the Escape get's cheaper diet synthetic and get's changed every 7,500.
 
I change my oil and filter every seven and a half thousand K. Last Oil change, I forgot to reset my indicator, so it's out of sync and I've been lazy to sort it out. Having said that, the car's been parked, apart from the odd drive around the lot, or the grocery store down the street, for the past year or a bit more, so I haven't been bothered to reset it.
 
My father bought a Nissan Navara (Frontier?) in 2007, the oil changes were 10 000km, (under 100 000km motorplan), in 2008 they informed us that is was changed to 15 000km because of the better quality Diesel ?
can the fuel make such a differance or are they trying to save money on services ?
 
Fuel can make a difference, though I'd think it couldn't account for a 50% increase in oil efficiency just by itself. Having said that, I am not too knowledgeable about diesels, so it could be the case...
 
If you really want to have a VERY serious discussion about motor oils and change intervals, I suggest you go sign up at Bob Is The Oil Guy (http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/cms/). The people who frequent that place are nerds on an entirely new level, and if you come out of there without learning something you really did it wrong!
 
My father bought a Nissan Navara (Frontier?) in 2007, the oil changes were 10 000km, (under 100 000km motorplan), in 2008 they informed us that is was changed to 15 000km because of the better quality Diesel ?
can the fuel make such a differance or are they trying to save money on services ?

"They" being Nissan? I'd say they wouldn't save money by lengthening the intervals, it's you paying for the oil change.

Concerning reasons for lengthening the intervals, maybe they switched to a higher quality oil - or had tests done on the current type of oil to confirm it can last longer.
 
Checked my service-interval-o-meter today after 6900km in 9 weeks. It says next service (and oil change) is in 23300km or 680 days. Summing that up it'd be a real-life usage based service interval of 30200km (18765 miles) or two years and two weeks.
 
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