alljeep wrote:
Just for your take on something, what do you think of the time intervals recommended? Used to be 3000 miles or 3 months. Is it now 6250 miles or 6 months? I drive 12-14k per year. I prefer to change just twice per year. Will I catch grief if the question ever comes up for warranty work?
Part of the "time" recomendation is that if you are not driving your vehicle enough to get the miles on it, you are probably not driving it enough to burn off deposits and the like.
If your engine does not warm up completely, your engine leaves deposits all over the place. Someone here will have more detailed information - but there are issues with condensation and deposits that if the vehicle is not driven will cause build-up in the oil.
Newer more modern oils have additives to help deal with this, and problems like moisture or acidity. Again, one of our mechanic or engineer types will know more.
This is why you want to change your oil before any long term storage, to get clean oil in the system before it sits on parts for a long time...
But to answer your question, if you drive 12 to 14 thousand miles a year you would be fine using the mileage interval. The time interval would be for someone who is unlikely to make the mileage interval during the timeframe.
Say if you only drove 6000 miles a year, you are not driving enough to keep your oil circulating and your engine burning off deposits regularly - so you should follow the time frame.
I think they consider 12,000 miles a year average mileage on a vehicle now...
What you might want to think about is your style of driving. If you are driving that 12-14 in all short trips where the engine has not long to warm up completely - you might want to keep your OCI around the 6k mark - which twice a year would meet for you...
The 3/3000 numbers were really only for older conventional oils with lower ratings... And then it was pushed by the oil change companies as that is how they make money... They make no money if you don't come in..
But also worth noting is that car manufacturers are under pressure to gain sales. Part of the sales equation is an
appeared ease of ownership. If they can say "Hey - you only need to change your oil once every 12,000 miles" that is a good selling point over a vehicle that requires every 5000 miles... Car companies know that the average American owner keeps a car about three years. And most powertrain warranties are three to five years.
So they could, to sell more cars, say that you never need to change your oil. Chances are that you would see no major problems in three years or even five years. But you WOULD be doing major damage to your engine, which when all their cars fail after 5 years it would be bad press.
So they try and balance the sales material of easy ownership with the press of longivity and reliability. That is where they use bean-counetrs to figure out the recommended OCI.
You will almost always find that a dealership will recommend shorter intervals. They want you to spend your $$$ there.
The real world answer is not set in stone. First, you do not want to make things hard on yourself and cause fights with dealerships and car companies. But you also don't need to go overboard and drain out perfectly good oil way too soon...
Which is why I say - even though you CAN go for long intervals, it may be easier in the long run to use a middle of the road interval. Short intervals are just excessive and a hassle...
But this is all just my opinion based on reading way way too much....
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IMHO, if you can do without the free oil changes, I'd seriously recommend finding a different dealership to have it serviced at if there's another within a reasonable distance. If they're so clueless they can't even find the bloody drain plug..... 
