93Cobra#2771

iTrader: (2)

I'm doing mine every 5000 miles with valvoline full synthetic. I have 12000 miles on mine. Around half of my miles are pulling the 7500# travel trailer in my sig. I would classify that as severe duty.

flanneljunkie

I think every 5k miles is a good interval given the "severe duty" application. Regardless of what my truck says, I will be changing every 5k miles. The IOLM looks like I should be good until about 8-9k, but I am extremely comfortable at 5k. It ends up being about 2-3 oil changes per year. The waste oil is used to heat a shop, so it doesn't go to waste, and I am sure my truck enjoys the new filters a couple times a year.

Here are some pics of my severe duty. I drive around in this crap about a month every year, with a total of about 6-7 months of snow on the ground. Needless to say, the truck idles more than it is driven. The truck also lives outside, as I do not have a garage to park in. It sure does love the oil changes, as it gets to thaw out every once in a while inside of a toasty shop.

eye.surgeon

My wife's 2012 Land Rover LR4 has the first scheduled oil change at 15,000 miles and that was fine with me.

BadAlBell

So you guys that come up with your own number for oil change frequency, how do you decide?
It seems like you just pull a number out of the air, but think Ford is crazy for coming up with their own number.

Nobody has mentioned formal or even informal oil analysis. You can take a sample and send it out and get an idea how dirty or contaminated it is. This would not be needed every time but would give an idea if you can go longer or shorter on changes.
Informal test- pull dipstick, smell if it is burned, how dirty it is, drip onto a clean paper towel and look for dirt.

I agree with the guys that say whats $50 on a $50k truck, but I also like facts.

Good discussion

93Cobra#2771

iTrader: (2)

Funny you should mention that - I've seen several people with oil analysis results with similar conditions as mine. I've seen some go as far as 7500 miles and then step back.

Biggest problem with EB is fuel contamination, from what I've seen. But my personal preference, especially with a turbo motor, is a supply of fresh oil to turbos certainly isn't going to hurt.

BTW, my oil life meter was at 25% last time I changed at 5000 mile interval. So they aren't that far off.

Until I know for certain all the parameters the oil life meter takes into effect (for example, does it consider high load, higher engine temps, rpm, etc, or does it simply go by length of trips and number of start/stop cycles) then I will stay on my short side of the cycle.