Oil is the lifeblood of a car. Realistically, all the fluids are—coolant and transmission fluid too—but oil tends to take center stage. It needs to be changed far more regularly than the others, and failing to do so can trash your engine in short order. So I ask you—how often do you change your oil?
I’m not sure how I’m going to measure up in this regard. I suspect I’m not diligent enough and I’m going to catch mad flames for this, but I’ll take my chances and be very honest with you. I change my oil, ideally, on an annual basis. Once a year. Too often? Or, as I suspect you’re screaming at the monitor—not enough!
A year is a long time, it’s true. And if I’m honest, life gets in the way, and more often than not, it stretches to 13, 14, or even 15 months at times. That probably is too long. But I beg you to consider a mitigating factor—I don’t drive very much!
I’d estimate that, on average, I do maybe 6,000 miles a year. Probably less now that I live in the city. Meanwhile, modern automakers tend to suggest oil change intervals closer to 7,500 or 10,000 miles. Based on those figures, I’m bang on the money!
Funnily enough, I change my transmission fluid far more often than the recommended intervals. Manufacturers usually state huge figures like 50,000 miles, 100,000 miles, or even claim the transmission has “lifetime fluid.” I normally change this fluid within a few months of buying a car, even if its well under that figure. Sometimes I do it by accident.
Still not convinced? The pros have some insights, too. As covered by The Drive, the oil analysis experts at Blackstone Labs have explored this in detail. They’ve routinely found that it’s mileage that matters, more than time. Apparently, if the oil’s just sitting in your sump while the car is parked, it’s not really degrading very much. It’s when it’s getting pumped around a hot engine that it starts to pick up contaminants and break down.
Fundamentally, that knowledge gives me a lot of confidence that I’m not hurting my cars by only changing the oil every year or so. If I start driving a lot more, or if I get a more delicate older vehicle, I might up that to every six months or so. For now though, I think I’m sitting pretty at the yearly interval.
If your oil looks like a poopy milkshake, you’ve probably waited too long to change it.
Ultimately, though, this is Autopian Asks, so I’ll throw it over to you. How often do you change your oil? Do you do it based on your own gut feel, or do you religiously stick to manufacturer recommendations for time or mileage? Sound off below.
Image credits: Lewin Day
5,000 Miles or 1 year, whatever comes first. I don’t know of any harm in doing it too often, other than the cost. My view is that it is cheap insurance no matter what the operating conditions that were experienced. If I’m wrong and do it too often, it only costs a few $ and a little time. I use only Wix or OEM brand filters, and whatever major name brand full synthetic is least expensive. I believe that doing the change regularly is more important than the brand of oil used.
5k at most.
Automakers say 10-15k intervals, so engines don’t last significantly past 150k, while they know it’ll make it past warranty every time. Now that I’m doing 25k+ a year, 5k is way too long for my 3rd gen avalon 3.5L.
My car’s computer would normally call for about 10K intervals, but I half it to every 5K with Liqui-Moly full synthetic (great stuff, BTW).
I have yet to make plans to change my ATF fluid (ZF 8HP trans) but I will definitely plan to change it once I hit the 70,000 Mile mark.
Have a 05 Mustang GT convertible that I pull out of the garage in May, put 3000 miles on & put to sleep by the end of Oct. It gets a synthetic oil change when I pull it out of the garage each spring & that’s done me just fine for 20 years.
5K miles since it’s an easy interval to keep track of and I’m doing it on 5 extended-family vehicles. I use Mobil 1 oil, Napa Gold filters, and STP in anything with more than 30K miles (which is all of them right now). Tire rotations every other oil change.
10K mile interval on a Subaru Crosstrek and 10k intervals on my prior Jetta 2.5. Never a problem. Synthetic is shown to reliably last to 15k miles during normal operation so I don’t intend to spend more $$$ than necessary.
I work for a major automaker and the engineers and technicians refuse to change the oil on our company cars before the 10K mile interval (exceptions noted below). All our cars use synthetic and the only time they recommend a 5k oil change is if we will be doing a lot of towing, high-performance, or off-road miles. Some employees drive like 4k miles a year and they typically come in once a year for oil changes. I drive 35k to 40k miles a year on mostly highway roads. I’ve bought a few of my previous company cars and they’re all in the family running just fine and still following the 10k oil change intervals. Older vehicles from my make still run on regular oil have recommended 5k intervals. When I asked the engineers at work, they said they regularly test oil from our vehicles since there is a lab at the office and there is not a discernable difference between 5k to 10k for synthetic oil unless you’re doing a lot of the aforementioned types of driving.
I follow the Toyota recommended 10,000 miles and use OEM fluids and filters. For my previous vehicles I tended to go with every 5000 miles though.
I do every 5,000 miles. Easy to remember, don’t need to write it down to remind myself. When it gets close to a 5K boundary that’s when I do it. Synthetic only.
This is the way to do it. I can say anecdotally that even unreliable engines will last much longer than you would expect if you follow this guidance and change the oil every 5k miles with synthetic.
I generally tend to stick with 5k. I have newer cars now than I did several years ago so Im not quite as strict with that interval, but it also depends on the driving I do. Lately Ive done a ton of highway driving on my 2024 Mazda3 which has 20k and not even a year old. My wife’s CX50 I did at 4k because she put that on it in a full year. My 2008 Tacoma sits a lot now so Im probably close to the year mark as well on that, but always check every couple of months.
To me it really comes down to the type of driving and that seat of the pants plus visual checks to see how things look
The manual on the 96 Isuzu that I just bought recommends every 7,500 miles (down to 3,000 if it is frequently driven hard in hot weather). It calls for greasing the steering linkages and throttle cable at similar intervals, which I bet hasn’t happened more than once or twice in the past 28 years/92,000 miles of the vehicle’s life.
I go with gut feeling or if it falls under other maintenance such as leaks and what not. I have replaced the coolant and oil in the Olds probably four times in a year now and in my wife’s car two times this year. I general though I would say it’s not necessary to replace engine oil and filter more than once a year,unless you drive more that whatever the oem recommended interval is. All other fluids I aim to replace every other year.
First off, every car I’ve owned, I’ve used Mobil 1 oil in the manufacturer specified weight with Mobil 1 Extended Performance filters or Purolator Boss filters and I change the filter every time. Some cars (like my HR-V), the manufacturers recommend changing the filter every OTHER oil change. Screw that. Filters are cheap.
On my newer cars with maintenance minders, I’ve always just changed the oil when they started warning me at 15% oil life. However, in the last year and half, I’ve been driving significantly less. I changed my HR-V’s oil when I realized it had been a year since my last oil change, but the oil life was still showing 60-70%. So, until I start driving more, 1 year intervals.
And that was true before hand anyway. I usually hit 15% at about 12-14 months. When it was still my daily, I changed my old B16 swapped 96 Civic’s oil at about a year, and continued to do so for a while after getting a new daily even though it was doing no more than 1500 miles a year. Unfortunately, I haven’t driven in over a year and barely moved it before that so its current oil is over 2 years old but also has like 200 miles on it. I’ve got oil and a filter in the garage for when I plan on getting the car back on the road though. It’s not leaving the driveway again without fresh oil.
I change mine as soon as convenient (usually later that week) after the light comes on.
I’ve always gone by the mile count and manufacturers recommendations, and now my newer cars just tell me, so I go with that. As others have said, though, I definitely go by mileage, so some things will go 2-3 years between oil changes.
Wait! Oil needs changing?
Oh CRAP!!