Oil Change - Mileage or Percentage?

[Jeepwm69]

Originally Posted by GSP7

not anymore. nearly doubled in price ...............

Well, that's somewhat true, but still cheaper than a new engine.

I tend to buy oil when there are rebates, and bought a whooooooole lot of oil on clearance over the last few years, so I keep a lot of cheap oil around

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by Jeepwm69

Well, that's somewhat true, but still cheaper than a new engine.

That's a truth that a lot of folks just don't understand.

[biketopia]

Originally Posted by hatzie

That's a truth that a lot of folks just don't understand.

100% and is why in the fleet world we error on the side of over servicing. Much cheaper and timely to change the oil an extra time or two during the year versus having a critical piece of equipment down for weeks getting an engine, if you can even get one these days.

[jocko]

I’ve changed the oil in my 5.3 every 3k since new - it now has 304k miles on it, never been apart. I used conventional oil for about the first 275k until I could no longer find it for sale locally, so switched to synth blend. Always 5W30. Maybe it’s overkill, dunno. Don’t like how expensive it’s gotten to change one’s own oil - makes me wonder what crap the oil change shops are using to be able to charge about 2/3 of what it costs me to do it myself - they need to be able to make some profit too, so they must be getting a heckuva good deal on bulk oil.

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by jocko

I’ve changed the oil in my 5.3 every 3k since new - it now has 304k miles on it, never been apart. I used conventional oil for about the first 275k until I could no longer find it for sale locally, so switched to synth blend. Always 5W30. Maybe it’s overkill, dunno. Don’t like how expensive it’s gotten to change one’s own oil - makes me wonder what crap the oil change shops are using to be able to charge about 2/3 of what it costs me to do it myself - they need to be able to make some profit too, so they must be getting a heckuva good deal on bulk oil.

Likely they're using super cheap oil and filters.
I'll keep changing my own. I know what's being poured into the engine and what filter is being used.

[biketopia]

Originally Posted by hatzie

Likely they're using super cheap oil and filters.
I'll keep changing my own. I know what's being poured into the engine and what filter is being used.

It's mainly the filter and cheap labor, It's a get you in the door tactic. Most oil change places, I would absolutely not trust their filter to go over 5k, and that might be pushing it. My old Napa rep told me the proformer line of filters were good for 3k oil changes and nothing more. That's the filter line most shops use because it's less than half the price of the next level up. The Napa gold, just a rebranded Wix was fine for the 5-7.5K. Last week we bought 800 quarts in bulk for our tanks at work of synthetic blend 5w30, was $2.59 a quart. A Proformer SFI21060 is $1.96 my cost and the Napa Gold 1061 is $4.46 my cost. Those numbers add up quick to a shop doing numerous oil changes a day and able to keep the prices low enough to entice people to come in.

[Pampas56]

Most oil change places and repair shops buy the oil in 55 gallon drums. even figuring the different weights, it can be really cheap.