I have had many vehicles exceed 100k miles and I have always felt it was because I have always changed my oil at 2500-3000 mile intervals. I use synthetics in every lubrication aspect of the vehicles. Now that I have a porsche,which has the most expensive engine out of all the cars I own, I'm told that 20k miles is the norm,with most changing it at 10k. What make the Porsche immune to wear and the benefit/need for 3k mile drain intervals. It just can't be the Mobil 1.

 

Consider Porsche should want you to change the oil every 1000 miles if that would help the engine. They don't want them having issues because of bad / old oil. Yet they know it's pointless and wasteful to change it more often than they suggest. I could see if you got free oil changes with the car like some other brands, then maybe they'd try to stretch the interval. But these are modern cars with good machining and excellent synthetic lubrication and 10-20k between changes is correct. There are other threads here and elsewhere by engineering types that go into the specifics, but I think this sums it up on a consumer / driver point of view.

 

Great answer Ron.

I don't go by milage I do my oil change every year. I track my car a lot and I don't burn that much oil.

Trust what Porsche has recommended.

 

I'm the samy way - I change it every fall right before putting her away for the winter. I probably drive around 7500 miles a year on my "primary" Porsche, with about half those on the track and figure with that use it's good practice to pull the oil before letting her sit for 4 months.

I've been fortunate, every one of my Porsches that I bought new, broke in, and used this oil change program has not required any additional oil.

 

Thank you.

 

I send my oil samples off to be analyzed by Blackstone to determine the frequency of my oil change. So far, the Pcar results dictate it is changes every 2.5-4k miles since the car is only used for AX/DEs. In my commuter car, the interval suggested is 11-12k based on results off Mobil1.

 

Do you have a website or contact info for that company? Thanks

 

Marketing hype. Porsche is able to market their cars with reduced maintenence costs due to less frequent oil changes. It is also to meet specific country' demands for less oil usage. I guess those regulators haven't driven these cars and seen how many gallons of oil some burn up between changes.

 

Mike, check your PM.

Here is Blackstones lab website...

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/



Dave

 

I drive around the same milage and ratio track street.

Oil comes out "clean" according to my shop, and they say that this is normal for the type of usage that I do.

 

A guy on this BMW forum actually went out and tested his oil and look at his results as 3535 miles . http://forums.roadfly.com/forums/bmw...9259377-1.html

I change my oil once per year or 5K miles (whicherver first) .
That's on a modded Turbo.

997S was 7500 miles .
7 Porsches later I never felt I wasted money.

On my BMW I tend to wait . Maybe it's because I simply am not attached to the car and it's free. No more. 15K miles and its going in this week and it will get more frequent visits.

 

Anyone know how to interpret that report from the BMW site? Aluminum and Iron is high in the "wear metals" category, but compared to what? Normal oil for that car and oil combination? Nothing in contaminants. I had a Blackstone done on one car I was buying, came back OK. But like with the Polaris test for the BMW, I'm curious as to how to really interpret the results.

 

to be honest I change my oil after every track day, or between 2500-3500 miles. To me it's cheap ins.
I don't know about yours but my engine runs pretty hot at the track, and heat does break oil down. Even the fancy synthetics, just not as quickly.

I maybe old school with intervals, but I rarely have oil related failues.

 

The frequency of oil changes is meaningless if you are using the wrong oil to begin with. With manufacturers reformulating their oils by reducing ZDDP levels, you are unecessarily adding to the wear of your engine if you use Mobil 1 0W40. Not only was the old 0W40 formulation poor at protecting your engine, but now it is worse.

Use an oil of the correct viscosity and a ZDDP level of 1200 or more. There are numerous oils available that have this level of anti-wear additives or you can use an additive to raise the level.

 

Recent automotive motor oil regulations have limited
certain additive levels, including the anti-wear additive
known as ZDDP. ZDDP is an extremely effective antiwear,
anti-oxidant additive, and reducing its level results

in compromised wear control and shortened service life.



AMSOIL doesn't seem to specify this in there specs.