How valid is oil reset monitor?

[Long Run Nick]

Coming up on 5,000 miles. Changed oil around 2,000 to Amsoil about 8 months ago. Monitor shows 16%. 90% short city driving. I realize this may trigger all sorts of opinions, know this, I am open to others, hopefully knowledgeable, thoughts on this. Thanks.

Sponsored

 

[iGovernment]

Coming up on 5,000 miles. Changed oil around 2,000 to Amsoil about 8 months ago. Monitor shows 16%. 90% short city driving. I realize this may trigger all sorts of opinions, know this, I am open to others, hopefully knowledgeable, thoughts on this. Thanks.

Harder you drive it and/or in hot climates the quicker it will request the oil to be changed.

 

[pmr2000]

You are correct the city short driving will do that but if you are at 8 months you probably would want to change in another month or two anyway.

Even with synth I would never go more than a year, cheap insurance for an expensive engine.


Save those receipts for oil while under warranty!

 

[Schu]

dont waste your money... with synth, you are good to over 20k miles if you wanted.

If you want to change it around 12k-15k, you are still well under the recommended 25K mile service life of Amsoil.

your oil is STILL GOOD!

 

[Commbubba19]

dont waste your money... with synth, you are good to over 20k miles if you wanted.

If you want to change it around 12k-15k, you are still well under the recommended 25K mile service life of Amsoil.

your oil is STILL GOOD!

no

 

[Commbubba19]

let me explain my 'no'.

the synthetic oil itself is technically good pretty much indefinitely short of extreme conditions such as heat or cold far beyond technically what a modern engine produces or deals with.

But synthetics have other additives that also can break down within that time frame. Oils listing long life have additives that are supposed to help extend the oil's properties but really it depends on use. The more cold/heat cycles (short trips) the more wear and tear on the oil and engine.

Lastly, you have to consider what gets into the oil. gas, water, carbon, etc. Turbo cars technically are dirtier and dirty up the oil with carbon quicker than N/A engines. This is where the filter is key and running a high quality filter is important.

I've said this before. You could easily move to a every 10-15k mile interval for the oil to be changed. But the filter should be changed atleast at 5k miles. This does make it alot easier as a quick filter change and top of the oil is more than sufficient for the average vehicle using synthetic. That filter will remove a lot of the carbon and gas that can get into the oil and degrade its performance until it gets clogged up again.

So, could you go 20k miles without an oil change? Sure. But I'd atleast change the filter every 5k or so.

This is my opinion but I've done a lot of research on the topic.

 

[wmsky33]

dont waste your money... with synth, you are good to over 20k miles if you wanted.

If you want to change it around 12k-15k, you are still well under the recommended 25K mile service life of Amsoil.

your oil is STILL GOOD!

That may very well be true about the oil itself, but contaminants can build up in the oil, and the oil filter may not last as long as the oil. Ford could use the fact that you didn't change the oil, and filter, when stipulated by the owner's manual to deny a warranty claim.

 

[Schu]

That probability is EXTREMELY remote...

 

[jasonstang]

It's based on both time and millage.
10000 miles or 12 months which ever comes up first it will adjust percentage to that. You can change oil and park it for a year it will go to 0% or you can drive 10k miles in 6 months, it will go down to 0%.

 

[Souldriver]

Not to derail but here is a question along the same lines.

I drive my car near daily but i do very low miles yearly. My daily commute is 9 miles to work and 9 back four times a week, mostly highway.

I changed my oil to mobile1 synthetic at a little over 1k miles back at mid summer and even now im still under 4k miles for the car. Although I was planning to do another early change between 4-5k how do i plan the rest of my changes?
I was thinking 5k per change with synthetic is fine but that would mean im changing it only once per year. Do i just split it and do it once every 6 months or so.

 

[wildcatgoal]

In every car I've had that has had one of these, I go until 5% (unless I track the car). And I have had the oil tested. Every single time the test comes back - you could go longer. Relax. Ford did not put a oil life meter in the car to screw you.

 

[Pesti13nce]

When i first got the car I was ALL highway 90 miles a day, and the oil life meter had me going almost 14k miles on a change. Now that i've moved closer to work and my drive is 2% highway and the rest local it has me changing my oil around 5-6k. I follow it religiously and i've had the oil tested once when the car had 27k miles and the oil reset had me go 17k miles, I had no issues and the oil came back fine (tho mind you i do not track/work the car) hell i i think i can count on one hand how many times i've done a burn out in over 50k miles.

 

[GR11M]

Changed my oil and reset the monitor around 1200 miles, 2000 miles later it was down to 0%

 

[jbailer]

I change mine every 5k miles. It makes it very easy to know when I'm due because of the even 5,10,15, etc. on the odometer. If I go to 5,185, I wouldn't go to 10,185, I just do it at 10k. I couldn't care less if the oil and filter I'm using is rated for more. I'd rather be comfortable the oil is doing its job. The next step would be to get the used oil checked which I've never done.

 

[ForTehNguyen]

do an an oil analysis with a TBN check to see how long the oil can really go. I've done several on higher mileage vehicles with over 100k miles using 10k synthetic changes. TBN and wear values all check out good

Sponsored