timjet
Guru
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2009
- Messages
- 1,920
How often do you guys change the oil in your engines? Time based or engine hours?
Audi/VW engines are well known to use oil throughout their life.I had an Audi A6 that used to suck down about a qt. every 1,000 miles. Dealer (liar!!)said it would get better with time - never did. On the other hand my old Jeep Grand Cherokee had 140K miles on it when I sold it last month and never needed any oil between 7,500 mile services.
Guess it depends on the definition of "some oil". My dodge pickup has the same Cummins 6BT-5.9 engine that my boat use to have. The oil barely moves on the stick between oil changes (every 5,000 miles). With 305,000 miles (6,000 +/- hours) there doesn't seem to be any wear on the engine for not using any appreciable amount of oil.Chrisjs,
You better hope it does burn some oil. There is a ring on the piston that's called an oil control ring and it controls how much oil is left on the cylinder walls when the piston comes down. With an engine in good condition the oil control rings provide enough oil on the cylinder walls to lubricate the cyl walls, the piston and the upper compression rings. Burn no oil = lots of wear.
With'in reason I do'nt think one can change oil too often and if you change oil in the fall and do'nt use your boat in the winter you do need to change it in the spring.
Simple... Every year. Usually in the spring.
Tom-
We in the frozen NE usually do it in the fall when we haul for the season on the theory that we don't want the contaminants in the old oil to sit in the engine all winter.
If I may make a suggestion, you are better off changing the filter more frequently. You can actually skip changing the oil, but I don't recommend skipping on changing the filter. The filter has a capacity that it can hold. Once that is reached, it can no longer catch the impurities. I also recommend attaching a 5-10 pound magnet to the filter side. I do this on all the filters of all of my vehicles. Then, when I change the filter, I cut it open and see what is there. If there is metal it can tell me what is going on inside the engine. Paper filters do not catch organic compounds commonly found in oil and diesel fuel, but they do catch other things like metal. They do make filters that will catch organics, but they are pretty expensive. Oil will last much longer than most will let on, especially if the engine is run at the designed RPM and load ranges more frequently than not. Our Volvo's have just over 15,000 hours, never overhauled and run just fine. I agree with the block heaters. Every commercial ship I have been on has had them running at 150-165 degrees F whenever the engines are not running and we do the same with ours, although on our boat the heaters are elements and not steam operated. Just a few thoughts. I hope they help.That's super interesting Tom. I did'nt know the volume of oil actually increased from these contaminants. But fuel in the oil certainly has volume. And I did wonder how an engine survived not burning any oil at all as it would seem there would'nt be any oil on the cylinder walls at all. Since I've always thought these contaminants were only present in "trace" amounts now I wonder how much there actually is.
I change my oil at least 3 or 4 times a year. I frequently change the oil in the engine and not the filter. It promotes me to change more often that way and I get most of the carbon out of the oil. I just changed it last week (and the filter) and I'll change it once during our trip south. With'in reason I do'nt think one can change oil too often and if you change oil in the fall and do'nt use your boat in the winter you do need to change it in the spring. It's my opinion that one needs to change synthetic oil as often as dino oil in a diesel as the worst contaminant is carbon and it should accumulate as fast w syn oil as dino.