My car is no longer a daily driver, and will probably only rack up around 5K miles per year. At that rate, how often do I need to change my oil. I've heard that you need to change your oil every three months. Is there any truth to that?

 

Wow! 20 minutes have gone by and Patman has not posted a reply to an oil question! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="gr_grin.gif" />

My Cobra and my old GT have never seen more than 2-3k miles a year and I have done no more than one oil change per year, if that much. I've always used Mobil 1 and I have always done my best to at least warm up the engine every time it was started.

I'm sure that Patman will chime in with more detailed info, but I'm a believer that as long as you use a high quality synthetic and you drive the car enough each time to burn any moisture out of the oil, you shouldn't have to worry about 3 month oil change intervals, especially if the car sits undriven for most of the time.

I now turn the floor over to Patman....... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

<small>[ March 04, 2003, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Andrew97Cobra ]</small>

 

Sorry for the delay, I'm as sick as a dog, and even though I came here into work, I'm working at 25% effort today. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

You should be more than safe with a once a year interval, so long as you always do long trips when you take out your car. If you wanted to be 100% you might want to send one sample in for analysis after a year, just to see if there is any contaminents in it. A car driven on short trips infrequently can tend to build up a lot of moisture in the oil, which in turn shows up with more iron in the sample, plus the overall condition of the oil degrades faster.

But I'd be willing to bet that when you do take your car out, it's for a nice long stretch where you open it up and stretch it's legs! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" /> In that case then the oil is getting good and hot and burning off any moisture.

I don't know how you can limit yourself to nly 5000 miles of fun each year though. When I had my 98, it only came out on dry sunny days, and even still I racked up about 20k worth of driving in the first year alone. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

 

Patman got a question for U!

I have a friend that has a 436 stroker 500+ rwhp, he drives it daily and hunts down Slowbra's in his spare time!

He is looking for a good weight oil, he lives down in the sunshine state! (FLA.)

I suggested a 10-40 weight in Amsoil, Redline, or Royal Purple! Can U add to this or help with maybe a better recomendation?

Thanx in advance! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="gr_images/icons/cool.gif" />

 

I think that Redline 10w40 would work very well in that application, it would have the higher HTHS number of all the oils (HTHS stands for High Temperature High Shear, and the higher number means much better protection under hard useage)

 

Thanx much Pat for the info! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="gr_images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

Thanks for the responses, guys. <img border="0" alt="[cheers]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_cheers.gif" />

I just recently stopped using my Z28 as a daily driver. When I take it out, it's usually for a weekend cruise. I also plan on making a monthly trip to the drag strip, which is probably around 60 miles one way. Sounds like I'll be fine changing the oil once or twice a year.

Thanks again for the help. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />