I understand. And I sympathize with you and all the others who come with questions, seeking to learn, and are met with numerous conflicting and contradictory explanations. How are you, a beginner, to
know who's right?
It's a problem, isn't it?
It's annoying, to be sure, but you need to ignore the rude smart-alecks who disparage beginners for asking beginner questions. Far too many of today's youth are ill-bred, ill-mannered, losers who enjoy bullying others behind the anonymity of the Internet. Dismiss them.
There are quite a few like me out here. Look around, and you'll find us.
There are no dumb questions, okay?
Read back in my posting history to get an idea of whether I might be trusted to be one of those "who know what they're talking about." I've always striven to write genuinely helpful and instructive posts, elaborating sufficiently to provide the background for my reader to better understand the issues in question. You may even regard my past explanations as a veritable treasure trove of good information. If'n ah do say so mahownseff.
I also have a reasonably good handle on what I do NOT know. That comes with age and experience. You could be my grandkid, so...
For what it's worth:
Frequent short trips are, oddly enough, classified as harsh duty for an engine. Basically, this is so because the oil becomes contaminated from moisture accumulation, fuel blow-by, etc. And the engine never gets warmed up sufficiently to "boil off" these contaminants, so they build up.
So, see your maintenance manual and observe the harsh conditions schedule for service. Mainly, we're just talking about changing your oil more often.
Were I in your situation, I'd change my oil every 3000 miles or at least once yearly. Not because the oil has "broken down," but just to get the accumulated contaminants out.
Your engine will have more cold starts per miles traveled, but that's unavoidable. This might matter to the sixth owner heading towards 300,000 miles. Who knows? Who cares enough to test such things?
There's no reason to believe your driving conditions pose a particular
problem, not so long as you change the oil more often.
One other thing: Do NOT, not EVER, drive your engine hard until the oil is up to operating temperature. It sure would be nice to have an oil temperature gauge, but we must make due without such things in this country. Oil temp typically takes TWICE as long to reach operating temps, and thus provide optimum lubrication, as does the coolant temperature, which is displayed on the water temp gauge. We're probably looking at about 10-12 minutes of DRIVING, not idling in your driveway which does not warm up an engine much at all. The engine needs some load to heat the oil, not just the coolant.