Oil change at 4100 miles

[Bobblehead]

After I break it in I'm changing the engine oil and transmission fluid. After that probably every 5-6k miles. I drive about 60/40 highway/city, so I think I might benefit from a shorter OCI.

[bluesubie]

Originally Posted by bluesman

You need to do the minimum recommended by the manufacturer to keep your warranty in effect. But the simple truth is that there are essentially no oil-related engine failures in modern cars, as long as their oil and filter are changed every year or 10k (which is the current recommendation from Porsche for all their vehicles, as I recall) with any high quality oil meeting the latest API grade specs (SN). Full synthetic minimizes long term wear (like 150k+ miles), but plain ol' dinosaur oil works pretty well. Only if you regularly drive such short distances that your engine doesn't fully warm up should you worry about the kind of wear that was common before the modern era of oils and materials.

I've torn down and miked many motors over the years - I was an active SCCA racer for about 25 years and have built / rebuilt / restored about 30 cars from flathead Fords to 2 stroke Saabs. Barring abuse (e.g. running in a sand storm without an air filter), valve guide and ring wear before 200k are largely problems of the past except for police cars and taxis. Bearings last hundreds of thousands of miles. My Formula Vee had a pretty stressed 1200 cc air cooled Beetle engine making 26 more hp than it's factory-designed 40 at a red line 1700 above the original, with an oil temp of 285 at the end of a regional race. I measured no wear at all on the crank throws after a hard 14 race season and only a few thou after 30 races (my FV rebuild interval). I'm not a national front runner, I'm just a cheap old guy who loves to race and keep up with the pack - I ran on Pep Boys' house brand synthetic until they discontinued it. Street or track, all you need is clean, filtered oil changed at the manufacturer's recommended interval to be worry-free.

My FR-S will get fresh synthetic whatever's-on-sale-at-Pep-Boys every 6 months (I drive about 8k/yr these days). Relax, and let me know the next time you see a modern street car throw a rod, break a wrist pin, or blow visible oil smoke out its tailpipe.

Porsche oils must meet Porsche A40 specs, which no 0W-20, 5W-20, or 5W-30 can meet so I'm not sure why people use examples of European manufacturer oil change intervals on an FT-86 forum.

There are plenty of posts at nasioc about lubrication related failures (mainly bearing failures), and while some of them are possibly due to neglect/abuse or poor tune, many of them are simply using the wrong viscosity oil for the application.

I agree that most BRZ-FR-S applications will do fine on any off the shelf API SN 0W-20 synthetic changed at reasonable intervals.

Something to keep in mind is that Subaru is cutting their maxiumum oil change intervals back to 6,000 miles for normal service beginning with MY2015 (I presume it will be the same for Toyota). That's definitely too conservative for most applications, but I'm sure they have their reasons (they don't spec high detergent, high viscosity Porsche A40 oils for one!).


-Dennis

P.S. - I also left a trail of visible oil smoke between MD to SC and back to NJ after a turbo failure pushing my oil change intervals too far (turbo starvation due to clogged oil screens).A guy at a rest area came up to me and asked if that was me that left a trail of smoke up I-95 and that it smelled like gunpowder!

[bluesman]

Originally Posted by bluesubie

There are plenty of posts at nasioc about lubrication related failures (mainly bearing failures), and while some of them are possibly due to neglect/abuse or poor tune, many of them are simply using the wrong viscosity oil for the application.

P.S. - I also left a trail of visible oil smoke between MD to SC and back to NJ after a turbo failure pushing my oil change intervals too far (turbo starvation due to clogged oil screens).

This doesn't negate my point, it reinforces it. Neglect, abuse, poor tune etc are the causes of these failures. Use the right oil and filters (air and oil) for your specific car, change them at an interval appropriate for your state of tune and driving habits, and you're more likely to find Miley Cyrus waiting for you in your car tomorrow morning than you are to have an oil-related failure - not that I'm comparing MC to a bad bearing...

Forced induction on an engine not designed for it with appropriately lower CR, optimal chamber shape / piston crown configuration, ring design, timing etc can't be lumped in with stock engines or thoroughly engineered modifications. If you put a blower on a stock motor, the risk of failure goes 'way up. These are not analogous to my examples.

Originally Posted by bluesubie

Porsche oils must meet Porsche A40 specs, which no 0W-20, 5W-20, or 5W-30 can meet so I'm not sure why people use examples of European manufacturer oil change intervals on an FT-86 forum.

As for Porsche's A40 spec, most current synthetic oils (Mobil 1, Castrol Edge etc) meet it easily. Porsche's concerned largely about film strength and having an acceptably high level of ZDDP (Zinc dialkyldithiophosphate). The recommended viscosity indices are different because the loads, temperatures etc are different - but the oils are the same and it's a very valid comparison. If you use the recommended oil for your (unmodified) car and change it at the recommended interval, you'll be just fine.

The OP's car is bone stock and serviced by a dealer. With factory-recommended maintenance, the oil-coated interfaces in its motor will perform quite well for hundreds of thousands of miles.



David

[headlikeahole]

Oil changes are a money racket and nothing more, you really don't need to worry about it. Here's the proof, Toyota USA will tell you to get the oil changed every 7500 miles, and here in Canada they tell us every 7500 km...

If I change my oil every 7500 miles (12000km) here in Canada, they could void my warranty, but in the US of A that's totally cool.

[kinda5150]

Originally Posted by headlikeahole

Oil changes are a money racket and nothing more, you really don't need to worry about it. Here's the proof, Toyota USA will tell you to get the oil changed every 7500 miles, and here in Canada they tell us every 7500 km...

If I change my oil every 7500 miles (12000km) here in Canada, they could void my warranty, but in the US of A that's totally cool.

while that is an excellent example, i think it would be foolish to think that oil change intervals are a money racket. perhaps it was a typo in the manuals for canadian cars? regardless, i certainly would not wait 7500 miles, at least not on the first oil change. oil change should be done immediately after break-in (1000 mi for this vehicle). then possibly every 7500 mi.
not to derail this into a "what oil is better" thread, but in my experience, different oil brands/wts work better in some cars than in others. i used to use mobil 1 exclusively until it started causing significant sludge in a few cars (944, pathfinder, titan). i tried castrol in my (now ex) wife's car (jetta) cause it was on sale and frankly, i didn't give a crap about the jetta. for whatever reason, that car did not respond well to it--apparently burned oil as oil consumption went up w/no signs of leaks. switched to mobil 1 and all was well. i eventually, after being schooled on the ins/outs of oil and all the technical stuff about it, i switched to amsoil. it cleaned up the internals (at least bottom ends) of the 944, pathy, and titan. now it's all i will use and will be going in the frs after i hit the 1k mile mark. the particularl oil i get has a 15k mi or 12 month change interval, which i will not abide by while the car is under warranty. just my .02, ymmv.

[bluesubie]

Originally Posted by bluesman

This doesn't negate my point, it reinforces it. Neglect, abuse, poor tune etc are the causes of these failures.

Not 100% due to neglect as some cases are purportedly on bone stock cars with the oil changed every 3,000 miles. One was just posted last week and the owner managed to get a new short block under warranty and his car was just 3 months or so beyond the Powertrain coverage.

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2611627

Of course, unless you do a teardown yourself, and hire a bunch of experts (metallurgist, tribologist, etc.) it's hard to prove factory flaw or oil film failure. But there are many posts similar to the above at nasioc.

Probably apples to oranges when discussing an FT86, but I just wouldn't go so far as claiming that there are no oil related failures in modern cars. The senior master tech at my dealership deemed by turbo failure a lubrication related failure and that was around the time that SoA cut the oil change interval on the older turbos back to 3,750 miles (although that was a oil screen failure, IMO). Again, regarding Porsche A40, you state that "most current synthetic oils" meet Porsche A40, but again I would just emphasize that they need to be the proper viscosity. No 5W-30 meets Porsche A40. I don't like dealing with generalizations.

kinda5150 - Subaru Canada has always followed the severe schedule for oil change intervals, or for at least the past 10 years or so. Probably due to the colder temps that some locations see in the winter.

-Dennis

[bluesman]

Such failures in stock engines maintained by the book happen regardless of maintenance schedules and choices of oil. They're not "oil-related", i.e. they did not occur because of the oil used or its change interval, and they could not have been prevented by using a different oil or changing it more often (which is the answer to the OP's question as to whether there's potential benefit in changing his oil more frequently than 7.5k).

Originally Posted by bluesubie

Not 100% due to neglect as some cases are purportedly on bone stock cars with the oil changed every 3,000 miles. One was just posted last week and the owner managed to get a new short block under warranty and his car was just 3 months or so beyond the Powertrain coverage.

The car in question is a 2009 WRX. Subaru apparently changed bearings during the '09 production run, and it was those cars that had this problem - see THIS thread. They recognized it, switched back, and that problem stopped as far as I know. There have been other clusters of odd Subaru engine failures related to production issues over the years, virtually all in cars with highest BMEPs (WRXs & STis). Again, none of them could have been prevented by a different choice of oil or more frequent changes. BTW, Subaru's record is spotless compared to many famous marques with far more (and more expensive) failures, e.g. 911 studs - Google "dilivar" if you're unfamiliar with this disaster.

Could the failures to which you refer have been prevented by use of a different oil? No - so they're not "oil-related" because they weren't caused by the oil. If any API SN oil of manufacturer-specified viscosity is used in any car sold today in the US (except those with manufacturer-specific recommendations to the contrary) and is changed along with the filter at least as often as the car's manufacturer recommends, mechanical failures before wear exceeds acceptable limits will have been caused by something other than the oil itself. And using a different oil or changing it more frequently will not prevent them.
May your crank spin freely and your bearings never knock, Dennis! (...and the same to everyone else!)

David