I am debating wheather or not to change the oil after initial 2,000 km engine break-in period. What are your thoughts?

adrian

 

Did mine at 1500 miles.

 

I am at 1500+, thinking I will let it run out to 2500 or 3000 miles. When I check the oil level I can barely see the oil on the stick, so I like to see it get a little darker before I make a trip to the dealer for the change or do it myself.

Some folks are saying do it at 5000, so the factory installed oil can do it's stuff for the break in of the engine. This is making an assumption that the factory installed engine oil on our MINIs was in some way special and different from the recommended oil by MINI USA.

I don't know for sure, but some folks believe the factory oil has some special additives for the initial period of the suggested break in period.

Anyone know for sure?

 

I did mine around 2500. Can't hurt. I plan on doing 7500mi, I'll do the in-between ones. It was quick, painless, cheap, and the oil is recycled.

 

There is no need for a motor oil change unless your racing the car. The Mini has engine oil sensors in it, sensing when the oil is dirty.

I HIGHLY doubt there is any extra "addatives" in the engine oil from MINI (or any other manufacturer). We are lucky they put the oil in, soon "Engine Oil" will be an add on option: "Factrory installed Engine Oil: $450" and it won't be selectable online if you have selected the Cold Weather package, for some unknown reason.

 

Changed mine at 1300.

 

I've read that the engine computer monitors how the car is being driven and adjusts the "miles until next service" accordingly. Drive mostly continuous speed highway miles and the service interval is adjusted longer. Lots of short drives, stop and go, and hard accelerations and the interval is shortened. I hadn't heard of dirty oil sensors before though. Do you have a link where I could read more about them?

 

I will be doing my first oil change at 2k.

 

There's been allusions to a mythical "oil sensor" and threads debating them, but there is no oil sensor on the car. There have been a couple of challenges to point to one in the wiring diagram, parts list, etc. What there is is a program that keeps track of temperatures, run times, speeds, etc and ESTIMATES the oil life. I'm sure the engine designers have some idea what they're doing.

I've seen at least one thread where someone had 15K oil tested and it was still good for extended use.

So, no, you don't HAVE to change your oil. Shouldn't stop anyone from changing it if it makes them feel better (like me, however misdirected I am).

 

Another thought-MINI has pressure to extend oil change intervals. With maintenance included, it costs them money to have shorter intervals.

They only have to make the motor last till it's out of warranty. What interest do they have in making it last "forever"???

Seems like a conflict of interest is really possible.

Me??? It's my car. My dime. I have incentive to make it last longer. I don't do 3K oil changes like in the old days. But I'm going to do them earlier than 15K just in case it makes a difference in whether it makes 100K or 200K. Even if it only makes me feel better, and doesn't really effect longevity.

 

I agree with you about there not being an " oil sensor" in this car for oil quality. There is possibly a Lo pressure sensor or a Pressure diff sensor on the filter system. Anything more advanced than that would be cost prohibitive.

 

Changed mine at 1000, collected and filtered the oil. Caught lots of grit, copper and aluminum turnings, chips and scrap. Inspected the oil filter (filters from outside to inside) and saw the same thing.

The color of the oil on your dipstick is not an indication of anything. My dipstick oil looked great at 1000 miles. When I opened the drain plug, it came out black and nasty.

All auto manufacturers are going to long drain intervals for all the fluids to give them better ISO 14001 certification for life cycle pollution (how much pollution will this car produce in it's lifetime). We are talking how many gallons of oil, coolant, tires, transmission lube..etc.

If you truly want your engine to last a long time with a minimum of problems, the oil much be changed. I don't care what the oil analyses say.

Another misconception. Your oil filter does not filter all the oil that the pump picks up and sends to your engine...it only filters a small fraction. All the rest goes straight to your engine bearings. Theory says that sooner or later all the oil will eventually get filtered many times, but if there is abrasive stuff in your oil, it will go to your bearings and rings, etc.

I can't understand the thinking pattern of paying $25K for a piece of equipment and then see how little maintenance you can get away with.

There will be the argument of putting less oil into the environment, which is great, but if long intervals cause the engine to die sooner than it should, where is the environmental logic now?

Sorry to rant, but why question this issue, change the oil, protect your engine and sleep well. It is too inexpensive to do anything other.

YD

 

+1

 

Just for balance for polling rather than merit, there are plenty of us that follow the manufacturer's instructions. I'll let ya know in 50K how I feel about that.

(Although I will throw in someone recently had a cool thread on a used oil analysis they had done)

 

Most of the engine break in is going to happen within the first couple hundred miles so I changed my oil at 500 miles and from now on it's going to be every 5K.

 

I've always changed my oil and filters every 5K miles in all my cars and knock on wood never had an engine problem. Since the mini uses synthetic oil i'm moving up to every 7.5K. I really believe it is more an issue of the oil filter more so than the oil. If you really want to pince pennies you could probably get away with changing the filter every 7.5K and leave the oil to 15K and just add what you lose in the filter change.
For me I'll go with the piece of mind and change it twice as often as they recommend and that's my 2 cents

 

Agreed--I've been doing the 3K thing with my current car for the last 10 years and it's still doing well. With MINI, I will probably do either 5K or 7.5K oil change, if only for peace of mind.

 

Any modern engine will go 50K without doing anything except making sure it doesn't run dry.... If that is all a person expects, then why worry. I'm talking about getting much longer mileage with a minimum of problems.

As for break in, I'm in the camp that says you do most of your break in in the first 25 miles. How you drive your car during these first 25 miles is very important, and we are not talking about gentle and easy, but also not abusive.

My MINI does not use any oil between 5K changes, (visual on the dipstick), and it gets wound to redline most every day. If your engine uses oil, then there is a leak or the rings are not seated.

Bottom line for me is, it is your car, your money, your choice. Do what you think is best for you. If you choose to push it over a cliff, your choice...hehe, just let me know so I can come and watch.

If you really are having trouble making up your mind as to what to do. I suggest you take a little time and find an engine rebuilding shop in your area. Drop in, buy one of the guys a coke and ask if you can bug him for five minutes with a couple of questions. Ask him his opinion of what he sees every day and what he thinks caused the engine to be worn out and what is the best way to prevent it.

Walk into a BMW shop and ask them about recent sludge issues (a little BMW topic they don't want to talk about). Walk into a Toyoto and ask them about engine sludge, Honda, take your pick.

My last comment and I promise to shut up (yea). How many of you who profess to be following the manufacturer's maintenance schedule have ever personally removed and engine (any model, any year, any oil use) and then took it apart and cleaned it up and rebuilt it? If cleaning the deposits out of ring grooves, oil passages, etc doesn't cause you to think about more frequent oil changes I don't know what will.

It will be like watching clogged artery bypass surgery on TV and then eating a BigMac with cheese fries.

I am truly not trying to cause a forum war here, just trying to save a few engines from an early death. I know a bunch of you will have totally opposite opinions.

YD

 

(15-20? for me) The motors that I'd had long have been pretty clean inside. The ones I hadn't... well... usually quite a bit of gunk... But I guess you know that (since you know enough to ask the question)

 

Changed mine at ~600mi and I've ran it hard since.

 

I changed mine at about 2,500 miles. It was pretty easy.

 

I have 849 miles as of today... I will probably wait until 1200 miles for my first oil change.

 

I have to take "smudge" somewhere as I have no access to anything, including water.
Can I trust jiffy lubes oil and bring my own filter?????

 

i'd say change the oil. I just had my 2000km oil change and I was shocked to see how dirty the oil was after just 2000 km

 

Huh? Are you saying you would dump old oil in some body of water, if you had access? Or, are you saying you have to haul in drinking water?

I will never again trust Jiffy Lube.

If you can't find a recycle center that takes motor oil, ake arrangements with a garage or gas station to recycle it for you.