An interesting article re California's efforts to get people to change their oil less frequently. It says that motorists changing their oil every 3,000 miles wasted millions of gallons of oil per year.

 

I'll have to dig around and see if I can find it again but I once had my hand on the text of a speech given by the pres' of Jiffy Lube Corp to a meeting of 'oil change companies'. . .

He stated, as I recall, that extended life motor oils presented the greatest threat their industry had ever seen and they needed to mobilize to maintain the 3000 mile change they'd worked so hard to drive into the customer's hearts . . .

I agree with CA in this case . . .

Come on ... if 3000 mile changes are what's better for your car, wouldn't 2000 mile changes be even better? How about 3 minute abs . . . yuk yuk

 

I have read this article and as a professional seen the results of extended oil change intervals. If you are keeping your $30000 car for the long haul, why are you going to compromise the longevity of the engine over a few hundred dollars a year. What is the going rate on an engine for our minis, $6000? Is it worth the gamble?

 

Because the oil can handle it and you are just wasting it? I can understand some folks trepidation about going 15K, but at least 8K should be fine.

 

The problem is not with the oil, it is with the dirt suspended in the oil that settles. These Minis make some carbon, and that gets into the oil causing it to be blacker than ordinary vehicles. Those particulates will settle. It is not worth $6000 of risk. Look at all the engine failures on these cars. Normal cars do not go through engines like these cars do. With 15000 mile intervals, you have to raise the question, why do these engines fail? My non-turbo Cooper, gets its oil changes over 3000-4000 with using synthetic and that oil comes out the dirtiest of any car I have seen. Inside the engine look immaculate, but I can't even imagine what it looks like in double that time..or triple.

 

I don't go as long as the computer tells me to, because it's sometimes stretched the intervals out to almost 25k miles, but I still think that a 3,000 mile interval is wildly conservative for a daily-driven (i.e. not raced) MINI. The MINI has been out for ten years now, and there are plenty of high-mileage examples out there to show that sludge/varnish/wear simply hasn't been an endemic problem with these cars.

And doing 3,000 mile intervals instead of say, 15,000 mile intervals means that even at DIY prices, you're spending an extra $200 every 15k miles. Instead, why not bank that money in an interest-bearing account against the possibility of a future rebuild?

A lot can happen between when your MINI is new and when it gets to the point that significant engine wear is a likelihood. You might decide to sell the car, it might be totaled, stolen, or you might have a catastrophic engine failure completely unrelated to your choice of change interval.

Of course, it's your car so you can do what you want, but following an arbitrary interval that was drilled into our collective heads back when conventional oil was the norm and we didn't have cylinder linings like Nikasil seems a little silly.

 

If you are paying for service or getting rid of the vehicle when the warranty is up, that is one thing. If you are changing it yourself. The cost if minimal over time. To each their own, but my routines has brought me vehicles that have lasted close to 300000 miles and were sold to still put on miles. No one will ever convince me, that extended intervals is healthy. Dirt does not go away. With frequent oil filter changes, maybe, not with the same filter for that long interval.

 

First, the particles don't "settle". The oil is actually designed to suspend them as for the rest, I am trying to figure out where you are getting your information of these cars going though engines. Have you even had your oil analyzed? There was an article that was put out a while back that showed you can actually increase wear on your engine by changing it too soon. It had to do with the polymers not having a chance to breakdown and the recommendation was to go a lot further than 3K on synthetic oils. Lastly you can't tell how dirty oil is by simply looking at it, that is a myth. The only proper way to tell the life of an oil is to send it in.

Do as you please but at 3K you are just wasting your money and possibly putting wear on your engine.

 

Do you know how many VW 1.8 Turbos that I have had to replace due the cams seizing due to sludge clogging up the sumps while using synthetic oil and 10000 mile intervals. Or the fleet of trucks that I maintained that went 8000 miles using Mobil 1 and when the oil pans rotted off, they had 2 inches of sludge in the bottom of the pans. I will continue my intervals that have never let me down, and regardless of how the oil is supposed to work, real world is different than in a lab, and no matter how it is looked at, I will never waste $6000 of money on oil changes.

 

Plus, the MINI uses a "full flow" oiling system, where every drop of oil goes through the filter before proceeding on to the bearings and other high-pressure wear surfaces. If the MINI instead used a "bypass" system, where only some of the oil was filtered during each pass through the engine, I'd be more worried about particulates.

And deflate is right - the MINIs do have some problems that can take out an engine or at least necessitate a partial rebuild (the timing chain tensioner comes to mind), but they're nothing that's going to be helped by a shorter change interval. If we were hearing a lot of reports of high-mileage MINIs with low compression readings across all cylinders indicating ring wear, or low oil pressure from bearing wear, that would be a different matter, but that's not happening.

 

No one is claiming that there aren't engines with design flaws that cause them to be very hard on oil. The BMW twin-turbo 3.0l in the 135 & 335 in particular had major sludging problems early on. Likewise, the Audi S4 was known to be very hard on oil. But simply put, the MINI isn't one of the cars with such problems.

Your experience with our VWs and trucks doesn't really mean much, because you don't know if shorter intervals would have prevented the sludging. Like I said earlier, there are a lot of examples out here in MINI-land that show that sludge/varnish/wear simply isn't a problem with intervals longer than 3,000 miles.

 

Sounds like there wouldn't be any harm in doing oil changes every 7,500 miles based on what I'm seeing here. or am I missing something?

 

It's not the oil I worry about...it's the oil filter. The oil may be good for 10-15k miles...but I've never seen an oil filter that that does its job past 7or 8k at best. I've seen some filters look almost completely erroded and unrecognizable due to being left in a car too long.

 

That is a fair statement and I usually do my change between 10K and 15K depending on my schedule. I have looked at my filter (R53) and it seemed fine, dirty, but fine. This is another one of those items that you can't simply look at and say it is useless as it does its job at a molecular level. Now, if your filter is torn up or disintegrated that is a different story. I use the OEM filters so that I know they were engineered to go the distance. Tossing a cheaper filter in there could collapse or not be engineered to go the distance.

 

If you had legitimate wear/sludge/varnish problems in a MINI with a 7,500 change interval (which is still half the length of the manufacturer-recommended interval, BTW), then you would be the first one I've ever heard of here on NAM.

7,500 miles is about the same change interval I use. When I reset the OBC, it starts counting down from 15,500 miles. I change the oil when it's counted down to 7,500 on the indicator, and then again when it hits zero. I like it because it's easy to remember - if the OBC says "7,500" or "0", then I change the oil.

 

I change mine annually or in the 7-8K mile range which ever comes first. The old 3K mile oil change is as antiquated as the ole Chevy Blue Flame 6 engine. Oil, oil filters, and engines have improved and I don't believe for a heartbeat that all auto manufacturers would have extended oil changes during the warranty periods if there was ANY chance that it would damage an engine and increase their warranty costs.

 

Just curious of opinions... but what about changing only the filter every 7500 miles and then doing the scheduled oil/filter when instructed by the computer?


Anyways, I am still on the fence as to whether I should do an extra oil change in between the free intervals...

 

You could do this but as I said earlier, I would have the oil tested at a lab to see if it is lasting for you.

 

Amsoil did a study where their Synthetic went about 21k miles or something crazy like that.

The big secret is changing the oil filter. If i remember right, they changed the filter every 2k.

Makes sense though as most quality synthetic oil only starts going dark after the filter has lost the ability to keep crap out of the oil. More crap in oil, add heat and BAM, nasty oil!
:-)

 

I also tell BMW owners this:

While the 4yr/50k Maintenance plan covers oil changes at scheduled interval... if you love your car, buy an oil change at 7500miles and get a free one at 15000miles...etc.

Most dealers charge between $120-150 for an oil change... so in 4 years, $600 is a minor investment i think. Of course, changing just the filter would only be $48 in 4 years.

 

I guess I was just thinking it's an option for someone like me who doesn't really want to do the whole DYI oil draining thing until the included maintenance is up in three years. Just replace filter, top up oil if needed and motor.

I think I need a few more months before I know for sure if I love my JCW. ;-)

 

LOVE IT, love it hard/fast/dirty... YES!

 

Once again, color does not mean squat for oil health. It is a myth!

 

That's an option. I've never just changed the filter though. I'd suggest sending out a sample of your oil at 7500 and 15000 miles to see how the it's is holding up. You don't have to send out the brand new oil, the companies will give you ranges. I'll be doing that with this Mini since I'm buying it new. All other cars, I've done the whole shebang (change filter and oil) every 3k-10k (depending on the car.)

Truth!! It's like $25 to get oil checked. If someone is that concerned with 'going the distance' for the full 15k miles that Mini suggests...get it tested and see how your oil and filter are holding up. I will be doing this with my car at 7500, and if that's clear, 12-15k.

 

I changed the break-in oil on my 2012 S-JCW at 3000 miles. The peace of mind is totally worth it. I'm far from being a mechanic, but I've never heard anyone before say that changing oil "too soon" could cause problems.

I will definitely continue to do mid-interval oil changes. The cost at my dealership was $71.58 out the door. I spent a small fortune on my MINI. Most NAM'ers would "" over my final price. Now that I have it, I'm not exactly going to start skimping on maintenance over something so important when it costs less than 2 tanks of gas.

It's amazing to see on NAM how many people pay what they do for their MINI and then start cheaping out by pushing things like the service interval or saving $2 on a fillup because they don't want to use premium fuel. I'm sure they will be the first ones to be here touting the unreliability of the marque when they are stranded on the shoulder.

j