If my car doesn't get driven much (less than 800 mi in 12 month) should I still change the oil or wait till it's 5000 mi? I use Castrol Synthetic.

Thanks!

 

I'd change it. One of the worst things is used oil just sitting there. You're better to drive it more.

 

I'd never go beyond the year mark for a change and Jaguar recommends not to exceed that mark regardless of miles.

 

Particularly after short drives it has acids, water, all sorts of not very nice things. (Just drive more!)

 

Big sump, lots of oil volume to suspend contaminants.

If you are worried about moisture, give it a hard run,
then put it away.

What's the difference between oil in the jug and oil in
the sump? Mostly none.

If you wouldn't change the oil in the jug, then why change
it in the sump?

 

If those 800 miles were on good long runs, then why change the oil ? However, if you were just pottering around town, it would be best to change, I think. The other thing is that once you start putting maintenance items off it's difficult to know when to stop, and when you come to sell, the prospective buyer will want to know the car has been looked after properly. Frankly, I think a car does need looking at, at least once per year with the car up on a ramp.


If it makes you feel better, I recently had my MG Midget serviced and as the car had done less than 1500 miles in the year, the oil wasn't changed. My mechanic thought with the oil being very clean, and knowing the mileage, it would be a waste of good oil ! Of course, the car only comes out to do a reasonably long run, it never gets tootled around town.


However, with the Jaguar, I got up to 10k miles only a few months since the previous service. Going on holiday to Germany was 2860 miles in two weeks, so the miles do mount up. I got the car serviced last month with the oil and filter changed.

 

I understand the points some of the members have made against changing the oil based on time. My Jaguar is a garage queen as well so oil change comes down to this: It's $55 to $60 for syn oil and filter. Over a year, that's $5 a month (money from the change jar). It takes an hour of my time to change the oil. Chances are, you've spent longer than that researching if you should change the oil. Just do it.

 

Change the oil at least once a year or 12K miles. At that interval best to use fully synthetic.
If driven normally change every 5K miles.

Keep in mind, the weak link is the paper oil filter. I do not trust past 5K miles. Better to have clean oil than do a dirty rebuild.