No. Most V8's and most other cylinder counts of engines use around 4-5 quarts. That's why all the lube places have a surcharge on oil changes requiring more that 5 quarts.

It is only in recent years that some manufacturers have used larger sumps on vehicles that have large enough engine bays to accomodate the larger sump.

But, the vast majority are 4-5 quarts if you look beyond the world of high end cars.

 

10k is such a nice round number. With 16k, might as well go to 20k. It's only 25 percent more.

Anyways, no one seems to have pointed out the "severe service" clause.

Most people read the "severe service" words and do not realise that manufacturers normally include: short trips, frequent stops, stop and go driving in the definition of "severe service".

So, in fact, almost any normal usage pattern other than pure highway driving at normal speeds is included as "severe service" and the vehicle is then subject to the "severe service" oil change interval recommendations. Those intervals are normally half of the normal service intervals.

That may be in fact why many people have had good luck with changing oil more frequently than the "normal service" recommendation. They have unwittingly adopted the proper "severe service" interval without knowing about it.

Of course there is always the group who have adopted the "never change, but filter and keep it full" mantra. The idea behind it is to filter out contaminants with filter changes, replenish additives with added oil, and keep it well lubricated by maintaining the proper level. There are lots of anecdotal success stories in this camp. Lots of fleets operate this way.

Lack of clean oil will hurt an engine faster than lots of dirty oil.

 

I've said before, but my Audi A6 diesel engine has 2 service intervals to choose from, the standard fixed service interval every year or 12k miles, or using synthetic longlife oil ( dependent on driving style + other factors ) an 18k mile schedule.

Up until around 70k miles I used the longlife as I covered mostly motorway cruising miles for many many miles mostly every day. When my circumstances changed I changed my oil service interval to fixed and around 10k miles or every year, whichever came first.

I think that like most scenarios on the vehicles in question the manufacturers build in an element of safety or margin for error, whatever you want to call it.

I've covered over a million miles in 20 years averaging at least 50k miles per year in that time, mostly with company cars. Although I always kept them clean and in immaculate condition, generally, to be fair I drove them like I stole them, hard n fast.....always everywhere at 100mph and got there as fast as I could.

These cars were always treated to a service when needed or stipulated by the manufacturer, so, 10k miles oil changes, but these soon became the longlife type at 18k miles and have been for the last 10 years approx.

My cars were driven extremely hard during their lifetime and usually went back after 3 years with around 160k miles, one went with 198k miles in 3 years and not one of them ever, ever had any major engine problems to speak of.

I'd say of course changing the oil sooner will probably be beneficial and not harmful ( except possibly in an unnecessary cost in money and to the environment ) but is it really needed? Each to there own I say.........

Personally speaking I now change mine around every 10k miles as I do mostly stop / start journeys every day now and less motorway miles, but could never see the justification for oil changes at every 5k, but, thats just my opinion.

The way I look at it is, if I can drive a car at 100mph+ every day of its life and always hard n fast and it gets oil changes at 18k miles, I'm sure babying my car more often these days and changing it at every 10k miles I'll do just fine...

I'm now sitting around 86k miles iirc after 4 years or so with no engine issues to speak of.

 

I'm aware of that, just questioned why you said that 4 cyl/bangers fire more than twice as often as 8 cylinders- they don't turn twice as fast.

 

Yes they do!!

at 55mph my vette turns 1300 rpm, the jag just a hair under 1400, my daughters Civic turns just under 2900 rpm.


Also, daughters is a manual 5 sp and both my cars are auto 4sp.

 

Anybody remember the STP claim of 15k miles for there oil?
And used with STP oil treatment, you could go to 20k miles.

 

Fair enough, but for fun I looked in the owner's manual on our own Civic. OEM oil change interval is 10K miles/16K Km- same as the Jags.