Does your car really need to have its oil changed exactly every 3,000 miles, or can that vary?

I mean if you change it one month at 3,000 and another month at 5,000 , bla bla, and you forget one month and it goes to 6,000.





I mean, is it really that big of a deal, and do all cars vary?








How can you predict how much your particular car needs?





Anyways, what's the deal?Does your car really need to have its oil changed exactly every 3,000 miles, or can that vary?
really it depends on what type of driving you are doing.





oil manufacturers say every 3 months or 3k miles, whichever comes first.


car manufacturers give 2 different listings, depending on what type of driving you are doing. the one people keep stating on here is if your driving is primarily hwy driving, if you are doing much city driving, you'll need to change your change habits a bit.


here is what most makers say.


6 months or 7500 miles for normal driving.


3 months or 3000-3750 miles for 'extreme' driving.


then they define extreme driving.





1. alot of drives of less than 10 miles


2. stop and go driving


3. driving below 0F


4. driving above 90F


5. towing


6. extensive driving above 70 mph.





the exact definition varies maker to maker, but that's the general gist of it. why do they do that? well, if you drive in any of those situations (most of us do) and you have an engine failure, they won't honor the warranty unless you followed the extreme conditions care.





in truth, most cars today will make 200k with the regular oil changes, not the extreme ones, so long as the transmission doesn't go out and you don't wreck it. if that's enough for you, and your warranty is out, use the regular change schedule. if you want more, the stricter schedule will give most cars 3-400k miles (i had a saturn make almost 500k on the stricter schedule)Does your car really need to have its oil changed exactly every 3,000 miles, or can that vary?
If you look in your owners manual it will probably tell you if you do light driving or highway driving you can go up to 5,000 miles on non-synthetic oil. If you do city driving stop and go 3,000 is what you need to change your oil to. Change your oil to synthetic (depending on which brand) you can go up to 15,000 miles per oil change, but with synthetic if you have any kind of oil leak it will get worse because its thinner
I will give an answer but will get thumbs down for what I say... but I also had 180,000 miles on a car doing this. What does the car call for, most are 7,500 miles. Now you say a month... if I drove that many miles per month I most likely would not even worry about it for 10,000 miles. Now how I would do it (and I do)..... change oil and filter every 3 months or at 5,000 miles (oil and filter) I do this with all my cars, drive them more miles that the average person and have no problem.


I sell most cars myself, do not trade them in and have people in line to buy them.. so now I must do something right.
Just do what your owner's manual recommends. No one needs to change oil every three thousand miles unless you tow really heavy loads up and down mountains or drive a taxi cab. Though it certainly doesn't hut to change it every 3,000 miles it is nothing more than an urban myth in these days of high-tech engines and oil products.
changing it every 3000 miles is ideal, but you can really get by with some extra. just check your oil level and examine the color of the oil on the stick. if it's dark or black, it needs to be changed. also, using synthetic oil will buy you a few extra thousand miles.
Most cars are about the same.... I like to change my oil between 2500 to 4000 miles. The important thing to remember is the oil filter and the grade of oil. Some oils break down faster than others. In the real old vehicles you might try 1 qt. of 50W with the 10W40. On the newer models may be better to stay with 30W.
It definitely varies. I mean, yeah it's good to be on top of it but, it really isn't THAT critical. My changes have varied between 3,000 and 6,000 miles, 6,000 only being once but, it's usually around 4 or 5.
Oil companies say every 3000, auto manufacturers say 5000 these days. 6 months/5000 miles you should be fine.
it can vary depending on how big or what kind of car it is like a truck can go every 6,000 miles as a sports car can only do 3,000
Most car makers say once every 7500 miles. Oil companies want you to buy their oil so they say 3000.
driving style %26amp; weather can play into oil changes, as well
no! look in your cars hand book in the glove box