On Fri, 2 Sep 2011 14:46:41 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:14:55 -0700, SMS wrote:
You have to wonder why, in Europe, the average oil change interval is
10,000 miles while it's 5000 miles in the U.S.

Hmm, most of Europe uses km, not mi - are you sure you're not mixing up
units? I used to do oil changes around 6000mi in England (on my modern
vehicles - I still did my vintage ones at 3000mi) - which isn't too
different from 10,000km.

That's still higher than the US, of course, but only twice as much :-)

Historically, I think the US was reluctant to change tried-and-tested
engine designs, at a time where much of the rest of the world was aiming
for better efficiency and power to weight ratios. That gap seems to have
closed these days, but perhaps there's a lot of inertia left in the
system - 3000mi changes used to be the norm in the US, so that's what's
still advised even though modern engines don't need it.


The main reason oil change intervals are longer in Europe is the OEM's
take part in oil "design." Of course longer changes is a marketing
tool also.

http://www.smartmotorist.com/car-acc...fications.html

I have no idea how long European engines last compared to this market.
No idea how much repair work is done there versus here due to
lubrication issues.
All I know (unless I want to argue) is I change oil at 3-4000 miles
and don't have lube related issues.
The cost of doing that is a drop in the bucket of car ownership costs.
All my recent cars got close to 200k miles before rust made them junk.
No lube issues at all.
I don't have a problem with people doing extended changes.
Their call.
But it's really unwise to tell folks to do extended oil changes when
you don't know what the results of that will be for them.
You won't find conclusive scientific testing anywhere that supports
long duration oil changes. It's all marketing.
Anecdotally, for instance Toyota engine sludging, the evidence
supports 3-5000 mile oil changes.

--Vic