Pocketbook Pinch – Saving Cash Daily

Saving Money on your Oil Changes: Part 2

If you haven’t read the first part of this article, please do so now before reading this section.

Now that you have realised that most oil change places will rip you off by telling you to change your oil too often, the best way to get good information is to read your car’s owner’s manual. In there you will find the true information needed to see how often you should change it.

Most car companies will know a lot more than any oil change place filled with under paid workers all managed by a commissioned shop manager than get a cut based on how many oil changes and extras he can get from the population in total over a year. The more the store makes, the more he makes. This is how you see why he won’t be an unbiased source for information.

Read your manual, follow their guildlines and save money. some cars have an oil life monitor and in most cases, it is ideal and works great. If you have this features, use it and don’t think you know better than it seeing you don’t.

Now an additional bit of misinformation is the life of your oil based on time and not mileage. When it comes to this, use common sense. If you have only driven 1000 miles and it has been 3 months and a guideline states you should change your oil……don’t! There is no way your oil is depleted, dirty or need of a change and all you are doing is dumping money and good oil down the drain. If you put less than 5000miles a year on your engine due to it being a seasonal car/truck or you just don’t drive much, changing the oil every year or in the worst cases every 6 months will be more than sufficient. If it is a seasonal car, change the oil at the end of the season before storage, then drive it for the whole next season and repeat.

To boil things down, oil will not change in 3 months if it is lightly driven and remember, the oil has more than likely been on the shelf for a year and you don’t see oil on the shelf going bad. Now I know in the crankcase it is a slightly different story but you get the picture.

Tags: automotive

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