Jazzman

My oil life reads 20%. I use Mobil 1 and have 3K miles on it since that oil change. Could it REALLY be 20%?
I check the dipstick and it is full. The oil looks fairly new, if that is any determination.
I drive the car quite conservatively.

I am about to drive 1500 miles and want to make sure it would be OK to do so without an oil change.
what do y'all think?

-m

s2000maniac

That oil life thingy has nothing to do with the actual oil. It goes by mileage. So maybe it wasn't reset back to 100% in the last oil change.

fernando.

Correct.

I don't follow that service interval anyways, it's too long. I do oil changes on my parents Accord when it reaches around 50% or 60% which is about 4000miles give or take. Funny how I'm a tech at a Honda dealership and I don't follow it, lol.

Jazzman

I think that's it. The counter wasn't reset to zero.

Case closed. Will change at 7500.

-m

Boofster

I've noticed mine reaches 0% at around 5k, which is what I change my synthetic oil at anyway so it's doing a good job.

The actual interval depends on your particular car and environment.

Just look at it when you drain it. If it's too black, dial back your oil change miles a bit.
If it's still see-through and clean, you can push it more.

NorwestS2K

The color of your motor oil is not indicative of the physical state of the oil in your crankcase. The fact that the oil is dark most likely reflects it's detergent content has does some cleaning if the OLM or time don't suggest changing it. Use you OLM and/or time as a more reliable guide. I use synthetic oil and change it once a year as my annual mileage is very low.

fernando.

The maintenance minder system takes into account how you drive you car. Some people come in at 7,000km's for their first oil change, others I've seen as late as 16,000km's.

If you drive the piss out of the car naturally the calculator will want to have you do more frequent oil changes.

takeshi

^ This. Get a UOA to determine if your intervals are appropriate for your vehicle and driving conditions.

jeggy

I've notice my oil life % drops quicker after a day of autox.

cdelena

Most of the oil indicators use rpms/temp to weight the change algorithm and are surprisingly accurate. I know of several studies where the recommendations were checked with actual oil analysis and found to be sound under varying conditions. Oil is good enough now I am comfortable just doing an annual change as my car does not have a reminder.