Today, both engine and oil technology allow for less frequent maintenance than ever before. Some brands even claim that you only need to change the oil once a year. But how often should you change your oil? There are mileage and time goals to consider to help protect your engine.
Annual oil changes may not be a good idea
There are some oil brands that claim to only change the oil once a year. However, in many cases, this may not be frequent enough to keep your engine safe. Understanding how your engine oil works every time you drive can help you understand how often you should change it.
When you first start your car, the engine oil is cold and flows less freely than when things start to warm up. No matter how many miles you drive, this process of heating and cooling the oil will cause it to break down over time.
Even if you’re only going on a 10-minute drive, your engine oil will have gone through one of these heat cycles. So knowing how often you drive can help answer the question of how often you should change your oil.
Every time your oil goes through a heat cycle, its chemical properties degrade. Over time, this causes the oil to flow less at cold temperatures and lose its viscosity at higher temperatures. This means it is less able to adequately protect internal engine parts in both the coldest and hottest engine temperatures.
Understand heat cycles and mileage for oil change recommendations
We’ve already talked about heat cycles, but mileage also affects engine oil over time. Sustained high heat inside an engine will also slowly break down this oil over time. Additionally, agitation within an engine will also alter the physical properties of your oil. Combined, both heat cycles and mileage usually mean you should change your oil more often than once a year.
In fact, annual oil changes are only recommended for vehicles that drive short distances only once or twice a week. For vehicles that travel less than 8,000 miles per year and are not driven very often, modern technology means annual oil changes are viable.
Leaving the car sitting too long can also cause problems
Unfortunately, just letting your car sit can also cause problems, according to Consumer Reports. While engine oil can easily last a year of little or no driving, the seals inside the engine may not handle it as well. Knowing how often to drive your car is just as important as knowing how often to change your oil.
When cars sit for too long, rubber seals and hoses can become brittle. Then, when subjected to higher driving temperatures and pressures, these components can fail and cause bigger problems.
Circulating the oil throughout the system can help prevent this brittleness from settling into internal engine parts, improving longevity.
What is the best interval for oil changes?
Although recommendations vary, a good rule of thumb is seven months or 7,000 miles. This allows you to change the oil often enough to maintain adequate lubrication without throwing unnecessary money down the drain by changing the oil too often.
Note that this only applies to modern synthetic oil in modern engines. Older cars and conventional oil change recommendations will be closer to five months and 5,000 miles, if not longer.
