So I was just watching SPEED when this little advert caught my attention. They call it the "oilyzer" (oil-izer). It's some little gadget aimed at the car-ignorant group of people that are plagueing todays roadways. They advertise that all you do is use your dipstick to put a drop of oil on a little dot and it tells you if your oil is still good or not. It goes on to show these people running 7,000mi without an oilchange...one guy even proclaiming 12,600 miles

I wonder how many people are going to start running engines low on oil when they get to 3,000mi and see that the oil is "good" and let it go for a few thousand more miles without checking the level. I see this as another object to give dumb people a false sense of security...and we all know to expect anything from dumb people.

http://www.oilyzer.com/

 

So it doesn't measure viscosity, combustion by-products (what really makes old oil bad), or oil level? WOW...missed the three most important things there.

People will buy anything that they think makes their life easier.

 

You do realize that the 3000 mile myth is just that....a myth. BMW's oil change interval for the E46 M3 was 15,000 miles and they came with a 6 year 100,000 warranty on all parts lubricated by engine oil. Most people in the community change their oil at 1/2 intervals just to "feel" safe. Blackstone Labs looked at an oil sample from my M3 with 7,500 miles on a oil change and the oil still had a ton of life in it.

That being said this device is a joke. Sending an Oil Sample to Blackstone is easy and cheep.

 

I like how that device has a switch to go from synthetic to non synthetic, what a laugh! As far as the 3,000 mile rule...my mother in law bought a brand new Hyundai Elantra. In the glove box manual, it actually says to change the oil every 7,500.

 

Meh, with how much oil I burn and keep adding, I just change filters
Seriously, rowing through the gears and shifting at 5K+ a lot does seem to consume a decent bit of oil.

 

i suppose its an ultra-compact low temp spectrometer, lulz.

 

Euro cars tend to have huge sumps. My E class takes nearly 10 qts of oil. You'd expect ~twice as much oil to last ~twice as long.

I tend to change oil early on my cars, but only do the filters every other change. Best of all worlds there.

 

Most regular gasoline engine oils lose half of their ability to change viscosity within the first 1500 miles as the long-branch polymers break down due to shear. Put that in your M3 and smoke it.

Oil is far less expensive than the metal it protects.

 

So are you saying we need to change our oil every 1500 miles?
Or are you saying that because it looses half at 1500 it loses 1/2 again by 3000?

What you are saying might have been true 30 years ago but with today's modern engine building processes, reduced piston ring blow by, improved filtration technology and improved additive packages in modern oil the 3000 mile oil change is simply a thing of the past.

 

You would make for an excellent marketer.

 

Agreed on the large sump capacity of the European cars playing a big part in there long OCI standards.
They also use fairly heavy oils that have very robust additive packages.

However, 3,000 to 5,000 mile OCIs on a Miata is just plain overkill.
I do 10,000 mile oil changes on my MSM and have a UOA to back it up, nothing wrong with going 10K on a Miata with a synthetic oil, regardless of brand.
Hell, Mazda recommends 7,500 mile services using 10W30 dino way back in 1990.

 

UOA is king. I need to do my truck to see how long I can stretch the Delo400 it uses.

 

Well, with how much oil I leaked I did the same thing.

 

i go 10-12k miles between oil changes on synthetic. standard oil only begins to actually work around 3k.

 

Is that on the turbo miata or the V8 miata? Or are we talking about that stock 350z you post up sometimes. lol

 

thats on mostly stock 280whp 350z