Oil changes.... Seriously, do we really need an oil change that frequently

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roughyear

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I can rack up 3000miles in 45days. Do we really need to change the oil on the QX that frequently??? If maintenance was included on these trucks, I bet you, they'd say the frequency for an oil change is 7500miles or similar.

How often are you guyz changing your oil.
 
Dont' quote me on this but I believe the manual says every 7,500 miles under "normal driving conditions". The dealer uses synthetic blend oil. I do my own oil changes using full synthetic oil every 7,500 miles. I'm pretty certain that I can get away with every 10,000 miles as long as full synthetic oil is used, but I'll stick with 7,500 miles atleast until the warranty expires (if I decide to keep it for that long). Mercedes and BMWs are scheduled at 10,0000 miles and the Infiniti is a better built machine, IMO:D.
 
I do 6000 with synthetic, that's what the dealer told me is fine. If using conventional oil every 3000..
 
what years is your and what kind of oil you run ?
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Don't believe the dealership or anyone else. As long as you follow the service manual, you should be fine regardless of regular or synthetic. Regular will be fine for anything under 10k miles. You can got to website dedicated to oil such as bitog and find out more.

If you want exact results, you can do an oil analysis on your used oil, send it off to a lab like Blackstone and see what they tell you but regardless while under warranty. If it says 7.5K, do it.

A lot of the cars switched to 10K intervals because with better manufacturering tolerances, the oil lasts longer. It's like when the cars went from 3k intervals to 5k intervals. Now it's 10k and the oil analysis proves that it's right.

I have a Honda Fit that the oil gets changed every 11K because that's what the maintainence minder told me, I was freaked out at first but I sent a used oil sample and so have a bunch of others from bitog and the oil can go even longer.
 
how much does and oil sample cost ? and what does it tell you how much oil life you got lift ?
 
Go to:

http://www.blackstone-labs.com/

The kit is free but to get the analysis is $25.

The results will tell you how the engine is wearing. Any high levels of a certain metal, how much the oil broke down and how much longer you could of gone or shouldn't have gone on the oil.

Lots of OCD people on BITOG love doing it.

For the most part, many, many oil analysis have shown that any oil can pretty much do 10k, even regular dino. If you want the best, go with synthetic but realize that your engine will not last longer or better just because you are using it. You're using it because you want to use the best thing possible.

Good luck, if you do the analysis, post it here and let everyone know how it went.
 
I just bought a used QX56 with 93,000 miles, looking at doing the oil changes myself since it sits high enough!

Any recommendations on what kind of 5W-30 Synthetic, how many quarts, and how often I need to change?
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follow the operators maintenance book. thats what i did and never had any issues in all 3 of my trucks (2 armadas and one qx).

Infiniti Maintenance Schedules

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infinitiforum.net

oil analysis

well, I was changing the oil last time back last month and I decided to send an oil sample off to the Blackstone oil analysis lab. It looks pretty good, I had ask if there was anything in the oil that would indicate an issue with timing chain wear. They said there was nothing indicating such a...
infinitiforum.net infinitiforum.net
infinitiforum.net

Amsoil

Has anyone ran the Signature Series 5W-30 Synthetic Amsoil? All my previous and current have been changed over to SS Amsoil. Just curious as I have ordered amsoil for my 11' qx56.
infinitiforum.net infinitiforum.net

just a couple of random threads that may help (or not).
 
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roughyear said:
I can rack up 3000miles in 45days. Do we really need to change the oil on the QX that frequently??? If maintenance was included on these trucks, I bet you, they'd say the frequency for an oil change is 7500miles or similar.

How often are you guyz changing your oil.
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I think recommend is 7,500 full synthetic oil. That's what my owners manual says atleast
 
When I bought mine a few months ago somehow I missed that the oil hadn’t been changed since February, but less than 4,000 miles ago. A couple nights ago it was running real rough, SES was blinking, had it towed to the mechanic who said it was all kinds of black and low oil, dirtied up everything, had to clean out the VVTs, change the oil and filter, and it’s fine now. He said I need to change it again in 500 miles (he doesn’t typically do oil changes, said I could take it anywhere, so he wasn’t playing me).

He recommended every 4,500 miles due to the age (2011) and mileage (96,000). That’s pretty dang frequent.

Do any of you guys change it yourselves?
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I change it myself and use synthetic and do it every 6-7K. I have 187K miles on mine. I always change the filter too. It isn't hard to do it yourself...
 
Ok, I know this OCD, but I change mine every 3K miles, use the Mobil 1 0W20 Truck and SUV full synthetic for the additives, and use an OEM oil filter.

Tried to do a lot of research on this engine and have read the direct injection engines, and this one in particular, fairs better with clean oil.

Also for my own peace of mind I just don’t like leaving 0W20 low viscosity oil in a 5.6 liter truck engine for very long. I read somewhere that 50% or more of engine wear is at start up so don’t want to use a thicker oil, but for long road trips I know that 20 weight oil is getting pretty thin when the engine is working hard.

chrisrach3 you may want to ask your mechanic to change the pcvs on your truck as well to make sure they are not clogged up.

I am only a shade tree diy guy at best, but because it is really easy to change the oil, the $50.00 for the oil and filter is cheap insurance to me so mine doesn’t end up with engine problems down the road.

Oil change records also set your truck apart when it comes time to sell it.
 
roughyear said:
I can rack up 3000miles in 45days. Do we really need to change the oil on the QX that frequently??? If maintenance was included on these trucks, I bet you, they'd say the frequency for an oil change is 7500miles or similar.

How often are you guyz changing your oil.
Click to expand...
Every 6.5k
 
I bought a 2011 QX56 in October 2020. Cat code came on in December, SES started blinking and limp mode in January, had to get it towed. Mechanic noticed the oil was low and dirty, implying it hadn't been changed for a while. I checked and the last time it was changed before I bought it was February of 2020. However, it only had 3,000 miles on it since the oil was changed. It was taken into the dealership for maintenance in July of 2020 but they didn't do anything to the oil, as I'm assuming they checked it and it was fine, especially since it was synthetic and very low miles since the last change.

So my mechanic changed the oil, cleaned out a sensor or two, told me to change it again in 500 miles (which I did) and gave it back. It drove great. For about a month. Then the SES light came on again (not blinking), took it to the mechanic, he changed the VVT solenoid. A couple weeks later, SES light was blinking, went into limp mode, had to get it towed again.

He cleared the code history, didn't do anything to it, said the oil did look a little dirty, recommended that I change the oil again and take it to the dealer next time the SES light came on which he figured it would, soon.

So I got the oil changed, drove it around for a while, about 200 miles away and back, twice. The light never came on, it never rough idled, nothing. For 3,000 miles. I changed the oil again two weeks ago, it runs great.

All that to say, I'm confident it was the result of not having the oil changed frequently enough in 2000, despite the low mileage. So I'm planning on getting it changed every 4 months. With full synthetic I was hoping to get away with less frequent changes, but apparently not.
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