Oil change intervals: how often to change synthetic oil?

Babe RuthLess · Post by **Babe RuthLess** » Fri May 23, 2003 6:01 pm

Well, I'm wondering whether VW's recommended 15,000 km (9375 mi) oil change interval is a bit too much, even for synthetic oils.

Of course, most oil sellers will tell you that their synthetic stuff lasts for 15,000 km or something, but that's under very favourable conditions. Same for the filters.

Most of us drive in cities (most of the time anyway), and in my case there's the added contamination from dust (heavy industries and a lot of iron mining in my region).

That said, at how many miles (or km) do you change your Polos' oil, or plan to? I reckoned 7500km would be fine, but I'd like to see some other opinions!

THanks,

polo2k · Post by **polo2k** » Fri May 23, 2003 7:23 pm

every 10,000km and its not the area that you drive in that affects the oil its how you drive as that 15,000km could be 1 million revolution for an average driver but as i (and prolly a few others) drive at higher rpm i may do over 2 million revolutions in that time and also with the way that i drive oil temps are a lot higher than average (usually over 120oC) so the oil can start to break down over time a lot faster than it would normally

Babe RuthLess · Post by **Babe RuthLess** » Fri May 23, 2003 10:57 pm

Hmm, interesting.

Thanks for that. I don't think VW would approve of the way any of us drive our Polos

.

kliis · Post by **kliis** » Mon May 26, 2003 10:17 pm

I already made 18000kms without an oil change. Well, i only had to add 1 liter once. I have a flexible interval service and the indicator hasn't alerted me yet.
My polo is a 1.4 16v, just if you ask

Babe RuthLess · Post by **Babe RuthLess** » Mon May 26, 2003 10:56 pm

@kliis

Wow that's a lot!

Maybe that's just me being excessively careful with my cars as usual (yes I'm very sad when it comes to cars

) but I wouldn't run that many kms without changing the oil.

Especially in a 16V that tends to be revved more than 8V'ers.

But then again if you used a litre of synthetic oil to fill the engine up then you just added some extra kms to the older oil... But I'd get it drained at the first opportunity.

Thanks,