VetBoy89

Ok dumb oil change question. My car is my daily driver and I drive about 60 miles one way to work. With weekend driving added on this puts me at right about 3000 a month. I have been changing my oil the last Saturday of every month. I use regular 20-50 oil with a Mobil 1 filter.

My question is, since I change it so often is it ok to skip changing the filter every other oil change? It's gettin' kinda of pricey :crazy:

LT195

Yes it does get pricey running Mobil 1 and a Mobil 1 filter.
I tried it once and said forget it.
Went back to congenial oil and Fram.
95K on my 95LT1 and still runs good!!
:cheers:

scorp508

You should be fine. Skipping the filter every other time isn't so bad when it is mostly highway miles. I'm in the same boat doing about 700 miles/week.

VetBoy89

Cool, thanks. I figured it would be okay since the time interval is so short, but it's always nice to get a second opinion. :thumbs:

BTW Scorp, how's the car comin'?

vader86

Yeah i dont think it will bother anything as long as they are consistent hwy miles.

scorp508

Thanks for asking. I haven't touched her since I put the car cover on it months ago. I have the head repaired. I just have to take them to get them milled and pressure tested now. We've been in a deep freeze here until just recently so working outside has been all but impossible even if I wanted to.

John Row

It might be worth it for you to send a sample of your oil out to one of the oil analysis companies to see if it is really necessary to change your oil every 3K miles. A couple of fleet managers I know have their vehicles on 7.5K to 10K cycles.

I thought I had web sites for these companies, but I can find them now. Google around and you should come up with a few. Seems to me it was less than $50 for a few samples.

Dan Parker '96

Changing filters every other oil change won't hurt. It may actually help since the filtering properties will actually get better as the material accumulates some debris.

My '02 Acura RSX-S manual recommends changing the filter every other oil change.

If you're into the oil analysis stuff, search this site and I'm sure you can find plenty of places to send your oil in for testing.. http://www.bobistheoilguy.com

SharkB4C4

I dunno about now, but back in the stone ages (1970's), Chevy recommended in their owners' manuals to change the oil filter every other oil change. So if it's really only clean highway miles, it should be OK.

If you don't change your filter, at least take it off for a minute to dump the old oil in the canister.

pablocruise

sounds like you are taking very good care of the Vette. I'll bet if you take a valve cover off, the head would be very clean w/ no build up. What can ya see when ya take the oil fill cap off?

VetBoy89

It's pretty clean in there, I replaced the valve cover gaskets a couple of months ago and I was surprised at how clean it really was. :thumbs:

nisstek

I'll bet the oil is nearly as clean as it went in when drained considering your driving habits. My opinion is change the oil and filter every other month and stay way from the el cheapo orange Fram filters. I use AC filters on my Chevys but I like the Mobil 1 brand filters. I figure if the AC filter is good enough to be factory installed, it's good enough for me. :thumbs:

lspalding

You should be fine, but I can't stand leaving the old oil in the filter. The idea of taking the filter off and dumping the oil is a neat idea I had never thought of. This doesn't apply to my Vettes since they get less annual mileage than you're doing in a month. But I have a high mileage daily driver with lots of expressway miles. I've noticed that the oil still looks clean after 2500 miles, so I just change it with a new AC filter at 4000 instead. Been doing this a long time and never had a problem.

RUSS105

What about the old oil in the filter contaminating the clean oil? Doesn't it cause a problem? :confused:

SharkB4C4

Remove the old filter, dump the oil, put it back on. Shouldn't be a problem if the gasket was lubricated when the filter was new, and not over-tightened.