I just had my 500 mile oil change on my Z51 Stingray. I asked the oil change manager when I should have my next oil change performed. He recommended 3,000 miles and then again at 5,000 miles. I hadn’t heard that before. He also recommended to keep the rpm’s down below 4,000 rpm for the first 3,000 miles. I hadn’t heard that either. These were his recommendations that he said he would do if it was his car.

I have been keeping rpm ‘s low and was thinking I could start increasing them now that the redline on the car says 6500 rpm. But waiting till 3,000 miles? That could take me a while to reach that mileage.

I wanted to ask what other owners have done.

Thanks.

 

Sounds like another dumbass, ignorant dealer.....

(go by what the Owner's Manual says - which is pretty much after the first 500 miles, you're free to move around the tach )

 

Just follow your owner's manual, why do anything different.

 

Geez. READ your Owners Manual!

 

If that service manager wants to do that with his car, fine. No need to change the oil again at 3K and 5K miles unless the OLM indicates it is necessary. And don't worry about the RPMs now - just drive it as you want.

 

I am had a c6 for two years, then no corvette but on Saturday will have a C7. like others have said look at manual but I bet the manual reads...after 500 miles drive like you wish, and then 10,000 mile oil changes unless you or a year if you track.

 

Thanks for the replies. This guys advice was so different than the owners manual that it had me second guessing myself. I was thinking there was something I didn't know or missed in the manual.

So time to get out and enjoy it! Woohoo!

 

Hmm, can understand why the C7 now keeps track of time for you! Folks don't read the manual! It says clearly, change oil when the OLM says to change. That will occur in one year unless most trips are less than ~3 miles when it will say change earlier! Folks say it will also indicate to change at about 7500 miles.

SIDE BAR
My '93 Vette (before it had an OLM) stated:
Charge oil at 7500 miles OR ONE YEAR WHICHEVER OCCURS FIRST.

If most trips are under 4 miles change oil at 3500 miles OR 3 MONTHS WHICHEVER OCCURS FIRST.

The worse thing for the oil and engine is at a cold start there is lots of blowby until the pistons expand when they get hot. A product of combustion is water. That water combines with sulfur in oil and gas and forms sulfuric acid. The oil must get hot enough long enough to evaporate most of that water. Unless you put on over ~7000 miles in a year you are changing oil because of contamination from blowby NOT because it's warn out.

In '93 GM only had mileage and time to estimate when to change. Short trips are considered sever service. That is why the dealers would put on those old stickers that said change after 3500 miles. It's an old habit and a way to make money! Today the OLM monitors oil temp after cold starts and the time at temp. If most trips are short it will shorten the time to change to less than one year (if you drive less than 5000 miles/year!) Just change when it says.

PS: RPM limit. After I had my 500 miles I was careful to to sure the engine oil was up to full temp for 10+ minutes before I increased max rpm in steps over several days until I hit redline in about four days! The valve springs are the biggest issue and if there are any minor surface imperfections that stepped process MAY help avoid a future problem. Just waiting for time would not be as useful and his wait for 3000 miles is foolish IMO.

I have a 3/4 mile long road between two farm firleds near my house with no homes. The cotton and corn don't care how fast I go so often hit redline in 3rd!

 

Most people will probably think there isn't a big need to do that many oil changes early on, but at the same time it won't hurt either. Keep in mind that during the first few thousand miles there will be a lot more wear metals in the oil, so it really isn't a bad idea to flush that out of there. On the very first fill of oil there will be a lot of silicon in the oil too, from assembly lube, and some of that lingers around even after the first oil change (since you can never get 100% of the oil out at oil change time)

Even though I have a wet sump C7, I did my first oil change early, at 1100 miles. I'm glad I did, as my oil analysis report indicated I had 2% fuel in the oil, iron was at 48ppm and silicon was at 124ppm. I did the second oil change at 3100 miles, iron was down to 23ppm, fuel % settled down to less than 1%, but silicon was still high, at 56ppm. I did my third oil change in the fall of last year just before winter storage, and it had 8700 miles on it at the time. Silicon was still at 40ppm, it should be around 10-20 so it's still trending a bit higher.

I'm a big believer in following the OLM, but keep in mind that it's calibrated based on how GM expects the condition of the oil to track once the engine is fully broken in. During the early stages of an engine's life it's still better to do a few extra oil changes just to be on the safe side. It might be overkill, but the only thing it'll hurt is your wallet, so why not?

 

There is an oil life computer, it works well.

 

500 miles, drive it as you wish, and change it again when the oil life monitor tells you it's due. I had the rear diff serviced during the first oil change,out of an abundance of caution.