Throwing away barely used oil.

You raise an interesting issue, but I still lean toward putting in fresh fluids rather than reusing stuff that comes out of the crankcase. First, I suspect that when you drain the fluids, they will not come out pristine clean. They will not look nice and clear like they do out of the container. So the worst that you are doing is removing the contaminants that the oil picked up and putting in some nice clean stuff. And the problem with that is...????

If saving some money isn't the issue, why not just use fresh fluids? You will dispose of it properly at a recycling facility, so it's not like you are dumping it on the ground or into a sewer or a landfill. Whenever I have had to drain the crankcase or tranny or differential on a car, for any reason, I always go back with new fluids. I just don't want to run the risk that in draining and collecting the fluids I picked up some debris that will damage the engine. And this way, I know I'm starting with clean fluid and can more easily track when the next change is due.

Just my $.02. YMMV.

 

The trick is to try and balance it out with thoroughly used fluids in you daily driver. It's a bummer, but that is the price we pay.

 

You probably do a lot of other things that are environmentally responsible so your balance sheet is looking pretty good.

Get rid of it.

 

I do a reuse approach.

Gear oil is used for my chainsaw as bar oil. Works well.
Slightly used motor oil goes into the mower and snowblower. I would like to make a garage heater that runs on used oil, but the plans I have found are not very good and would be a real danger for house fires (IMO). So, any left over goes to the recycle center.

 

At'a boy! And look at it this way -- you are preserving a piece of automotive history. Now, doesn't that make you feel better??!!

 

I never needed to toss out used oil. I would drain the oil every 3000 miles from my Corvette and then use it in my '64 Chevelle. It then either leaked it or burned it. The good old days.

 

i pour mine along the fenceline. it keeps the weeds down and helps preserve the fence.

 

When I change the oil in my Ferrari's I save it and use it in my 1 ton garbage hauler. I'm not throwing out oil with a few hundred miles on it. Coolant goes into my truck also or into my Jag. Gear oil to the dump. And yes I've hugged a tree or two in my time.

 

In college I had an early '70s Pinto-it burned a sump full of oil at about the same pace it burned a tank of gas. I did some vehicle maintenance for friends for fun and profit and I always saved the used oil and burned it in the Pinto.

That thing was a sweet, ride, a very clean original baby blue on dark blue interior. I bought it from a fellow student who was here from China, it was his first car and driving experience and he promptly crashed it breaking the grill and mashing left fender and hood. He was then afraid to drive : ) I bought a grill, a yellow fender and a green hood from a local wreaking yard and bolted them all on. A few weeks later I had a date and I looked at how bad my already embarrassing Pinto looked and decided to fix it up a little more. A trip to the local Scherba's auto parts store yielded a couple cans of nearly matching blue, some primer and sandpaper. An hour later and it looked pretty good in the dark : )

Later I sold the thing to a buddy for $500, all he wanted to know was would it get him to work assignment for a 2 weeks? I told him I thought it would last. He ended up driving it for a few months till the motor let go and he left it by the side of the road : ) It was a great car.

Transpo for a year plus and saved me from having to recycle or dump any oil : )

 

Here in Chicago, I give it to a buddy of mine who has an oil heater for his shop. I am told that the jiffy lube places sell it to the small shops that have oil furnaces.
I don't know if there are shops near you that do the same thing but it might make your inner tree hugger feel better.

 

to be honest, I do think you are brainwashed. But not by tree huggin' pansies but by some guys over here telling you that it is a must to change your oil already after a few hundred miles and half a year.

At the end of the day Ferrari engines are .......... just engines. A bit more spiced but nevertheless, engines.
Any engine that requires an oilchange after the service you described should be dumped.


Not entended to cross anyone, just my 2ct

 

I did this 20 years ago, and fortunately for me that the car I poured the used oil into wasn't one I valued much as it quickly showed rapid engine wear. It may have been coincidence, but I've never done it again and will never do it again.

 

No one should kid themselves that oil is ever "recycled", the great majority of it is filtered, then sold to school districts and such to be burned in furnaces.

 

I know this has been covered since the first post, but I think you totally missed his original point. It wasn't the cost, or what to do with old oil, I think he was questioning the wastefulness of changing oil so soon when he probably didn't need to???

... which means it is being 'recycled', for other uses.

 

+1

 

And it contributes to contaminating the soil, tainting the water I drink.

Some people just don't care!

 

About 10 years ago the "experts", mostly classic car service people who benefitted from it, said that oil should be changed every 6 months even if the car is not driven. This applied even to synthetic oil.

I did that a few times (with dino oil) but found that the oil coming out was visually indistiguishable from the oil I was putting in, so I stopped doing it. When I changed to synthetic oil I sent some for analysis after 1 year and it confimed that it was like new.

One has to use some common sense with these things, I think. If you live in a humid environment or the oil is subjected to freezing temperatures it might be different, but personally I can't imagine how synthetic oil could be used up in less than 500 miles in a dry climate.

 

Hi Jim, Synthetic oil is terrific. BMW now suggests using it for up to 15,000 miles depending on the exact application. My recommendation with the light useage you suggest is change it every two years. Ferrari recommends every year but of course they have to plan for the worst conditions. Synthetic oil just sitting doesn't go bad. It could accumulate some moisture if it sits but running the engine to normal operating temperature takes care of that. I suggest you drive it at least once a month and of course a Battery Tender Plus keeps the battery happy.

I have Ferrari's, Motorcycles and a Porsche race car. Never had an oil related problem with any of them. Company vans, mostly Toyota but not all, go over 250K miles with oil changes at 10,000 mile changes because I can't keep track of 15K interval very easily with locations all over California, so at every 10K we change with synthetic.

When I raced Toyota Atlantic cars years ago we had some problems with the cam buckets with the edges chipping from 9000 rpm hits. Synthetic was just emerging as readily available. We switched to synthetic. Probably Pennzoil at the time. They were a sponsor. And problem solved. I have been a synthetic oil fan ever since. In my opinion most synthetic oil gets changed too often. I agree with you, some of it is just common sense.

PS: Ford Duallie 1991 with 180K of towing miles is still going strong. 10K mile oil changes there too.

Joe

 

not totally related, but when i was vintage racing my t35b bugatti i changed the engine oil after two practice sessions and after the race...the gearbox and rear axle was changed after the race weekend...as the blower was total loss i just topped off the tank. i thought that any damage to the engine could buy a lot of oil. [last i checked a new roller crank was about $30k us..don't know now with the current exchange rate.] i just figured it couldn't hurt...and on the other end i just added oil to my t ford racer as it leaked/burned/drooled/spewed out.......[btw. the bug wasn't all that oiltight either and had no dipstick or way to determine oil level other than to drain and refill the correct amount.]

 

If you feel the oil is still good, put it back in. What's stopping you from doing that?

Is it wasteful? Meh.....it's just oil. No one has ever made me feel like I was destroying the earth because I drive a Ferrari or change oil. The oil change interval has never come up in conversation.

 

That's what I do-- every 2 years oil change, drive it to full temp at least once a month, and Battery Maintainer for the battery
I still do yearly brake fluid changes, however, no matter what the miles because it actively absorbs water from the atmosphere.

How often do you think synthetic Red Line transaxle fluid should be changed?

Jim