Ever notice this: A person in a small car, typically around 6 or 8 years old (car not person), usually dirty (car not person), often of the female persuasion (person not car), often an import (car not person) but could be a Dodge Neon or Insipid, with a nice trail of smoke coming from the tailpipe. I see this and I think to myself: "I bet they have not changed the oil in that car in 2 years, maybe never". Which brings me to my theoretical question. Say you buy a car Brand New. Say its a small car like a Corolla or a Sentra. Say the car uses virtually no oil (not that you are allowed to check it) in the first 5000 miles (this seems to be typical of every car I ever bought although I've had a new BMW motorcycle that drank oil.....). HOW MANY MILES DO YOU THINK YOU COULD GO BEFORE THE CAR ENGINE SEIZED from either lack of oil or diluted dirty oil. I bet you could drive the car about 50,000 miles. BTW, I bet a lot of leased cars are treated just like that!
Well that's kinda silly, since many cars have a 15,000 mile change interval in the manual these days. Even Porsche specifies something like 12k or 15k between changes. I'd bet many smaller, not so high performance cars would do 100k miles on the original oil before any obvious problems cropped up.
Moms' co-worker did this to an SUV. I think it may have taken the whole lease, but 6 months before the car was due... the engine ate itself. I believe they had to cover the cost of the engine.
I find it so interesting that people just don't seem to think cars need regular maintanence...like oil. About 2 years ago we started a new business and this business requires a couple of vans that our employees drive and our managers are supposed to be on top of maintanence..... yeah right! They seem to have no clue that oil needs to be changed regularly or even checked. For most people, they get in their car, drive until theres a problem and then pay the bill...I just don't get it. This site is full of car people, so it's hard to imagine what the average person thinks/does with their cars.
My sis did that with her Dodge Colt. Not sure how many miles though......engine dead, they checked for oil. Nada, she felt pretty bad.
My buddy does that to his leased cars. He's around 40k on his Accent, never changed the oil. He "can't find the time" to do it. Lazy *uck.
I was the sales manager at a Toyota dealership in the early 90's. We sold a Corolla GTS to an ambulance chaser attorney for his girlfriend. She brought it back 35K miles later with the engine completely shot. Never checked or changed the oil. If I remember correctly, it cost $4000 or so to replace the engine.
Yea, our Chrysler Intrepid burns oil. Were going to take it off the road here..it was a piece of junk car to begin with.
I say 60,000 miles, if it's a brand new honda, toyota, or nissan. To further complicate the hypothetical, can things like air and fuel filters be replaced? Isn't that how most of the dirt gets in the engine oil anyway, throught the air and fuel intake? I assume we're talking zero maintainance, so no popping the hood at all.
At that point, isn't it too late? I remember a buddy whose S-10 had 160,000 total engine miles, he went like 30k without changing the oil, it pulled a boat and ran strong, but as soon as he changed the oil it ran like **** and went way down on power.
My college roommate had a VW Beetle with plenty of miles on it. One summer he decided to go cross-country (California to NY) with his brother in it. He intended to change the oil before the trip, as he couldn't remember when he had changed it last, but he never got around to it. He went and came back about a month later. A few weeks later he finally got around to changing the oil and I was helping him. We put a pan under the engine, unscrewed the drain plug and ... NOTHING CAME OUT! Then a drop or two appeared, we waited 15 more minutes and we finally got maybe a cup of sludge. That's all there was keeping that engine lubed from coast to coast!
I've seen this lately. I've noticed my straight six cars have a longer recomended oil change interval but they also hold 9 quarts of oil. I think that helps. The cars I've seen with the smoke have been 4 cyl.(i think). I'm guessing the higher revs and small oil capacity causes problems quickly if the oil isn't changed soon. Also with these 5 minute oil change places people use I don't think the engines are emptied properly. If there is any sludge or buildup it won't drain out in a couple of minutes. I was talking to my mechanic, he lets hot engines drain for 30-45 minutes to get everything out.
i had a beater volvo wagon, a nice brown 1976 240. it was used as a daily driver into LA for untold thousands of miles. one day i finally got around to checking under the hood, i have no real defense for not bothering earlier but i was working two jobs and going to school so time was short. anyway first looksy was the radiator....bone dry! the next was oil...also bone dry! but the thing ran fine! how long it was dry was beyond me, so i put in oil and water and kept on driving. i think the saving grace was that tractor 4cyl engine. man i miss that car. took a beating and kept on ticking. would turn on it's rear tire too, tight turning radius! $300 auction car, best money ever spent when broke!
Anywhere from 30-50K, but then the engine is done. I've seen one that had that treatment. It was not pretty inside. Exactly.
My father had an old Toyota Corolla he bought new. After he moved on to something else, that car was passed from my older brother, to me, to my sister. We all maintained it, except my sister. It had never needed a thing, except brake pads, wiper blades, and a muffler. It had the coolant flushed once, and the oil changed around every 10k miles. When she got it, the car had about 120k miles on it. She did NOTHING to the car. Absolutely nothing. In about 4 years of owning the car, no oil changes. That was about 50k miles. One day she was driving from CT to PA to visit her friends, and she called my dad when she had arrived in PA to say the car was making a "funny clanking noise" when she left, but she pressed on and just gave it more gas. It had thrown a rod and there was almost no oil in the engine. What was in there was burnt up sludge. I never actually forgave her for that. It was ultimate stupidity and she just didn't care - it wasn't her $$. Retardedly, my dad ended up putting a new engine in it that a local mechanic sold/installed for $800. It ran about 40k miles more before (surprise surprise) it made a "funny clanking noise" and my dad just donated it to the salvation army. I guess 50k is about right. On a side note, she is getting married next week. Her fiancee is not mechanically inclined and seems to suffer from the same maintenance phobia as she. His car was driven into the ground - overheated horribly (temp gauge off the chart) so he drove it the rest of the way from Maine to CT, where, at some point along the way, it suffered a cracked cylinder head. My sisters MX6 (that my father bought for her after the corolla) makes a horrible screeching noise from a loose PS belt that shes never had fixed. Nor has the oil been changed.
Worked for a Ford dealer had a guy who had a V6 Ranger pickup, came in with solid block of iron under hood, was screaming ranting etc with flashlight in hand one of the wrenches and i looked up under the truck and found, you guessed it, the filter that was put on at the factory.... 60,000 KM's (Canada) This guy threatened all kinds of stuff Warranty claim DENIED on the spot by me. Factory oil filter has small magnet to get any shavings during brake in we actually cut the thing in half to document for future law suit Popped the head it was SLUDGE from the top of the pistons down.
Knew a girl that bought a Hyundai Accent and ran it into the ground at 35k miles... never an oil change. On the opposite end of the spectrum. Dunno if you guys have heard of this but with modern engines getting more and more miles between oil changes a couple companies have come up with a way to clean oil while in the car using oil bypass. I think its for diesels only but my dad just installed it in his '05 Dodge 3500 Cummins Turbo diesel. Alot of big rig guys use them and its supposed to not only increase oil life but increase the engine life by as much as 100%. (Some big rig guys are putting a few million miles on the engine)
Not hijack my own thread, but I do buy the cheapest lawnmowers sold and I have never changed the oil in any of them, although I do check the level and top up about twice a year. They tend to last about 10 years.
My friend leased a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo in 1995 and he drove it 60,000+ miles before changing the oil (twice) the day before turning it in. IT was a real POS so I would think a Sentra could easily go that many miles without an oil change. BT
I once worked for someone who would buy a new car, drive it for three years with absolutely no maintenance, and then trade it in for another new one. In general he was a smart guy, just didnt care. To me it seemed wasteful, almost arrogant, to knowingly misuse a car for no better reason than its not important to you.
