2016 Lexus IS200t, 33,500 miles. I've seen lots of threads asking when to change oil and not many showing oil being tested, well here you go. For most people I can't see the Lexus recommended 10k OCI being a problem. This is about 10 months of daily use. Oil was whatever my local Lexus dealer put in. I'll have another oil test with Kirkland 0W-20 Synthetic at some point this year.

 

This is good to see. What kinds of activities do you typically do while driving?

For instance, I'd say for me it's 50% casual/around-town driving, 30% highway, 20% spirited/back roads.

It's hard to compare these things definitively, but the oil analysis will likely vary from someone who babies the car versus someone who drives only short trips versus someone who drives it in a sporting fashion regularly.

 

It's my wife's daily, I'd say about 50/50 street/highway driving. Some stoplight pulls here and there but nothing too crazy, I'd say it has a relatively easy life.

 

Crazy how people were so bent on changing oil at 5k miles in a car proven to go to 200k+ miles. Thanks for sharing this.

Am I reading this correctly though? He said send the oil in at 11k miles?

 

Yeah I think people overreact to oil changes over 5k miles but all you can do is show them there's no problem with it.

Yeah, they usually let you know if they think it's safe to increase the mileage you run on oil and this fit the bill. I plan to stick to 9k-10k though.

 

How did you go about sending this info? And how much was it? I want to do this at 10k miles for my next oil change, I changed it at 7-8k this time which is significantly earlier than my 10k change

 

Go to Blackstone's site and request a sample kit, they'll send you it in the mail for free. Then you pay $30 for them to test it, $10 more if you want a TBN test which gives a little more information about if your oil can be used longer.
https://www.blackstone-labs.com/

 

it's 10k miles or every 12 months, correct? i rarely drive 10k miles in a year, but i'm not sure what the recommended time interval is regardless of mileage - 8 months? 10 months? 12 months? i know i could get away with 12 months, but for longevity is sitting oil okay for that long?

 

Yep Lexus recommends 10k or 12 months, whichever is first. It's a big debate about how long you can leave in oil (just like mileage to run oil is a big debate) but Blackstone has said age isn't a big deal/don't worry about it, and I haven't seen anything that's made me think differently.

 

Interesting. I will say my 350 V6 was feeling a little sluggish as it got close to 10k. Oil change and air filter change and it feels great again. Modern engines respond really well to basic services. I plan to do oil changes around 9k from now on.

 

I agree with this, this is why I changed it a bit earlier this time

 

Second oil analysis on my wife's IS200t, this time with Kirkland Synthetic 0W-20 and Fram Tough Guard filter, in use for 10 months. The analysis seems to prove what I had thought; no issue with going close to 10k miles for oil changes and no worse wear using cheap synthetic with a Fram filter. I'll likely stick to around 9k OCI for peace of mind due to flashpoint and fuel dilution but I'm very happy with the results.

 

This information is helpful - thank you for sharing! I've always been debating about when to do oil changes and there's a lot of conflicting responses all over.

I think the bulk of the stories/discussions you hear are around not changing oil after the recommended OCI in terms of mileage, but rarely is there much attention on the time factor. My IS is a weekend driver (really a garage queen for me lol), so it doesn't see that many miles annually. I recall seeing an episode on YouTube by Project Farm that did oil analysis for a car that hadn't had an oil change for a year or so and everything was still fine (oil was still good for longer).

Particularly with full synthetic oil, I think it can sit and not cause harm to your car but as with everything, it does need to be changed out at some point. The OCI in terms of timeframe from the manufacturer is specified in the case of what they call "severe conditions," where you only take a few short and quick trips (like to and from the grocery store). The short trips don't allow the oil to warm up enough to operating temperature to work efficiently and you'd inadvertently be adding more wear/stress on the engine than a daily driver that sees a lot of miles.

So with a weekend car like mine, it's always good to still take it out for a spin every now and then to charge the battery, get the fluids moving, get the oil to lubricate things, etc. I personally wouldn't let oil sit in the car if it were to be not used in a long long time (like many months). But each time I do take the car out, I ensure that I drive long enough to get the oil at operating temperature - meaning, I'd drive highway speeds for at least 15-30 min to burn off any moisture or condensation in the engine when the car was sitting.

 

Not an IS or even a Lexus for that matter, but have you seen this?


tl;dr, customer changes their oil according to the minimum necessary to maintain their warranty on their Camry, and it ends up having oil consumption issues after 120k miles. It makes me worry about these longer oil change intervals.

 

Yeah - even though the marketing says oil is good up to 10K, I would never go that long... 6.5 or 7K would be max for me.