I only drive 5000 miles a year.I use 0/20 synthetic oil.How much TIME can I let go by before I need to change my oil?

 

If you wanted to be conservative, once a year, but every two years (10,000 miles) would be fine.

 

I just did my oil change at a Lexus indy shop this week, and they put 5k mi or by May '15 (15 mo's)

 

Nospinzone: Where did you get that two year figure? It should be maximum of one year regardless of miles. Am I missing something? Over time, oil becomes contaminated by gases that blow by the pistons, and the longer the oil sits with that contamination, the more it degrades.

Also, I know of no oil filter that can be trusted to not come apart/disintegrate after one year.

 

I wouldn't argue with doing it sooner than two years if it made you comfortable, and certainly to meet warranty requirements, but if someone is only putting 5000 miles on per year, for the long term a lot of other stuff is going to give you trouble before the engine ever does.

In 20 years you will only have 100,000 miles on the engine. On a 2007 you wouldn't even be close to changing the plugs yet (sooner for some later models). Unless there was some malfunction, the transmission fluid would be fine.

If the engine/transmission is heavily used, e.g. towing trailers, hill climbing, or NYC only type driving, maybe you would want to change the oil yearly. Excepting exceptional hard use, 2 years/10,000 miles would be no problem.

 

I have 2007 LS. Dealer recommended 10,000 miles. Saw a post here that the 2007 rec was 5,000 miles for warranty. Called Lexus Customer Service and they said to maintain warranty 5,000 miles is the number. Newer model years have a 10,000 between changes. Wonder why the difference. Anyone know?

 

Well it's the lack of mileage that is the concern for not changing yearly, regardless of miles. The consensus among those at BITOG and other research articles I've read is that those driving low mileage yearly are also likely not going long distances and as a result, the oil does not get the opportunity to properly warm up and burn off contaminates and condensation from the engine, further degrading the oil at an accelerated rate.

If anyone has the inclination to go two years between changes, I highly recommend a Blackstone Labs sample analysis to be sure that the oils additives are still doing their thing and that no buildup of contaminates have infected their oil. I only pay 20 bucks for the service and highly recommend it. I usually use their services every second or third change. It's an excellent way to see what is going on with your engine and any potential issues with your engine (coolant traces, trace metals, fuel in the oil etc).

Because vehicle manufacturers are finally understanding that improvements in oil quality over the years has allowed extended intervals, especially with synthetics. Gone are the days of 3000 mile changes and for that matter 5k mile changes recently endorsed. BMW, AUDI, MERC etc have all extended their intervals to 15k miles.

Here's a good article to get you started:
http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop...-your-oil.html

 

Possibly because there is some LEGAL history associated with the 5k mile OCI. If, for example, a catastrophic engine failure warranty claim was ever denied denied due to owner's 9,500 mile OCI, it wouldn't be a great idea for Lexus to all-of-a-sudden accept a 10k OCI for that same model vehicle. It almost HAS to be something stupid like this because it makes NO sense from an engineering point of view as others have pointed out.

 

Hi All,
All my vehicles I change oil and filter at 6 months or 5,000 kilometres.

 

I wouldn't go longer than 1 year regardless of mileage.

 

I wouldn't go longer than a year.

 

Id go 10K or once a year in your case, these vehicles perform and run better with TLC, although I drive vehicles for work, rough duty, that go 25K between non-synthetic oil changes and they still run great

 

The cost of changing the oil once a year is almost insignificant for the peace of mind it provides!

 

I can remember when Mobile 1 synthetic oil first came out.
On the cardboard canister it said the oil was good for 25,000 miles.

The manufacturers got their panties in a twist and made Mobile take that claim off.
They did, but still think Mobile was right.

 

I went 15k miles on my Mobil 1 syn oil once and sent a sample to Blackstone Labs for analysis. The result? The additive pack was still like new and the recommendation was to go a further 5k miles on the next change. I never got a chance to try it as I traded the vehicle in.

Although true synthetics are almost impossible to find in North America, I believe Mobil 1 is the best of the oils we can get.