Can someone tell me how often I should change oil im my RX 330.
Is it every 3000 miles or 3750 miles or 5000 miles.
I personally think changing oil every 3500 miles is reasonable.
Years ago it should to be every 3000 miles, but I gave extra 500 miles to go along.
If any of CL m embers has any idea, please give feed back. Thanks.

 

The "official" answer from the Owner's Manual is 7500 miles for normal service, or 5000 miles for extreme conditions.

My personal choice... when I was driving 600 miles a week (mostly highway), 7500 was adequate in my opinion. Now that I'm doing a lot less driving (about 100 a week, mostly city), I'm back down to 3000 -3500 mile intervals. I'm using Pennzoil 5W-30.

I look at the oil carefully every time it comes out... no issues with breakdown or even serious dirt when I was doing 7500. Highway driving is better for the car than city driving - a lot less start and stop, and longer trips ensure that that all of the engine parts come up to temperature and stay there to prevent things like carbon buildup. Now that I'm driving in much shorter trips, 7500 would be way too long.

 

...then if you wish, change it more frequently. I always change it at 3000 to 3666 (3x in 10k miles) with oil filter of course. To me this is a good way to treat your engine and keep wear down if you are are interested in insuring long engine life - several 100k miles. Even at 7500 miles btw changes the engine will provide long life. Use the correct oil.

One reason I like the shorter oil change period is that I get to inspect everything else at oil change time (I do it my self).

 

I agree with Ederny,

BTW I want to add one more point if your wondering about synthetic and extending these oil change intervals...

The manual clearly states, "the use of synthetic oil does not extend the oil change interval".


Cheers,

Fern

 

Considering this V6 has had a history of sludging, I'd be pretty careful on the oil change intervals. As long as you change the oil at decent intervals. ie.. QUALITY dino oil like Castrol GTX, use a good filter and don't wait any longer than about 4k, you should be fine.

Synthetics are a good thing. In theory, you should be able to extend the change intervals IF you use a quality synthetic like Amsoil, Mobil 1, Redline. But it's highly recommended that you get the oil analyzed by Blackstone labs to determine the condition of the oil and to make sure you are not using up the additive packages in the oil. Of course the cost of analysis is about the cost for an oil change with synthetic...