changing oil at 1000 mi?

[theNEOone]

just saw this in another thread, but there was no explanation. only that he read it over at m6tech. can anyone tell me the purpose of changing the oil at 1000mi?


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[Hoosteen]

Well, in layman's terms... there are 2 reasons why you should change the oil so early.

1) when the car is built and shipped the lot, the oil may still contain small metal shavings in it... thus it would be wise to change the oil early... although there is still some debate as to whether this is true.

2) unless you special ordered your car, you probably do not know how long your car has been sitting on the lot. So, you could actually have a car that has been sitting for months, unused on the lot. Thus, an early oil change could be considered beneficial.


Sidenote: There is also some debate as to whether the factory oil has additives in it that help in "breaking in the engine." I know for a fact that honda has that policy and claims that you should wait 8,000-10,000 miles before the first oil change. Although that seems quite long IMO, I have talked to HONDA representatives and they stand by it.

[crossbow]

Few notes...

1) Mazda doesn't use any special break-in oil. The oil used is standard 5w-20 Semi-Syn Motorcraft. (Thats right, factory fill is semi-synthetic, so obviously, that also means synthetic is fine...no matter what you read).

2) During the inital break-in of an engine (First 20-50 miles, mazda's breakin timing is 600 miles) alot of wear metals are produced. This is primarily from the rings seating in the iron cylinder sleeves, various bearings seating in properly..etc etc. A very large portion of these metals are too small to be caught by the filter medium (sub 20 microns in size) and are instead suspended in the actual oil itself.

This of course means you've got a whole slew of metal particles flying around your engine...which causes cascading inital wear...causing more engine wear. This effect is so pronouced, that at oil change at just 1000 miles (on the odometer) can have more wear metals suspended in the oil then 30x normal!

Here's some quick examples (Thanks to Colin for this UOA).

This is the amount of wear metals in the oil at 1000 miles. Note iron, copper, and silicon.

Now here's another UOA (Thanks Paul) with 7,000 miles on the oil, but with almost 30,000 miles on the odometer.

Note the massive difference between the amount of metal in this oil sample (even with 7,100 miles on the oil) vs the inital factory fill with just 1000 miles on the sample.

Confused? Here's a nifty quick photoshop showing the two side by side.


Using my crappy math...in the first 1000 miles...thats 12x more iron wear, 100x more copper wear, and 26x more silicon then a normal (even extended) oil change interval on an aged (broken in) engine.

Basically changing the oil early gets these wear metals out. Do you have to do it? No, not really. But its fun to care more about your car and engine, and this also gives an early excuse for bonding with the car, and ensures maximum longevity out of the rings and bearings in your engine (baring any manufacturer defects).

[Indy MPS6]

Nice, Greg! This is now stick-ified!

[theNEOone]

Originally posted by davecoyne@Aug 13 2004, 12:07 PM
Nice, Greg!* This is now stick-ified!

[snapback]291636[/snapback]

yah man, very informative! i just hit 1000 mi today. i'll be changing the oil tomorrow. w00t.

any suggestions as to what kind of oil to use??? cost is of no consequence

j/k


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[Indy MPS6]

I use Mobil 1 0w20 synthetic and a K&N HP-2010 oil filter. One of the best combos out there IMHO.

[pisadong]

While it may be "safe" to use a syn at 1000 miles, I held off till 7500 to switch over to synthetic. I was getting some oil consumption up till around 5000 miles, which indicates that the rings had not fully seated yet. Going to syn before the rings are seated will make that process more lengthy and perhaps even prevent it from happening properly. Some will dismiss this as an old wives tale, and it very well might be, but there is nothing wrong with erreing to the side of caution and waiting a bit to go from conventional oil to synthetic. Opinions aside, the above UOA with 7000 miles was from my car and the insoluables were incredibly low. This is indicative of an excellent ring seal and complete combustion, as well as very good oil filtration. BTW, I was using an OE spec Motorcraft FL-820S which cost all of about $3, so no need to spend the money on the fancy name oil filters.

I broke it in as per the manual, with light throttle and tried to vary engine and road speeds for the first 1000 miles. Changed the oil at 1000 miles with Motorcraft 5w20 and redlined it after a quick warm up . Changed again at 3500 miles with the same and went to German Castrol Syntec 0w30 at 7500 miles. I chose a heavier oil because of my climate (average around 95-100*F during the summer months) and have had good success with it. Some have tried this oil and have noted that the engine felt a little tighter and less willing to rev. My butt dyno hasn't registered any such ill effects, so I'm going to stick with it... that and I have about 25 more qts. of the stuff in the garage

[EMcNeice]

I agree with going with a stock filter. Big name filters such as Mobil 1 and K&N tend to cause more of a restriction.. I used to use Mobil 1 filters on my 87 Grand National until testing showed that they were WORSE than say a regualr AC delco filter. I use Bosch or Wix filters now. On my 6S, i changed the oil at 705 miles w/ 5w-20 Valvoline, and have been driving it fairly hard. Brought it up to the redline a couple times but no prolonged high rpms.

[pisadong]

Actually, both the M1 and K&N filters flow better than stock, but filter marginally less well. They are all fine filters, it's just that brand M and brand K do not perform much of any better, but cost about 3 times more. It's your money, spend it how you want. Just don't think that just because you spent more of your hard earned that you are getting a product that is doing a better job than the stock filter. Oh, the WIX filter is also an excellent product, also sold under the Napa name as well as another that slips my mind right now. A couple bucks more than the Motorcraft filter, and a far better value than M1 and K&N.

[crossbow]

Adding more information...

On the 6s, the supersized variant of the FL-820S is the FL-1A, which is a longer version of the same filter.

Here's a thread going over the benefits of a larger oil filter.
http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultima...ic;f=6;t=001752

Of course the X-ref for that filter in the K&N is HP-3001. G-cubed is test fitting the FL-1A this coming weekend, but were pretty sure it'll fit.

As for the aftermarket filters...the stock FL-820S is a pretty high quality piece, as is the FL-1A...however neither compare to the quality (or high cost) of the K&N or Mobil1.

Between those two filters, the Mobil1 has better filtration ability, while the K&N oil filter is one of the highest flow filters on the market. There is always a big argument over which is better, filtration or flow. In an engine which gets its power high in the rev range, flow is generally more important, which is why I'm sticking with the K&N's.

As for oil, I'm running 5w-20 motorcraft for around 3600 miles, then switching to 0w-20 mobil1, then possibly redline 5w-20 (doing a UOA) at a later date.

I agree with paul on holding off for a bit on synthetic...if not because of the reasons mentioned by paul, then for cost. Because of these extra wear metals early in a car life, its generally recommended to avoid extended intervals...thus changing the oil more frequently for the first 5-10k miles results in a heavy cost if your using syn....

But with motorcraft 5w-20 @ 1.44 qt, its not expensive at all to do 3k intervals for the first 10k miles.