Changed the oil. Interesting observation.

@dblotii

Dave I believe you are totally correct but I have changed oil filters for many years on many cars, I have only once filled the oil in the filter on my Model A Ford. all of the other I never did.

so far I have never had an oil wear engine failure. (I guess I just jinx myself)

the Model A I did because I added an external oil filter and was advised to do so because of a oil quantity question.

just say in

I change my oil at a ridiculously short interval, never more than 3000 miles. I change it hot and start the car right up again.

Oil never lives in the car for more than 3 months.

Just sayin’ ... “a” mechanic not my mechanic (me).  Thanks for the information. I add oil to my horizontally mounted walk behind mower filter (I use a 1zz filter). With the diaper, it is so much more difficult than the mower. I didn’t try adding much more than maybe half due to possible mess. Nice to know the filter would hold more oil and it’s a good practice, I believe it was discussed in SC a couple years back. I wonder if there’s been any credible study done ...cold, warm, dry, filled, viscosity, and temp of oil being added (stored in garage vs near water heater - inside). 

Posted by: @dev

My car was sitting for roughly 6 months. I don’t put that many miles on my car so I generally change the oil every 2 years with high quality synthetic oil. This time I switched from German Castrol to Pennzoil ultra SRT oil.  Very good stuff. 

Anyway the rule of thumb that most people follow for decades is to change the oil after the engine is warmed up. Have it circulate to clean up any deposits to get it all out.

This time around I didn’t do it the traditional way and just drained it cold. The end result was I needed more oil to fill up the sump. It would appear that advise may have had some value from the conventional oil days but it’s not only not beneficial, you can get more oil out if you drain it cold if the car has been sitting a good while.  All of that residual oil eventually pools, to the pan the longer it sits.  Usually my car takes 4.2 quarts, this time it was a little more than half a quart more than I normally add.  

I have always done this (cold change) for that very reason (gravity works) + it is way easier and less messy. A cold non moving engine will not wear. Every start is where the majority of wear occurs. As you know there are so many wise tales regarding oil and changing it common sense and actually doing it is the key

i am on two of my oil also when I hit 10K I will change it. That’s what the oil analysis says I can do - that is what I do.

Posted by: @pwnzor

I change my oil at a ridiculously short interval, never more than 3000 miles. I change it hot and start the car right up again.

 

Oil never lives in the car for more than 3 months.

Depending on the quality of the oil you use this could be wise. A typical high quality A3/B3 synthetic will last many more miles, so you can. Limit opening up your system to the outside and enjoy the car more. A 3k change on Castrol edge euro formula for example will literally be pouring money down the drain pan

Posted by: @cspidy

@dblotii

Dave I believe you are totally correct but I have changed oil filters for many years on many cars, I have only once filled the oil in the filter on my Model A Ford. all of the other I never did.

so far I have never had an oil wear engine failure. (I guess I just jinx myself)

the Model A I did because I added an external oil filter and was advised to do so because of a oil quantity question.

just say in

I like to discuss this. 1) you just changed your oil - it’s clean full full of great additives. What it’s the danger of a not full filter how long does it last 12 seconds? I add a small bit of oil to ”wet” the filter material and to lube up the gasket for making a good seal with a hand tight installation. Filling the filter to the top shoes nothing IMO except making it more likely the filter will be slippery, harder to hold, install correctly, and more likely to ruin your favorite work T

Posted by: @t-bone

Posted by: @pwnzor

I change my oil at a ridiculously short interval, never more than 3000 miles. I change it hot and start the car right up again.

 

Oil never lives in the car for more than 3 months.

Depending on the quality of the oil you use this could be wise. A typical high quality A3/B3 synthetic will last many more miles, so you can. Limit opening up your system to the outside and enjoy the car more. A 3k change on Castrol edge euro formula for example will literally be pouring money down the drain pan

Royal Purple or Motul.

It's my money, and it's not what I consider expensive.

I'm not worried about opening up the system to the outside for the brief time it takes to change a fluid.

Manufactures of full synthetic turbine engine oil have begun to place shelf life dates on the can and then some engine manufactures have deleted the oil change interval on their turbine engines. I wonder what’s up with that?

I know I’m easily confused but it makes me scratch my head

@pwnzor actually if you are using high quality oil and changing it every 3K it stops being your money as soon as you loosen the drain nut; however with motal/royal purple you are doing the right thing

 The problem often is there is not enough good information out there just more advertising hype. Most of the good synthetic oils  with a few exception are overkill for our needs. Toyota engines are not hard on oil because they are designed well. It wasn't always the case as far as the disasters they had in the late 90s with cars that ran conventional oil that turned to sludge.

 There is an SAE paper that is backed up with thousands of UOA reports that shows early synthetic  oil changes can create more wear on the engine compared to regular interval oil changes or even extend. The difference is not huge but it goes against the conventional wisdom that early oil changes are beneficial. 

The additives in the oil can initially create that wear until it settles down to where the oil goes into its golden period of producing the least amount of wear.  Some people believe in using diesel oil because its fortified with a lot of anti wear additives but its not a good idea for this reason.  Some people believe in using racing oil which is also not a good idea because it lacks additives that are necessary for street use.  

 Im using the Pennzoil ultra SRT oil because I want a thin 40wt oil that has plenty of the newer Tri-nuclear moly that was co developed by Exxon and Shell. It is believed this newer proprietary additive is responsible for very low wear numbers particularly in Toyotas that use OEM Toyota oil. This is beneficial for my intake cam which is sensitive to wear.  I could use an oil with lots of zinc as a cushion but it can cause  more friction and it can shorten the life of my catalytic converter. 

 The main reason why I like this Shell product is its cleaning ability as it can act like a flush and clean out varnish build up especially in the passages of the VVT and the oil drain holes in the piston. This feature should be the primary consideration of any synthetic oil. Just like tires oil is also getting better to the point where it is overkill for vintage cars like ours. 

@t-bone The theoretical danger is that for a journal bearing, and all of the cam and lower-end bearings are journal bearings; oil is the life-blood of the bearings.  The bearings last almost forever when they have an oil supply because that is the way hydro-dynamic bearings work (google hydrodynamic bearings).  The engine bearings are designed to tolerate startups with dry oil filters, as long as you don't try to go to high load before the bearings get oil pressure.  Put another way, the bearings in your engine will last in-excess of 200,000 miles with normal maintenance (including dry oil filter changes), but at the end of the engine's life, most of the bearing wear will be from the dry starts.  Minimizing the time to fill the filter after an oil change is one reason why most cars use very small oil filters compared to a few decades ago.  Filling the oil filter is for the fussy among us.

Living in the rust belt 200k miles is unlikely on a daily driver unless you do some periodical sheet metal repairs.

on my Corolla that uses a quart about every 1000 miles I just add oil and change the filter when the oil is visibly dirty to the eye.

I turned over 200k last month and have done one major sheet metal repair. It’s almost ready for another.

@dev I’m curious why 0-40 vs 5-30. I’ve never like the 0 and 5 ratings. Prolly because I grew up with 20-50w for summer use so these zeros and fives see too watery.  That 0-40 is too wide range...  But science and understanding tell me otherwise. So I did a little research on the pre-fill. Mostly BobsTheOilGuy... some of those posts are into minutiae.

*The interesting points stated were that there is evidence that new oil in a bottle has contaminants. There was argument whether to shake the bottle before use. The additives may be what’s on the bottom of the bottle or it might be contaminant fines. There were Blackstone references, but I couldn’t access those, nor do I really care that much.  So your new oil might have contaminants that you can decant to keep out or by that decanting you are not putting in some of the valuable additives, you decide. I drain the oil from the container to the last drop. This to limit the amount oil going to the landfill in the empty container.

*If you pre-fill, pour oil in the inlet side of the filter, i.e. not the center. Center would add then unfiltered oil, see point 1 above...

*Filters themselves are efficient immediately but that efficiency drops off precipitously for some time...as in thousands of miles or possibly oil changes. My BS meter was all over the place with this one. So many variable in this model... The other odd commentary that was seemingly opposite this concern goes back to contaminants inherent in new oil: folks would change oil and filter using a cheaper filter then come back a few hundred or so miles and put in the good filter thereby having the filter not have the contaminants from the new oil. That’s funny.

Guys are pre-filling the filter, then covering the filter with Saran Wrap letting it sit over night, then pouring out excess un-absorbed oil back into the container. They can further this by finding some method to cut fuel pump for the initial cranking thereby allowing the motor to turn over with zero load and no fuel deposition that washes the cylinders. This seemed mostly prevalent for turbo cars due to turbo lubing.  That’s an interesting concern for aftermarket turbo folks.  In the end for many of us, taking the time to Saran wrap a prefill overnight then pouring off excess seems harmless.

Posted by: @ispy

@dev I’m curious why 0-40 vs 5-30. I’ve never like the 0 and 5 ratings. Prolly because I grew up with 20-50w for summer use so these zeros and fives see too watery.  That 0-40 is too wide range...  But science and understanding tell me otherwise. So I did a little research on the pre-fill. Mostly BobsTheOilGuy... some of those posts are into minutiae.

 

   Lets get the 0W out of the way first.  The first number does not indicate weight. W actually means winter and it is the flowability of the oil at colder temperatures being less viscus. People think any oil with 0 as a prefix is thin oil in general  but that is not the case at all after the car is up to temp. The best oils are 0W because they can reduce start up wear and therefore it is superior to a 5W or 10W. All Synthetic oils will eventually be 0W across the board for modern passenger cars as we see with the 0w-16 oils. 

As far as too wide of range it might have been true with conventional oil and older synthetic oil because the additives that make it multi viscosity were more prone to breaking down but that is not the case anymore because of chemistry. What is actually important is the Viscosity Index as being key when you compare one oil against each other and higher is usually better but that is only one of the many aspects of oil but an important one.   

 What has happened in the past with many of the 5w-30 oils is being a little too thin for some applications that run hot because the manufacture has to balance  out energy efficiency vs protection for how the car is going to be used and they favor energy efficiency because its incentivized. Some of these European manufactures need  slightly thicker oils and therefore the 0W-40 oils or thicker 0W-30 oils are available for us for performance use so we have a little more protection.  The Pennzoil SRT oil is more or less like a thick 30wt oil which is what I want because going too thick can cause fluid friction and drag which is what I don't want so I can optimize performance but going to a solid 40wt oil is what I would use for racing as that is what Lotus recommends as they are not concerned with energy efficiency and more or less from their tests determined that 40wt oil is best for the 2ZZ engine. 

In the end however all of these are just guess on what oils are best as it will need to be proved with oil analysis. I have seen the UOA for other cars using SRT oil and they look good just as the German Castrol but Im more in favor of the Pennzoil being the better oil for deposit removal which can improve the engine over time with spotless internals and a result better oil flow to critical parts.

 Whatever the case is its probably overkill. The best rational is to buy the best oil for the money always. 

Thanks.