Guy at work, technician in the oil seal division, I was in gaskets, was immediately of interest to me when I first got to go to their test lab for some reason. I was Development Technician, Gaskets. The guy's name was Dan Danek! I couldn't believe it! My Mother's maiden name! I asked her, but no "Dan" rang a bell. It's a pretty unusual Czech name. I kinda became friends with Dan. He respected the stuff I had done, when he saw the radical fast car mods I built. Along the way, he revealed a curious personal belief: that necessity of changing engine oil was a conspiracy! He had a Pontiac with 100,000+ miles on it which he bought new: it's engine oil had NEVER BEEN CHANGED! He replaced the filter often, added oil as needed. So, being young and intensely interested in things automotive, especially those technical, I hunted around. The theorists claimed oil has spherical molecules which allow parts in motion relative to one-another (bearings, pistons, etc.) to slide over each other easily, if a film of those tiny rolling molecules were maintained between the parts. Dan had no education beyond high school, I believed. Yet he quoted the most grandeur physicists' claims that "oil never wears out". So, if it's kept reasonably clear of contaminants, why change it? Why, indeed. I watched Dee Atchley, our mechanic, remove the oil drain plug on the John Deere diesel tractor engine mounted on a Dynamometer in our lab, saw the almost molasses-like super-black crap hardly flow out, and thought to myself, that could not have been left in there much longer, without major disaster. But, diesel is another animal. I respected Dan a lot, but to this day I still change my engine oil religiously, though, maybe, needlessly. Do you? Frank
I have read of external oil filters that can collect and drain contaminants, but have no experience with them. I also change the oil as suggested.
Had a '75 Dodge Dart slant 6. Bought it in mid 80's. At first I didn't like it and figured I'd get rid of it first chance I got, if something else came along. Well, all I ever did was add oil, gas and one set of spark plugs. It never had an oil change in the 3+ years I drove it, and it always started and ran. It was still running when I bought a newer car. They told me those Dodge slant 6's were bullet proof. Wish I had another one now.
@Ike Willis The Chrysler slant six was undoubtedly one of the best 6-cylinder engines built up to that time. In the early 1960s, after Ford introduced their first "thin-wall" casting V-8, which proved highly successful, even winning the Indy 500 several times, Chrysler just had to take a crack at it. They took their already successful V-8, and basically made it a lighter-weight engine by thinning things out. My Dep't. was charged with developing head gaskets for their new 318. Chrysler insisted beaded-steel gaskets, the cheapest to produce of all. We changed the design parameters almost 20 times, each requiring re-tooling at huge expense. Victor Gasket WANTED that OEM account! At worst, the heads leaked water immediately after filling the engine. At best, they ran for only a very short time, unacceptably, before failing. Bickering between Chrysler Engineering and Victor finally resulted in Chrysler choosing to go with Victor's competitor, McCord, with Fel-Pro as a back-up, using the design Victor had originally recommended. The Victor family, which had originated the company in the 1920s, sold out lock, stock, and barrel, to Dana Corp. in 1966. I quit Dana in 1972, but returned in 1978, had 10 years vested service, and still get a nice retirement pension check monthly: $ 62. Sorry for getting off-topic. Frank
I read this thread, and then gave it a lot of thought. I was pretty sure that Bobby told me that oil used in deep fryers breaks down, whether put through a filter or not, and when I asked him, he verified that. He said that usually, the cooking oil used in deep fryers has to be changed fairly often simply because it is not thoroughly filtered, and is contaminated with bits of whatever food has been fried in it; but that the heat also breaks down the oil. That oil is sometimes collected and used in the process of making bio-diesel, but even then, it is just used as a fuel and not for automobile engine oil . We do not drive very far each year. It has been almost a year since I last had the old changed in my old stationwagon, which has close to 200,000 miles on the engine; but I have only driven it about 2,000 miles in that timeframe. Up until now, I have paid the extra money for the high-mileage oil when I had it changed, and that usually cost me about $60 when all is said and done. But, after considering that the car might do better with cheaper, but more frequent oil/filter changes, I decided that I would get the cheaper oil change instead. I took it down to Midas this morning, and just got their $20 special instead of the high mileage one. I can get at least two of those, and probably almost three, and not pay much more than I pay for one of the expensive ones, and then I will have fresh oil, and a clean filter a lot more often. When it gets down to a quart low, I put a quart of Lucas oil treatment in there anyway; so that should protect the engine as well as using the high-mileage oil does. The car does not go through a lot of oil; but something has been leaking that makes the car smoke under the hood, or out the sides, and we can see and smell it when we have the engine on and are stopped at a red light, or when I get home and park in the driveway. The tech at Midas said he thinks that it might be the power steering that is leaking, but they could not be sure. Bobby is going to look at it and see if maybe it just needs something tightened up, and if not, then we can look on Amazon Garage to see how much a new one would cost.
When I drove a taxi, the cab company owner preached frequent oil changes. He said he'd much rather buy oil than motors.
Frank: I had a friend back some 50 years ago was telling me the same thing he would change the filter every thousand miles and add the 1 quart for what was lost. The oil in his car was like new all the time so I could see what that person told you were truthful.
Back when people changed their own oil, the drain oil is what we used to "pave" our otherwise gravel driveway. After years of dumping and spreading drain oil on gravel, it forms a pavement-like surface. Very effective but probably illegal today.
Had an old Chevy that left oil spots on the pavement wherever I parked. One day I had to take my old auntie someplace. When she saw the oil spot in front of her house, she asked me to park in the weeds at the end of the street. She had the last house on a dead end, so it was nearby. I didn't dare drive up or park on her driveway. She sprinkled sand over the oil spot to cover it up so no one would see it.
With only my first several cars as a comparison, I used to think it was normal for a car to go through a quart of oil a month. Then, I also thought it was normal to pay only $30 for a car and to change tires every couple of days.
@Ken Anderson What was thought to be waste oil, but contained a high percentage of Dioxin, I think it was, was dumped by a contractor on all the gravel streets in the town of Times Beach, Missouri. The contractor had obtained the oil from a chemical plant, having no clue what it contained. Eventually, as people and animals began presenting with extremely serious health issues, EPA declared Times Beach, which had been a very popular resort area as it sided the Meramec River which meanders through central MO, a Federal Disaster Area, and efforts were aimed at removing all residents, razing all properties, and removing and incinerating the top foot of soil from the entire town area; 265,000 tons were burned. Of course, the really big cover-up involved the run-off of precipitation from Times Beach proper, into the Meramec River, and thence to the Mississippi, causing contamination along the way. It remains one of the worst incidents of Environmental Destruction in the U.S. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
I remember that news story. We had a lot of gravel roads when I was growing up, and I believe the county spread drain oil on these roads in order to keep down the dust and to harden the surface.