[Jake Neiffer]

I will echo that the 3K oil change is overkill. I had it changed in mine the other day, it had to have been 2 years plus since the last one. And the 50 mph, 50 miles thing for a donut is apparently a myth as well. I had this one on for a couple months.

car

[boot up]

[Jake Neiffer]

How many miles? Quite a few. This particular red car I bought 10 years ago- it had 86,000 at the time. Problem now is I have no idea how many it has. It tallies, but everytime I turn it off it resets back to 132,609. It started doing that a number of years ago, so I would guess it's easily got 250,000 now. I am usually a lit better on oil changes. Probably 6000 to 8000 miles on average. I had this same car up at the Irongate TH 5 years ago. I admit my wife and kids use a nicer vehicle. interesting on the donut tire test.

[Conrad]

[iron]

based on this thread, and many other sites i've read, i think i'll be going with the wix filter and 0w-20 mobile 1 synthetic. thanks for the feedback. hopefully changing the oil isn't too big a PITA, but it sounds like taking the skidplate off is not so enjoyable. wish the filter was on top, like my old camry...

[Dante]

I have over 130,000 miles on my VW Golf TDI (Diesel) with the factory specified 10,000 mile oil change intervals, Mobil Delvac 1 and OEM filter elements. There are lots of guys on www.tdiclub.com who have had oil analyses done at 10K and the analyses almost always indicate the oil is still good to go. I forget what the specified change interval for our Toyota Sienna is, but I think it's 5,000. IMO there is no reason to change the oil more frequently than the manufacturer's specification, and I wouldn't lose any sleep over going a little bit (say 20%) longer. Iron - Invest in one of these. I've got a steel skid plate on my Golf that is a pain to get off. When I first got the fluid extractor, I pulled the skid plate and drain plug anyway to see how much oil was left in the sump. There was none to speak of--a little dribble. It works for me, and is much easier than putting the car on ramps to unbolt and remove the skid plate.

[iron]

anyone use this? http://www.qwikvalve.com/ (^ stolen from bigsteve)

[Navy salad]

Speaking of poor service from "speedy lube" type places, I have normally used Grease Monkey to change my oil (because they at least used to have Castrol oil, which I heard good things about from a mechanic). I recently had a problem with my brake pedal alternately going down too far and then hardly going down at all. Took it to my mechanic, who determined that someone had added something to the brake fluid reservoir that WASN'T brake fluid and which damaged the cups/seals in the master cylinder. The whole master cylinder had to be replaced for a cost of about $800. Looking at the old cylinder, you could see where the seals were badly distorted, as if they had been partially melted (or at least softened). Grease Monkey is the only place who added fluid to it. So now I'm trying to figure out how to get GM to reimburse me for the cost of the repairs! [Any suggestions regarding how to approach them on this?} Also, another trick for getting stuck oil filters off (that I learned from the original Idiot's Guide to VW repair) is to poke a flat head screw driver through the very end of the filter and use that to lever it around.

[Ski]

good luck on getting reimbursed on that one - it's a "he said she said" deal. the old "screwdriver through the canister" works sometimes - see Bedivere's post above - although the chances of ripping the canister off the base flange (of the filter) are pretty good, in which case you have a flat piece of stamped steel stuck to the filter mounting pad (on the cylinder block) that usually has to be removed with a cold chisel and hammer. worst case scenario: a manifold has to be pulled to get at it, or (worse) the block removed from the engine compartment.

[Backpacker Joe]