# Time to change oil?



## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

Dark means the oil is doing its job. I'd run your oil life monitor to 30% and change it then. I'm betting you're at about 50% on the OLM right now. 

The oil that comes out of my Cruze is a lot blacker than that. The analysis I did said 30% on the OLM was an indicator I should think about changing it. I change mine anywhere between 30% and 20%, erring on the side of caution.


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## coinneach (Apr 10, 2012)

Color means almost nothing as far as being an indicator of time to change. Just watch the OLM.


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## MIPS64 (Sep 10, 2012)

Okay, thanks. I have 62% left on the OLM.


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## blk88verde (Apr 30, 2011)

Mobil 1 should be good for at least 7500 miles or more in our cars depending on how the car is driven. I had a 2002 Mercedes C230K 6M and Mobil 1 was the factory fill. Mercedes oil change interval was 10k miles and this was on a supercharged car.


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## jsusanka (Jan 31, 2011)

what is killer on daily driven cars is short trips where the engine doesn't get to operating temperature and there is fuel in the cylinder that doesn't get burned up. cars run rich before getting warmed up so they use more fuel then. 

synthetics are suppose to be better at separating that fuel out so it doesn't cause damage. 
if you run you car to operating temp every time you run it just follow the OLM down to 20 to 30% with mobil 1 and you should be golden.

what else kills them is cold weather startups but synthetics are suppose to be better at that too. 

color of oil means nothing especially with synthetics.


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## NYCruze2012 (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm running Mobil 1 full synthetic and the OLM says I am at 40%. I won't go below 30% regardless of mileage. What happened to the days before we all had our OLM's and we changed our oils at 3k for conventional and 7k for synthetic? I mean when did we become dependant on the DIC's?

Hoping me and my Cruze are still here to read the posts barring any engine fires!


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## sciphi (Aug 26, 2011)

blk88verde said:


> Mobil 1 should be good for at least 7500 miles or more in our cars depending on how the car is driven. I had a 2002 Mercedes C230K 6M and Mobil 1 was the factory fill. Mercedes oil change interval was 10k miles and this was on a supercharged car.


The only way I'd run even M1 5w-30 past 7500 miles in a 1.4T is if the OLM was still at 30% at 7500 miles. The oil analyses I've done on my car on other dexos1 5w-30 synthetics and the ones I've seen of M1 say that 7500-8500 miles is the time to change the oil.


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