2004 VW Jetta V6, Synthetic Oil Change Interval
by Kyndre
p.s. I like your site. Steve Says, Hi Kyndre! Thanks for your question. What you are dealing with is what is known as the 3,000 mile myth. The only people who should be changing their oil at 3,000 miles (synthetic or not) are people who drive in harsh conditions (very hot or cold weather all the time, dusty conditions, very short trips with no long ones, etc.). Most cars are not driven in these "extreme" conditions. Car manufacturers generally recommend that oil be changed every 5,000-7,500 miles. I recommend checking your owners manual to see how long they say your car should go and follow the recommendation. Some newer cars have a system that tells you when you need to change the oil based on computer calculations. Sometimes these vehicles can go 10,000 miles or more. There is some debate about how much longer you can go if you use pure synthetic. Some say you can go as much to twice as long, others say you cannot go longer at all. My recommendation would be to follow what the owners manual (or you can call a dealership and ask them) says whether you use synthetic or not. You can most likely go longer. The synthetic oil change interval would be shorter if I were using synthetic on my car. This is because it is better quality of oil. I don't use it simply because it is so much more expensive and there really is nothing that has been proven as far as whether you can drive twice as far on it than on conventional motor oil. If I could then I might think about using it. It also depends on how you drive. If you are hard on your motor or if you drive an expensive car with a high horsepower motor, then you would probably want to consider using synthetic motor oil more heavily. Most people are not driving super expensive cars so it is not as big of a deal. I hope this has helped! Click here to read or post comments. |
