[2001 ZTS]

boost til'bust,Oct 24 2004, 08:5 Wrote:your right, to each thier own, I stated what I thought(waiting until 10,000kms is stupid), and tried to inform people of your incorrect statements.

Quote:1. The black filthy oil would not be a sign of coolant entering the engine. It would have signs of a white milky residue the complete opposite of the black oil in which you stated.

I said if you have black filthy oil in 3mo/5000km there is something seriously wrong with your car. If someones car has black oil in such a short period of time the engine is in a very poor state of health. I also recomended frequent checking.

I suggested looking in the coolant for signs of oil. Looking for oil in water is easier than water in oil I did not mean that that black oil is a sign of coolant in engine. I did mean that if things are so wrong with a car that oil is filthy so quickly then lots of other things should be checked as well. I agree with your milky reside description.

Quote:2. obviously the oil will eventually become black, it is exactly what oil is supposed to do, suspend the dirt particles so that the filter can pick them up. so it doesnt neccessarily mean there is a problem...the only problem that would indicate is that you have left your oil change too long, because the filter cannot trap the particles anymore, and it is probably bypassing at that point.

I agree oil will eventually become black and with why it does however in our Focus's if you are getting black filthy oil in just 3mo/5000km there is something seriously wrong with the car, your fuel or both. These Focus's here are "new" cars no older than 4 years old we are talking about symptoms you may normally experience say 10+ years down the road. They shouldn't be experiencing this "black filth" at such a young age not to mention the tolerances of the moving parts is better than cars make last decade and the filters much improved as well they catch much finer particles these days.

Quote:3. by changing too often you are flushing away signs of oil starvation???? what the hell are you talking about???????? you change it so that you can continue to clean the engine internal parts so that your engine doesnt fill up with sludge!!!

For the record I agree you can never change your oil too often. Race cars get it done each race, we don't own race cars. There are practical limiitations.

By keeping my oil in my car for the "normal"/recomended period of time the oil may, in time, with frequent checking, indicate over heating due to lack of lubrication is occuring somewhere. It is not catostrophic yet but may be in future. It may take 6000km for that discolouration to show up, someone who changed at 5000km would never get the same indication that there was a problem until it was too late. The counter point of course will no doubt be that not changing often enough is the cause of the overheating in the first place but that is just one of many possible causes. for example the starvation may be occuring because of a lack of pressure somewhere for a reason other than sludge build up.

Again to each his own. Personally my interval varies, I did the first one "early" (<3000km) because it was a new engine, when I was mostly mixed city driving I did it every 4 or 5 months (only went 2000km so definately abnormal), I went every 10,000 km when I was all highway and lots of it and now I'm back to normal driving and will be 6mo/10,000 whatever comes first. What will come first is the 6 months and I'll have traveled about 7500km.

EDIT: All I'm saying is oil condition is a great tool. If I found, through frequent checking, black and filthy oil at anytime or km's I would change it immediately not wait 6mo/10,000km. At the same time I would also find out why it happened because it shouldn't be black and filthy in the first place.