I drive my car an average of 7 miles a day. I got my first oil change after my first year of ownership (the first free one). My car had only ~2500 miles then. Now I've had my car for a little over 2 years and my car has 5500 miles. I plan on getting an oil change every 5,000 miles, so my second oil change will be at 7500 miles. However, the dealer was telling me that I should get an oil change at least once a year, even though my car got it's last oil change 2,000 miles ago. I was told that the oil loses it's ability to hold microscopic particles after a while whether I drive the car or not. Is this true? Should I get an oil change now or should wait till 7,500 miles.

Please don't respond with comments like "Drive your car more!" etc. I drive it everyday, and everywhere I need to go is fairly close to me. I wish I could drive it more, but there's usually no reason for that.

Also, do you guys recommend I get my oil changed at a Toyota dealership for a 1/3 the cost the Lexus dealership charges?

 

every 6 months is the regular

 

every year if u use fully synthetic.

 

If you only drive 7 miles a day and you are using conventional (not synthetic) oil, you should be changing it quarterly.

When you start your engine it is full of air that heats up. When it heats, the humidity condenses on the sides of the engine block and runs down on top of the oil and sinks to the bottom of your oil pan. It dissolves organic acids that are by-products of combustion on the way down and mixes these acids into your oil where they are neutralized by a base compound in the oil. Remember from chemistry - and acid and a base combine to form salt (ester) + water. So, your oil loses its base compound as the organic acids combine with the oil and more water pools underneath your oil.

This is why an oil analysis can include TBN - total base number - to show you how much "life" was left in the oil to eliminate acids.

Another serious problem occurs when you don't get the oil up to a sufficient temperature to boil off the water sitting in the bottom of your oil pan. The water and oil also get thrashed about and emulsify in the oil pump which means the oil now contains water when it should not. Emulsification is really bad news, and reduces the oil's ability to do its job dramatically. Since you only drive 7 miles a day, your oil is never getting up to full temperature, so I would expect you have significant amounts of water in your oil. I'd bet your engine shows unusual wear patterns related to this as well.

Truly the best thing you could do is drive more, but since you have no need to drive more, you should be changing your oil far more frequently than you are. Mileage is only a rough guide. In your case, you should be changing based on time, not mileage, and it should be quarterly, not annually.

 

what about if OP is switching to synthetic oil, still changing it quarterly?

 

Not sure if it's conventional or synthetic in there right now. It has whatever the dealer would put in it by default. You say that driving 7 miles a day is not enough to warm it up, but it usually takes me about 20 minutes to cover those 7 miles, because I spend a lot of time in very slow moving Los Angeles traffic (~2 miles in city in very slow traffic and it warms up, and 5 miles on freeway usually fast moving). And my engine temp indicator always gets up to temperature during most of my drives, so I think the water would be burned off during my drives. And I do tend to drive it pretty agressively after it has been warmed up.

Also, should I do an oil analysis? Can I do it at the dealership and how much is it gonna cost?

 

blackstone does it for like $20, i think. look them up and they will send you a container to send a sample of oil.

 

Trust me, I give it a work out almost every time I drive it. Like I said earlier, it's about a slow 2 mile drive to the freeway which let's me warm it up smoothly and nicely. Once I'm on the freeway it's WOT and it's not slugish at all and as fast as the day I bought it. I drive it safely, but I do make use of the HP. After all, I got the 350 for a reason.

 

dealer is using dino oil unless u pay extra....

 

The engine temp indicator is for the water temp, the oil takes longer to get warm.

 

I sure hope you leased your vehicle

 

wow thats such a low mile car you keeping.. Damn I barely had my for 6 months and I got 10k miles already.. Yeah you should seriously do maintence every 6 months even tho you hardly drive.

 

Nope, bought it. Before I had this car, I had another Lexus (which I still have), and I drove it similarily for 6 years and had no major problems. Point is, these cars will last long and not driving them often doesn't mean it's bad for them. If anything, they will last even longer as long as their driven properly and regular maintenance is kept up.

 

Oil analysis FTW.

 

I might just do that. This is an interesting issue that's not often addressed in owner's manuals since those are written with the expectation that the car is driven an avg. of ~10k miles/year. But averages are misleading, since some people drive a lot and some people drive very little. Lamborghini and Ferrari owners have very low miles on their cars. I was just speaking with a Lambo owner and he told me that he drives it once a week and for 2-5 miles at a time. His car has less miles than mine (about 2500) but is 2 years older! And he too goes according to the scheduled maintenance and gave it it's first maintenance at around 2000 miles.