I don't save a few bucks. I save quite a few bucks. But I'm not depending on receipts or some hocus pocus magic act to explain why I do what I do. I send my used oil to Blackstone for analysis. So I'm not guessing and I'm tailoring my OCI to my driving and usage patterns.

If Lexus ever even slightly imagined they could claim my issue was OCI related, I'd own a big piece of the company right after the court battle they would surely lose at the hands of their own experts.

Yes, I go 12k OCI with Mobil 1 5w-30 in my IS F. My results are posted in the Official Blackstone UOA thread in the IS F forum.

Most of the people following the factory's recommendation are wasting a lot of good oil for nothing and adding significant unnecessary overall expense to your ownership experience. BMW and Mercedes go MUCH longer with conventional oils because they're paying for the maintenance. Guess what? They know an awful lot about how their engines respond to 17k mile OCIs with conventional oils. Lexus corporate doesn't care how often you change your oil, but your dealership surely does.

 

you do realize BMW recommended 7.5k oil changes for a loooong time, then all of a sudden changed all their manuals to recommend 15k. guess what. that happened at the same time they introduced free maintenance up to 50k on their dime lol oil filter hasn't changed, same paper filter, oil recommended wasn't changed, yet their "recommended" oil changes has...
synthetic oil in ideal ideal conditions might make it to 15k but the filter is the weak part.
a lot of us on e46fanatics have changed our own valve cover gaskets, we've seen pix with horror sludge from people changing it at recommened 15k. owners that didn't understand short trips, and the importance of oil changes.

regarding Mercedes, when they introduced the 10k change interval, all they did is update the filter, "reinforced it" with a plastic string around it, so it doesn't fall apart, it's still same paper filter, same size.

one overlooked part for us that don't put a lot of miles on, is the time based intervals oil changes, for example every 6 months

 

Nope. Sounds like there's something wrong with your car, you might wanna get that looked at...


My previous car I ran 1/yr changes with Amsoil, it made about 2x the power the IS350 does, and I routinely dynoed it, ran it at the track, datalogged via OBD port, etc... no problems whatsoever. And the 2IS is significantly easier on oil than that car was.


Whereas rather than "thinking" about it I look at the actual scientific evidence from performance data, used oil analysis, etc... and know that you're completely wrong about that.



I'd rather suggest people do some research and testing and find out what is actually ok for their car, rather than just go by what they "think" is...

that thinking is costing you a ton of money if you're changing your oil every 3k miles and aren't driving a '53 Studebaker or something equally ancient.

 

Uh, that was has point

As soon as the car company was paying for oil changes they admitted that changing every 5-7.5k was unnecessary. (let alone every 3k!)



I do agree with your later point in that if you're doing a considerable amount of severe-duty driving (short trips where the motor doesn't get to run at operating temp, excessive idling, etc) you should change more often... but for "normal" condition driving it's just a waste of money to change synthetic more than annually.

But yes, by all means change the filter every 6 months if there's no synthetic media filter available for the car (which AFAIK there isn't for the 2IS). You can easily change the filter without changing the oil.

 

>>>Dealers today are savvy and will hold every little bit against you<<<

I got mine real cheap and my lexus dealer keeps reminding me that the issues i have r because i paid less than what they sell for. I m shocked at that behaviour. Wtf.

 

Glad I'm not the only person that feels this. I change my oil every 3k using mobil 1 syn. I like having that I just got my oil changed feeling in my car. I feel more power and the car runs so much smoother. My baby likes its oil changes @ 3k !!!!!

 

Wow every 3k? Do you take it to the dealer or do you change it yourself? Either way your dumping money down the drain due to yer OCI. 6.8qts of mobil 1 full synthetic isn't cheap. My cars oil is running on 10k and it's still purring just fine.

 

My car just loves it's oil change when the maintenance reminder comes on

 

everything is relative, mobil 1 synthetic 5w30 is SUPER CHEAP! have you seen the price on Royal Purple 5w40, Motul 007 VW/Audi spec? that's about $14 a quart, mobil 1 is like peanuts

 

what if i go 1 year without driving 5k, when should i change my oil?

 

The more power and smoother are both entirely in your imagination.

The only folks getting a real benefit from you changing your oil 3-5 times too often are the people who sell the oil.


Depends how you do the driving.

If you only even make really short trips where the motor doesn't get to run at operating temp for a while you should change it every 3 months regardless of miles driven, and might as well use the cheapest possible oil available.

If on the other hand you take longer trips, but do so very infrequently, then once/year should be fine.

As always the best way to be sure is used oil analysis, which unlike how you "think it feels" will actually tell you if the oil is being changed too often or not often enough.

But the pretty decent number of UOAs others have posted for the 2IS all support the general advice that for normal driving conditions changing every 3k, or even every 5k is way too often.

 

Performed it every 5k miles with factory filter and mobil1 5w-20 full synthetic.

 

IMO all this 3k, 5k or even under 1k talk about oil changes is all OCD on behalf of the driver. I'm sure your "intuition" and "imaginary" belief that the vehicle is running slugish isn't really the case. I'm sure a quick unplug of the battery will bring the car back to feeling "normal".

There's been enough documentation to prove that exteded OCI's are possible.

I have personally taken my car up to 10k on conventional oil, or so I'd be lead to believe. In all honesty though I don't know what kind of oil the dealer used when they did the valve cleaning for the carbon build-up issue. Point being I don't drive per say conservative, 10k later though after tons of traffic, idiling, short trips, and spirited driving when I do choose to drive conservative I tend to still get 35mpg. What's even more interesting is that all this has been achieved with PWR ECT on. I'll get to that little test later...

So if burning through your pockets for OCD on oil changes makes you happy then carry on. Other than that it's 2010 not 1967.

 

thanks for the all the feedbacks. much appreciated. i am loving this car!