[SuperSnake1972]

I only drive my camaro ss 500 miles a year and to keep the oil cleaner longer I put an oil catch can on it. QUESTION: Is it ok to change the oil every 2 years at 1000 miles ?

[bishopts]

Big argument has always been "does oil go bad from sitting?" I would think if it did then it would have a expiration date on the shelf at the parts store. Another thing to consider is it is in a decently sealed system but it's not totally sealed. So how much moisture will the oil take in from sitting?. Usually running the engine to operating temp will boil out moisture, but moisture in oil can also produce sludge buildup.
It will be a very opinionated topic and most everyone will be right and wrong. For example you could say water in oil is pretty much catastrophic and i can say its negligible in small amounts.
I put about 2500 miles on my car a year and change my oil every 3000. I think oil sitting isn't near as bad as not getting to operating temperature and turning it off. But that's my opinion.

[SS_Don]

I put about 3,000 miles a year on the car. It doesn't get driven in the winter. I change it once a year when I put it back on the road in the spring.

[Mark R]

Originally Posted by SuperSnake1972

I only drive my camaro ss 500 miles a year and to keep the oil cleaner longer I put an oil catch can on it. QUESTION: Is it ok to change the oil every 2 years at 1000 miles ?

Yes. No problem.

[Capricio]

Yes, one can argue that some nominal amount of water condenses in your crankcase every time the temperature outside crosses the dew point.

It's also true that water steams out your crankcase every time your engine comes up to full temperature.

During COVID, I barely drove my cars. My 2017 HD2500 (gas) in particular, the OCI countdown relies strictly on usage data, not time. I left the same Dexos rated 5w30 in it for over two years, with no perceivable ill effects.

I'm more inclined to change a DI engine's oil more regularly, my non-scientific fear of fuel dilution degrading oil at rest kicks in, and i'm still within my warranty period, so I change my sparesly driven Camaro just inside the 12 month interval according to the OCI ticker.

[jericho_17]

Oil change is cheap, why not do it once a year, it wouldnt actually hurt your wallet

[NYTMARE23]

Originally Posted by jericho_17

Oil change is cheap, why not do it once a year, it wouldnt actually hurt your wallet

This!!! . I took mine out last week for the yearly spring oil change and the tech said, "damn, this might be a new record..3 oil changes and only 963 total miles on your car!." he told me I was doing the right thing by still changing it on a yearly basis due to the small amount I drive it in a 5 month window and the amount of time I store it for the winter(7 months). Not sure if it's needed that often or not BUT fluids and filters are USUALLY cheaper than replacing components...so I'll keep doing mine each year even though I put on 500 miles or less from May-October.

[bishopts]

Originally Posted by NYTMARE23

This!!! . I took mine out last week for the yearly spring oil change and the tech said, "damn, this might be a new record..3 oil changes and only 963 total miles on your car!." he told me I was doing the right thing by still changing it on a yearly basis due to the small amount I drive it in a 5 month window and the amount of time I store it for the winter(7 months). Not sure if it's needed that often or not BUT fluids and filters are USUALLY cheaper than replacing components...so I'll keep doing mine each year even though I put on 500 miles or less from May-October.

I wouldn't have thought your window of driving would be that small in Nebraska. Here in Texas we have like 3 days a year that its not really safe to try and drive. Ive driven to Nebraska and it didn't seem that much different than here.

[ZED SLED]

I typically put around a thousand on mine every year and change it once when it get's inspected. My only concern about doing it less often is about the filter media. How long does that last with full integrity? But I have no problem paying $100 or so per year for an oil change on a car I paid over $60k for.

[NYTMARE23]

Originally Posted by bishopts

I wouldn't have thought your window of driving would be that small in Nebraska. Here in Texas we have like 3 days a year that its not really safe to try and drive. Ive driven to Nebraska and it didn't seem that much different than here.

Well, a few things at play here. . I bought the car knowing it would not be my daily and that I wouldn't drive it all that often. I never drive in low(below 50-55 degrees) or any type of precipitation or "wet" conditions. Kids have alot of sports tournaments and activities on weekends and those are typically the times when I WOULD drive it. I choose to put it away around Halloween each year because between temps and precipitation(varies from year to year) that seems like a good time to do it. . I also wait until May(sometimes early May sometimes late May) to get it out, again usually due to colder/lower temps, weather precipitation and it takes the city about that long to get the street sweepers out and get all the sand/rocks off the roads from winter. ORRRR it could be that i am just too damn picky when I choose to drive it and when I don't.

[bishopts]

Originally Posted by NYTMARE23

Well, a few things at play here. . I bought the car knowing it would not be my daily and that I wouldn't drive it all that often. I never drive in low(below 50-55 degrees) or any type of precipitation or "wet" conditions. Kids have alot of sports tournaments and activities on weekends and those are typically the times when I WOULD drive it. I choose to put it away around Halloween each year because between temps and precipitation(varies from year to year) that seems like a good time to do it. . I also wait until May(sometimes early May sometimes late May) to get it out, again usually due to colder/lower temps, weather precipitation and it takes the city about that long to get the street sweepers out and get all the sand/rocks off the roads from winter. ORRRR it could be that i am just too damn picky when I choose to drive it and when I don't.

Lol yea i hear you. I dont drive if it's raining or hinting at raining. I got a ATS which for the most part is a 4 door camaro with a 4cyl. Its my beater car that has to deal with bad weather and carrying kids to all the things. But... a K5 blazer may be replacing it soon.

Also i only drive about 7 miles a day. So even the ATS only gets an oil change a year.

[Rich292]

The answer to your question is...it depends.

Mostly it depends on your driving conditions.

The reason there is an oil change time limit is mostly because the oil additive package is being used even when the car is off. The oil has chemical buffers in it that help it to neutralize the acidic compounds that can build up in the oil because of moisture, fuel, or other volatile contaminants. Those go bad with time, not mileage. This is mostly a problem from lots of short trips, especially in cold conditions.

So then the question becomes, "is your driving style causing you to build up a lot of those contaminants?"

If you do a lot of short trips, then you won't be accumulating mileage on the car quickly, but you won't be getting it hot enough to burn off the moisture and fuel that gets into the oil. That means that even with very few miles you are building up contaminants in the oil and using the additive package.

Conversely, if you take very few trips, but those trips are long and get the oil hot, then you won't be having much in the way of moisture or fuel in the oil. Once you stop the car, the interior of the engine is fairly well sealed off from the environment. You've got the air filter and throttle on the intake side and a very long exhaust with catalysts on the exhaust side. Even then, not all the valves are open at the same time, so the intrusion of moisture or condensation into the engine won't be significant.

A few years ago, I had a health issue that meant a couple of my cars didn't get their yearly oil changes. They weren't being driven often. However, when they were driven, they would get a long ride of something like 200-500 miles. Both ended up going 2 years and a full 7500 or so miles on their oil. I tested the oil out of both cars. Both were fine. No excessive wear. No problem with the additive package. The oil probably could have gone longer. So for my use case, it was no problem. If I had been making short drives frequently, it might have been an issue.

You don't need to be doing 200 miles at a time for this to work for you. But if you aren't doing lots of short drives where oil doesn't get hot, then you won't need a change every year.

[tbair64]

Here is what I can offer to this conversation. I working in a automotive museum. We are a working museum. What does that mean. Well for us it means we use the cars as intended. We still race most of our cars in historic events. We car for 120 cars. All of them get out once a year for exercise and some more than others for events. Our maintenance schedule is oil chance every 2 years if the car has not attended a race event. Every 5 years on all other lubricants..

[ctrlz]

Originally Posted by Capricio

the OCI countdown relies strictly on usage data, not time.

I really believe the algorithm times out at 1 year. I put 100 miles on my car each week. I can pretty much watch it drop 2% per week.