Date:         Fri, 04 Nov 94 12:52:38 CST
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "J. Walker" <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject:      Re: First oil change

On Fri, 4 Nov 94 11:23:36 CST Norman Leong said:
>For those of you out there who bought your vehicles new, when did you do
>your first oil change?  After 1K miles, 3K, 5K,...or the VW recommended
>7.5K?
>I ask because the dealer salesperson backed up VW's recommendation of 7.5K,
>citing the need for various engine seals to seat and absorb whatever oil
>necessary to prevent leakage later on (this guy was an enthusiast, too).
>Conventional wisdom says to change the oil every 3K or so (or 50-60 engine
>hours), except a lot of folks do their first change at 1K because of
>various metallic bits floating around...

me personally, i changed mine at 500 miles. because it is now MY car and MY
responsibility. and MY money. then i changed it again at 2500 miles, and
every 2500 since then. other folks buy fancy clothes, i change oil. :)

i'm a little surprised that the dealer people would back 7500, but then you
said he was a SALESperson ... and i have found them to be singularly lacking
in common sense. ask the service people. and look in your owner's manual,
back around the section on Difficult Conditions or Severe Conditions. that's
the 'gotcha' in all this: city or 'normal' driving IS Severe Conditions!!!
the 7500 is ok, if you drove from new york to LA and back ... all highway
miles. but stop and go, drive to work, shut it off ... that is what hurts
the oil and the car.

i've seen the metal flakes myself, when i bought my 1980 bus brand new ...
and changed its oil at 500 miles!! now ... 'everybody' says they don't do
that anymore. yeah. right. and that's what the filter is for. yeah. right.

so if you change the oil at 500 miles, what have you hurt? the break-in
process? how could changing the oil possibly hurt that? they claim they
don't use 'special break-in' oil nowadays. so what could it hurt? well ...
it does cost money. but even $30 for them to do it is worth the money to me.
and the same thing in spending another $30 every 2500 miles ... that way, i
change the oil 3 times to their recommended once.  of course, i change my
own oil, so it only costs me about $7 for a filter, $8 for the oil, and
$1 worth of water to wash my clothes. :) and my oh-so-valuable time, too. :)

one of the best reasons for changing oil is to get rid of the contaminants
that form in it ... the acids (from combustion), the fuel-dilution
(espeicially in diesels), and so forth. and these things build up in the
oil until the oil is changed, or the car is run down the highway for about
20 minutes or so (to get everything nice and hot).  when i used to get my
oil analyzed (in my old 80 bus), the kendall 30w oil would change to a 46w
oil in just 3000 miles. i'd hate to think what it would have changed to if
i had left it in for 7500 miles.

the best rule-of-thumb i ever heard was:
change your oil every 2 months in the winter and every 3 months (or 3000
miles) in the summer.

how easy is that filter to get to on the eurovan?

joel