Trust in the Intelligent Oil Life Monitor (IOLM)?

[Holligl]

I am sitting at 3 months and 3000 miles. This would be my normal oil change. However the oil life indicator says the oil life is at 73% remaining. I did look in the manual and it indicates the oil can go up to 10,000 miles and 1 year. Nothing mentioned about the first change for break in. The dealer mentioned this as a cost saving feature. Who is going to trust in Ford and their vehicle on this one? When are you going to change? For those with the service plan, do they go with the manual?

 

[blwnsmoke]

Im not, I havent decided on whether I am going to use synthetic or not. Ill be going 5k on conventional, 7,500 on synthetic. I did 10k changes on my a4 which had 156k on it, never an engine peoblem. Ive been doing 7,500 on my powerstroke with never an issue (86k) and the powerstroke is way more dependant on oil.

I think anyone is wasting money doing less then 5k. I know the arguement, it is cheap insurance to do them often but I see it as a waste with how efficient these motors are these days.

 

[justinf89]

Follow the OLM. They put a lot of research in it but make sure to see if it is calibrated for syn or conv. Probably motorcraft though lol. For the first change, I'd definitely change it sooner though.

 

[JustB_Rad]

I'm going to go in at 2k-2.5k (which will be in 2 weekends) to get mine changed with the Motorcraft Partial Sythetic, and then go in at 5k intervals. I was going to switch to Sythentic and do 7,500 mile increments, but there's really no advangages from what I can tell.

 

[2TimingTom]

For a first change- I'd change it now and change it with whatever was in there from the factory (probably dino?). Then I'd go by the OLM and change it to synthetic and go by the OLM from there on out.

I've been going by the OLM on my Saturn VUE (2.2L 4 cylinder ecotec motor- bought brand new 7 years ago and it has 75,000 miles on it now) and the OLM indicates oil changes roughly every 5-7,000 miles. I know, apples and oranges here........

 

[G37RRaiders]

Going anything shorter than manufacturer recommendation is a waste of money. Oil technology came a long way since the old saying of 3k miles old change.

I believe the new EX are filled with Motorcraft synthetic blend, if you fill it with something even better (like good true synthetic) then you can probably increase the oil change interval a lot more.

This engine is not harsh by any means, I don't think it really need a break in oil change. If you need a break in oil change, I think Ford is the first one to let you know that you need it. The only car that I owned required a break in oil change was my M3, which BMW asked you to bring it in after the first 1k mile.

 

[sticker500]

Very well could be a waste of money, but could bring you a piece of mind knowing that you changed it sooner than they recommend.

Recently in the GM world, the 3.6VVT engines in the Acadia, Enclave, etc. had OLM that was not calculating correctly and owners went past the date of changing their oil. I read this contributed to timing chain failures and dealerships having to pull the engine, replace the timing chain and clean the sludge.

I change my oil myself every 3 months or 3K miles, in the end how much did I waste doing this at the 3K interval? I would rather have the satisfaction of knowing it was done at 3K.

 

[2TimingTom]

OLM or not, the 3K/3 month really has no basis at all. Even the owner's manual of my 1986 Nissan Sentra recommended 5000 miles for "severe" duty and 7500 for highway duty. And every vehicle I've owned since has had a similar recommendation.

 

[1995E]

If you have ethanol in your fuel and you drive in the city, it's best to change it every 3 - 5k miles because you won't be going on enough highway speeds/temperatures to burn all that extra fuel. There's bound to be some water in the system because ethanol has an effect of allowing water to condensate in the system, this means water in your oil.

 

[Bill #5 Explorer]

Did the first oil change at the 1,000 mile mark. Switched to full synthetic 5W20 (factory fill is a blend, not full synthetic). Plan to change every 5-6,000 miles. Will be changed this weekend. Will have just under 7,000 miles on her.

 

[simplysql]

I was going to change ours at 5K - then talked to my friend, an engineer at Ford - no reason not to trust the vehicle's indicator. It has almost 8K on it now and counting.

 

[Edgieguy]

I just changed the oil in my new 2011 Edge Sport at 4200 miles. Glad I did, the oil was BLACK. My friend who owns the garage I did the work in commented that the oil looked pretty bad. I'll be changing the oil on the Ex at about 3k.

 

[JanChristian]

If you want to remove the guesswork entirely, have a place like Blackstone Labs perform a used-oil analysis at your next oil change. They even send you a free test kit to collect your sample.

They send you a full health report on your oil, which can help diagnose future problems (for example, a bearing going bad). For $10 extra, they'll tell you the TBN (total base number), which basically tells you how much "life" is left in your oil. What I really like about this place is someone translates all of the numbers into a useful comment.

For example, this was the comment from the last report on my Jeep Grand Cherokee:

Copper tends to be the last metal to settle down during the wear-in process, which is likely the main
reason for the higher reading here. We'll keep an eye on it next time. All other metals read around universal
averages, which are based on a 4,200-mile oil run. We noted 0.8% fuel, but typically anything under 2.0%
isn't a problem. The TBN read 4.5, showing plenty of active additive left. A TBN of 1.0 is considered low. No
coolant or moisture was present and the viscosity read normally or 5W/20. Try going to 6,000 miles on the
next oil. We'll bet copper improves nicely.

 

[G37RRaiders]

I just changed the oil in my new 2011 Edge Sport at 4200 miles. Glad I did, the oil was BLACK. My friend who owns the garage I did the work in commented that the oil looked pretty bad. I'll be changing the oil on the Ex at about 3k.

again this is just same old saying of change your oil at 3k miles. The color of the oil has nothing to do with the status of the oil. A service manage once told me that I need to get an oil change because my oil is "pretty black" when I went into recall work. I used royal purple less than 1000 miles ago at that time and it is dark purple that looks like black.

Like JanChristian said, send your use oil to blackstone and you will know what condition they are in, NOT the color of the oil. Or else, just listen your high pay smart Ford engineers and change the oil interval like they suggested.

 

[Bill #5 Explorer]

I just changed the oil in my new 2011 Edge Sport at 4200 miles. Glad I did, the oil was BLACK. My friend who owns the garage I did the work in commented that the oil looked pretty bad. I'll be changing the oil on the Ex at about 3k.

This is silly. Color has nothing to do with it. And 3,000 mile intervals is a waste, and could (debatable) even be detrimental, since fresh oil has a proportinately higher detergent level.

If you are that concerned, do the Blackstone Lab UOA's as stated above. Good advice.

 

[sm4astan]

Pretty sure this question got beat to death a month or so ago in another thread. Did you search the forum and read that thread? Good link there out to an Edmunds article on the topic.

 

[bluebyyou]

My husband works in service at a dealership and his recommends 5k now. Yes oil has came a long way with the synthetic....put your oil filter has not.

 

[sport97]

Ive heard with news cars it is best to do a short oil change interval 1st, as in 1k-2k, then move onto a regular interval. Not totally sure on the basis of this, but it may have something to do with the break in period of the car.