Oil Life

If the oil company says six months, then you can probably go for a year.
But a lot depends on how the low mileage is accumulated. Is it a few
long trips, or daily trips of one or two miles?

 

"Bob Shuman" <> typed until their fingers
bled, and came up with:

I mean, if Mobil One sitting in a sealed plastic

because sitting in the bottle, it doesn't get heated, swirled around,
contaminated with water, fuel, blow-by, etc.

 

The water does evaporate, except if the vehicle is used only for short
trips where it doesn't stay hot enough, long enough. The oil additives
neutralize the contamination, up to a point. And it's at how many miles
that point occurs, that is the subject of the debate. The oil certainly
doesn't lose its ability to lubricate at 5000, or even 10,000 miles, but
at some point it becomes saturated with suspended contaminants.

The logic behind a time period as opposed to a mileage figure, is
because the automakers are assuming the worst case, that the vehicle is
used for many very short trips.

Of course any issues you might see are in the engine life, which could
be reduced, but you wouldn't really know it because it's more like you'd
get 150K miles rather than 250K miles.