scheduled maintenance

Anyone know of a good site describing a maintenance schedule for a 2003
Ion 3 or have any suggestions? The manual doesn't go into when the gear
box oil should be changed (for a stick), radiator fluid, timing belt,
plugs, wires, etc? Also, is running Red Line Synthetic 5W30 a good
idea? I drive 75 miles one way to work 5 days a week and hope to get
7500 miles per oil change w/Red Line oil.
VT Hokies - 2004 ACC Champs!

 

The best place I can suggest to get a proper maintennace schedule is either
your local Saturn shop or from a Haynes or Chilton manual. As far as going
any further than the recommended 3K miles on ANY oil, synthetic or dino, it
is not a wise idea. The 3K interval keeps your oil clean and prevents
viscosity breakdown and contamination., etc.
Regardless if you use synth or not, it is always a good idea to change your
oil every 3000 miles.

Plugs for an ecotec should last 100K miles. There are no spark plug wires,
it is coil/wire induction.

marx404

 

make that 2004 ACC football champs
write us when the hokies are ACC champs in any other sport.

Not bad however considering the ACCs single goal and mission statement for
at least the last 40 years has been to keep Hokie Tech out.

Ron
Charlottesville, Va 94 SL1
Va Tech 1977 (so I can say anything bad about the hokies I want to)

 

Their are a lot of proponents and opponents to using synthetic oil. Being
an aerospace engineer and knowing that all jet engines use synthetic only
I've always opted to go with synthetic. It pours better when cold and
doesn't coke up as fast at hot. As far as oil change intervals you can go
with what the oil companies and lube places want you to do, the 3000 mile
thing, or just go with the value in the owners manual. If you think about
it why would the manufacturer give you a 100000 mile waranty on the engine
and tell you change the oil every 7500 to 10000 miles if it was necessary
to change it 3000 miles. Doesn't pass the common sense test. The numbers
aren't pulled out of thin air, they're calculated and tested. And then
their is margin on top of that.

The only time you should consider changing more than the book says is if
you race it, do lots of short trips (the oil soaks up some water and if
you don't heat it out by fulling warming the engine it can cause some
corrosion) or use really crappy oil filters (the percentage of soot builds
up faster, that's what causes wear on the engine).

From the Haynes books they just give a generic maintenance schedule that's
not really related to the specific car. Not sure what the Chilton's
manuals have in it.

 

The 7500 mile intervol was from www.redline.com (the synthetic
manufacturer) for city driving. Red Line even states that vehicles
with a lot of highway driving can go 15K to 18K between oil changes
with a filter change at 7500.

http://www.redlineoil.com/tech_faq.asp.

I have noticed with full synthetic the car sounds smoother and the gas
milage is, on average, 2 -3 mpg better.

What I am really looking for is when should the gearbox oil be changed
on a 5spd and tranny fluid be changed on a 3 spd auto? When should the
plugs and timing belt be replaced, 30K, 60K, 90K?

 

Use your cars oil life monitor. Oil can last many miles if you drive
often enough but oil filters are always questionable. Personally I would
just use mobil one. I dont know what that Redline stuff is or how its
priced.

No such thing as a timing "BELT". Its a chain, just keep up on the oil
changes and it will last a million miles. Plugs roughly every 80k-90k.
They are double platinum and rated for 100k but usually need replaced
before then. I think you ment 4spd. I dont remember what the service
intervals were for Ion "transaxles".

This link shows the S series Maintenance Schedule
http://www.saturnsandiego.com/Flashsite/Service/schedule_sl.html

 

No, I meant 5spd manual transmission. Not 4 speed automatic. The
car's oil life monitor is useless. It doesn't take into account the
driving conditions, oil type or oil quality. Look at the tech specs
for Red Line oil vs. Mobil 1. Much higher flash index. Also filters
vary in qualtiy as well, puralator filters to a smaller particle size
than Fram.

 

For some reason you said 4spd auto.

A higher flash index than mobil one is meaningless past a point. If
redline cost more your just throwing money away on a rather pointless
advantage. The oil life monitor DOES take into account driving
conditions and for some people the light takes 6000 miles to turn on.

Learn more about it with these links

http://www.gmcanada.com/media/gminnovation/fc_oilmonitor_en_CA.html

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=gm+tech+%
22oil+life+monitor%22&btnG=Search


Heres an idea of what you can do depending on how you drive/ When the
oil change light comes on (no more than 4000 miles) change your filter
and top off your synthetic oil and reset your light. Next time it comes
on (no more than 4000 miles again) change "both" filter and oil.

Heres a good chart to try with synthetics:

0000 miles to 4000 miles change filter and top off.
4000 miles to 8000 miles change filter and oil
repeat
0000 miles to 4000 miles change filter and top off.
4000 miles to 8000 miles change filter and oil

I know a of a full size chevy van using mobil 1 that followed that
routine and after 250k it still ran strong and never burned any oil. No
since in spending 25+ dollars on 6 quarts of oil and running 3000 miles
between oil changes and selling the car after 100k miles! That would be
killing the entire point.