Change Oil Message

Bart2500HD · August 23, 2004

What determines when the change oil message appears in the message center?

I am nearing 3000 miles since my last oil change (I changed it the day after I bought it) and have yet to see the message to change the oil. Should i just go ahead and change it and reset the light when it appears or can I reset it now and go from there? Is it okay to change oil strictly by the message center indication?BTW, had to add a quart a couple weeks ago. Is this normal for the 8.1L to have to add a quart between oil changes? Truck has 57000 miles on it. I recall reading someplace that the big block V8s use a little oil.

Colorado Kid · August 23, 2004

The oil life monitor considers engine temperature, engine hours, engine RPM adn maybe one or two toher parameters to estimate oil life. It does not physically monitor the condition of the oil.

In my opinion it is perfectly acceptible to follow the monitor's recomendation. It's also acceptible to change the oil more frequently, if you preffer. I follow the minder in my 2002. You can reset the minder at any time (I changed mine early and reset the monitor when I knew I would be taking a 3,000 mile road trip this summer, for example.)

It's not surprising that your bib block uses some oil. Some don't, but in my experiance most big (and even small) blocks use some oil, and 1 qt in 3,000 - 5,000 miles is certainly tollerable. If consumption exceeds 1 qt in 1,000 miles I'd begin to be concerned but my '91 4.3L V6 burned 1 qt every 2500 miles from 0 miles in February of '91 to 215,000 miles in April of '04 with no obvious ill effects.

dannyukonxl · August 23, 2004

yes these big blocks use oil and personally i would go by the mileage not that change oil light, do the oil every 3000 and you should never have a problem, the light indicator takes into consideration whether the miles are highway or street but 3000 is probably the safest... by the ways i have about 2100 miles on my truck and the oil is at 78% so the oil is at 70% probably at 3000 miles but id still feel safer to do it at 3000 instead of 10,000 or whatever it recommends

'92Cheyenne · August 24, 2004

where does the oil go? i had a friend ask me that and i just assume that it burns up. my HD loses about a quart between every oil change. i also follow the message center.

phil

Growler · August 24, 2004

I usually wait until the "minder" gets to or near the "change oil" point - typically between 3200-3600 miles with the kind of driving that I do. I get my oil changed at Jiffy-Lube and will stop back for a free top off if it gets down below the "add-oil" line on the dipstick. Happens about once every couple of oil changes. Probably has more to do with how much they put it to begin with than variation in consumption, which seems pretty uniform. Roughly a quart every 3000 miles. Check it about every other fillup.

I went to a different place a couple of times until they didn't put the filter on tight and oil dripped onto the skid plate and then the exhaust piping. Just a slow drip when the engine was running but the first time I noticed anything amiss was on a trip a few days and a few hundred miles after the oil change when I smelled burning oil and then the "check oil" warning came on. Not good, but I had a couple of quarts of 5W30 with me. Went back to where I'd had it changed and they claimed it was a random bad filter, but I didn't believe it and never went back there.

Absent a problem like this, I think that the oil pressure gage gives a good indication as to filter condition and the "minder"gives a good indication as to oil breakdown. But my "minder" seems reasonable - I probably wouldn't follow it if it recommended a change at less than 2500 miles or more than 4000 miles.

When my DIC steeering wheel controls quit working and I didn't have time to take the truck to a dealer to fix it I just went with resetting it at the oil changes (via the gas pedal method) and changing oil at 3000 miles +/-10%.

bigdogs · August 24, 2004

At 4000 miles mine still says like almost 60% but that is on a diesel which may compute it differently

tmf6902 · August 24, 2004

I use moble 1, and the change light usually comes on every 5k-5.5k depending on how and where I drove. I can go about 4000-4500 miles before I need to add another qt. So I don't see any of the oil loss everyone else seems to talk about....I guess they fixed the problem.

rascal · August 24, 2004

guessing you need the optional dic thing to get what percent you oil is? i didn't get it, but i have the change oil message thing, mine came on at 5500, but I'd changed it between 1500 and 2000 miles already. no ideal if that made a difference since I didn't reset the switch then.

I've always wandered why we didn't change by the hour meter rather then odometer. I figure theres a big difference between 3k of highway miles and 3k to the store. figure that you do at least 60 on the highway and 20 on the back roads, you engine would be running 3 times as long for the same distance. Maybe someone should come up with a some thing that measures how my revolutions the motor turn, like an odometer, instead of just measuring rpm's like an speedometer.