Short Stuff: How Often Do You Need To Change Your Oil?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. There's Charles w
Chuck Bryant, I'm Josh Clark, there's Jerry over there. Um,
and this is the the short stuff where we improve
your life for the better. Yeah, one of our few
sort of auto centric. We don't do this kind of stuff. No,
this is we leave this to the car talk guys.

(00:25):
God rest one of their souls. They were great. Yeah,
they were great. And you know, Hodgement, always John Hodge
and our friend always, very sincerely said that he thought
we had sort of the most natural repport since he
had heard clicking clack. I forgot about that. That's a
high compliment. Is a high compliment, thanks Hodgment. Yeah, so

(00:46):
this one's a little ironic because I am so far
overdue for an oil change. It's embarrassing. It's hilarious. Man,
it's bad. I do the opposite. I show up. I'm
like as a time. Yet really they're like, yes, sure,
I guess man, I'm so are behind. And the main
reason is because I don't want to go to one
of those I won't mention brands, but one of the
no appointment necessary. We can do it in thirty minutes

(01:08):
and you're out of here places, right, and you have
to give them like the routing number and your bank
account because you owe them so much money when you leave. Well,
and it's just like you know, there's horror stories of
them not really changing your oil and leaving the oil
tank empty and not changing your filter, and so it's
recommended to not go to those places. So I want
to make an appointment with like my mechanic, and I

(01:30):
just haven't done it, and so long, man, I know
how you feel. I gotta do it. Do you have
a good mechanic? Uh? Well, not since I've gotten the
Honda Pilot. But I imagine I could go to my
other sort of stand by mechanic and it's not like
I go to the same place. But it's not like
my my l A mechanic because I had an old,

(01:51):
old junker car. Like we knew each other really well
because I was there a lot, so me and Jimmy
were pals. But I'm not pals with my mechanics. Now.
That's why I hesitated when you said, do you have
a good mechanic? And and uh l, A is a
bit of a drive for an oil change. Yes, So
all right, Chuck, Well, how do you know you need

(02:11):
an oil change. This is my first question. There may
be more. Well, there's a few ways. Um you mean,
how do I know right now? Yes? Oh, because I
am thousands of miles over even the highest recommended limit. Okay,
all right, Well wait a minute. Does your car have
one of those um oil life indicators? Yes? Okay, has

(02:33):
it come on yet? Oh? It came on about months
ago and it says zero percent on there, which freaked
me out at first, because, as you will learn right
now everyone, if you have a newer car, there are
two lights. One that says, hey, you need an oil change,
and one that says you are out of oil or

(02:55):
close to it. And if you get that second light,
you need to stop driving right literally as soon as
you can. That is why I'm really crazy about oil changes. Now,
is I have I've done that. I've driven until the
engine was like done. See you, thank you for my life? Yep? Yeah,
I mean that's what that means everyone. I'm not sure
if you know, if you drive a car that runs

(03:16):
out of oil sometimes even a mile, your engine is toast. Yep.
They can't just like loop it back up again and
get it going. Yes, I was almost to the Peep
for brunch, and I was like, my god, I'm gonna
go eat brunch. First walk to the Peep and eight
and then walk back and dealt with my car. That sucks, man.

(03:38):
Remember the Peep? Sure great place. Was it worth it?
How's that brunch? Oh? It was totally worth it. It
was the last, the last good brunch I ever had.
I'm kidding. So um, we should really specify. I wanted
you said it, but we really need to make clear.
There are two different oil lights in a newer car.
One is, hey, it's time for you to go get

(03:59):
your oil change. One is pull your car over to
the side the road and stop driving it now it's
really not worth like, oh, I think I can make
it right. And the oil the oil system indicator, the
one that just says, hey, go go get an oil
change soon. That's a fairly new thing. And it's because
of that new thing that the recommendation of driving or

(04:21):
changing your oil after three thousand miles or every three
months is gone. That's gone. Unless you have an older car,
it's probably not the case for what you need to
do with your oil. You're probably okay to go five
thousand if you drive a Jaguar the right way. Fifteen
thousand is their highest recommended time in between oil changes.

(04:44):
So that whole three thousand miles or three months thing
that's gone. But it's not gone. And from what I
can tell from what I'm reading in places like Edmonds, Uh,
the only reason it's still around is because the auto
service industry is keeping it going with everything they've got. Yeah, man,
because they want that money. Baby. Yeah. I mean, like
you said, if you have an old car, and and

(05:05):
when I had my old Plymouth Valiant, it was a
kind of deal where like I could tell when I
got an oil change. Oh yeah, like it drove better.
And so modern cars, you know, you can't really tell
when you got an oil change. Uh. I don't think
so can you. I mean, this is the first newer
car I've ever had. Um, No, you really shouldn't be

(05:27):
able to. I think it's a real issue if you
can't tell. I'm gonna actually I'm gonna get my oil
change and then follow up and let everyone know. But um,
certainly with a tune up you can tell, yeah for sure.
But with so with that oil indicator, like what it's doing,
Chuck is it's it's analyzing how you drive. It's checking

(05:47):
the oil, the temperature, all this stuff. It's basically keeping
tabs on your oil. And based on all this, it
will it will that it will turn that light on
when it's time for you to go get an oil change. So,
even if you are beyond the mileage of your recommended
um recommended time between oil changes that you'll find in
your owner's manual, if that light hasn't come on, you're

(06:09):
still probably good. Yeah, but I would, I would definitely
trust that if you have a newer car and trust
that light over that little sticker they put in your window.
That's a big one because they're still saying three thou
miles right exactly. So So first things first, stop having
any attention to that whatsoever. Unless you were literally related

(06:30):
by blood to your mechanic who put that sticker up there,
pull it off and throw it away. It is meaningless.
It's a sales gimmick. Okay, that's two. Step one. Step
two is to then go to your owner's manual and
look up oil and it will tell you what the
person or the company that major car recommends how often

(06:50):
you get your oil. And it's not an arbitrary number
that they just pull out of the air. Usually there's
a low one in a high one, so something like
five thousand miles. And as numbers depend on how you
drive your car, because there's really two ways you can
drive your car normally or severely. Yeah, mine is severe

(07:11):
not It's not that I drive crazy. I drive like
a grandma. But I can never get on the highway,
which is great. I live near where I work and
I don't really ever have to go on the highway.
I mean occasionally if I have some weird errand, but
my normal everyday driving commute does not involved high speed
travel or highway mileage. And that's where you can get

(07:33):
away with going a little bit longer. It might be
counterintuitive because you would think that's harder on your car,
but it's easier on your car. It is because so
when oil, like especially like conventional oil, is stuff they
pull out of the ground and refine from petroleum. That
stuff breaks down um over time, and like it condenses,
water condenses out of it, and that water can mess

(07:56):
up your engine, right it can. It can lead to
um engine part ruin Asian, I think is the technical
term knocks and pings pretty much. So I think that
was from letting gets So when you drive out on
the highway, which is something over like ten miles at
like a highway speed, a distance over ten miles, you
actually get your engine going enough so that it burns

(08:16):
off any condensation that might have built up. Which is
why if you drive on the highway regularly that's ideal
or normal driving. When you drive stop and go commute
kind of traffic or less than ten miles just about
every time, that's actually, like you were saying, way harder
on your car than driving it on the highway because
of that condensation that can build up over time. So

(08:37):
if you're driving it severely, you want to take that
lower number. Yeah. With that, that's also why when you
when you go to sell a car or buy a
car use someone will usually indicate like highway miles, like
higher miles, but highway miles is a lot of times
better than lower miles that aren't highway miles. That's right.
So let's let's take a little break in here a

(08:58):
little buddy, and we will come right back. I can
talk a little more about some little oil changes. So

(09:23):
Chuck um, like I said that oil indicator light is
one reason why you want to um or one reason
why you can go longer between oil changes, right, that's
reason why. The another reason is because people stopped opening
their owner's manual, so like for a very long time,
owner cars have come out where they don't say three

(09:45):
thousand miles or three months, that's that's your oil change
place saying that right. But also there's been some pretty
big advances in in oil technology too, and actually the
way that they make cars these days has improved tremendously. Yeah,
for sure, fetic oil is something that you may or
may not use. Uh, you may have made that switch.

(10:06):
Again if you read your your manual, they may recommend
synthetic oil right off the bat, and it is more expensive,
but it is way better um than regular oil, has
a lot more benefits, Uh, performances better just right off
the bat. Uh, it is better for the environment. Um.
Which also, by the way, if you're I meant to
say earlier, if you're one of those people that's like, no,

(10:27):
I'm still gonna get it changed every three thousand, even
though that's like far too much because it's just good
for the car. It's really not gaining you anything. You're
just losing time, money, and it's bad for the environment.
You know, oil changes aren't great for the environment. Yeah,
Like if if America's cars, of all the cars on
the road, went from five oil changes a year so

(10:48):
every three months to three oil changes a year, Um,
we would save something like four and a quarter million
gallons of oil that would be poured out of America's
car every year. Amazing. Yeah, so it's definitely having more
of an impact than on just your free time and
your your wall with right. Um, but synthetic oil is

(11:10):
better for the environment. Um. So it depends on who
you ask. Like, if you ask some experts, car experts
might say, yeah, make the switch. If you have a
newer car, you should totally make the switch. If you
listen to other people, though, they might say that you
don't need to switch to synthetic unless your car specifically
calls for it. I know if you tow things a lot,

(11:31):
then synth synthetics can be better. Uh, and it can
prolong like you're the life of your engine. But maybe
like if you do trust your mechanic, talk to them
and say, hey, what do you think when you think
about the synthetics? Right, and they'll be like, why are
we talking on? Yeah, it's like come over here by
the soda machine. So um, synthetics are are better for

(11:51):
the environment, and that they last longer, so there's less
being poured out because there's just fewer oil changes. But
they all, I mean, they're made from chemicals and they're
they're bad for the environment if you just go dump
it in the grass or something. So but I mean
people love to poke holes and no, it's not even
better for the environment, you dumb hippie. You know that
kind of thing. So I just wanted to address that

(12:12):
so that you wouldn't get ambushed by somebody who talks
like that. I mean, it's not friar oil, no butt chuck.
I saw that canola oil is being developed to replace
synthetic and conventional and it actually lasts longer, it breaks
down over a longer period of time, and it actually

(12:33):
may be more violent environmentally friendly, and that would be
used as fuel or just as the engine oil engine oil. Interesting, Yeah,
like canola oil. Just pour some pour some crisco in
there and see what happens. Don't don't do that, Do
not listen to me. I was just kidding. Just now.
It's like Alive oils, America oil, had they tried that.
It's right, it breaks down the antioxidants in your engine.

(12:56):
You got anything else, really, Man, I think the keys
here of this, Chuck, listen to your oil um life
light and I know that's not what it's called, but
I cannot get the words that it is called together
in my head. And um, consult your owners manual and
when they put one of those three months or three
thousand mile stickers on, get rid of it. Oh. I

(13:18):
do have one other thing, Chuck knew it. If you
are one of those people who drive your car less
than five thousand or miles or however much your owner's
manual recommends between oil changes a year, you still want
to change your oil because you're probably driving it on
short trips, so you're driving it severely. So your your

(13:39):
owner's manual probably recommend a time frame two and usually
that's six months, so you probably just want to change
it every six months at least because oil does break
down over time. All right, Okay, so that's the last one.
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