Calling all Volvo recreational oil changers

[Green440wedge]

I started a post a while back about Volvo's retrospective extension of the engine oil and filter changes on the MK2 V70 2.3 T5 from year 2000 to 18k miles, and matters concerning oil performance longevity. The thread which featured quite a lot of banter seems to have mysteriously vanished I have noticed. Anyway...

On the subject of letting synthetic oil do its mileage rather than wasting oil, time and money by doing an oil change every 3 or 6k miles..... I drained by Alfa GTV 3.0's oil and saved it, sending a sample of this 10W60 Mobil 1 synthetic to Mobil 1 for oil analysis. It appeared black leaving a brown film in the drain bowl. The oil had done just 2000 miles. Mobil 1 reported back telling me not to be concerned at all by the colour, and that the oil was in perfectly good condition. They did not ask about the age of the oil, just mileage. However, the oil had been in the GTV for 4 years...

So I have put a litre or two of the GTV's old 10W60 in my Volvo T5 that uses a litre every 1200-1500 miles, and it loves the stuff. I have also been putting in some Halfords 5W50 Motorsport oil drained from a Rover V8 engine, similar mileage, in there for 5 years. The Volvo loves that too, and I am just about to touch 18,000 since the last full oil and filter change, about 18 months ago. I'll do a fresh oil and filter change this time around. Sounds sacreligious doesn't it? But in engineering terms for normal useage it is fine.

So you guys doing your recreational oil changes, it is not really worth it is it. If you can leave API SN spec synthetic oil in for 4-5 years on low mileage, the only thing 3-6000 mile synthetic oil changes achieve is to unecessarily dispose of good expensive oil. £50 a gallon, that Mobil 1. Perhaps oil used for racing is the exception.

Some of you may remain culturally unconvinced, but it is worth thinking about.