Yes I know this is a VW forum, and this link is to a BMW forum, but the lessons are still the same no matter what car you drive.


this is what happens when you don't change your oil.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1281659


Makes you wonder how many nice cars have died from lack of care.

nice one. I've ssen a few of those when i worked at mazda. just because your oil light doesnt come on does not mean you have oil. sometimes galleries block and pressure switches clog... resulting in no oil, just greasey goo... then bearings wearing. looks like that bmw engine will need to be striped and rebuilt.

I always keep an eye on the colour of my oil,

once you have used the same thickness and brand for a while......e.g Castrol 20/50 you can clearly see when it is new, getting dirty and then needs changing.


Changed the oil three times in my Beetle this year, only done 900 miles, but I think its good investment in the engine, keeping the oil changed, so it is doing its job correctly.

persoanlly think it should be changed each season. even if its rarely driven.

Ha im doing mine today. i do it every 2500 miles or six months whatever comes first, and at the moment this is its third oil change this year.

I used to drive an HQ panelvan that had a 173 engine in it that I wanted to get rid of. I had a nice 186 ready to go so I just didn't put any more oil in it. Eventually, one day when I pulled up at a stop sign, the car just shook from side to side wildly as the engine put a rod through the side of the block. It was very impressive as well as very loud. Lack of oil does not help at all LOL

Yogie

my neighbour on the farm over the raod is like that
he buys ex gov rodeo utes, drives them for 60k without touching them then flogs them off

insides would be similar

i change my oil every 6 monthe even if has only driven down the drive way .not as stupid as it sounds as water will condensate over time,ever seen the oil cap with white stuff in it

Is the proper name for this phenomina called "Oil Sludging"? Kinda put me off lunch to see that Lucky that it was a BMW, not many cars would take that and still live

No way. Thats not from changing the oil (or not). I dont change my Mitsubishi oil. Its a 97 model getting close to 250,000 km. It would have had 5 or 6 oil changes in its life.It would be worth maybe $2k now. if I had serviced it every 6 months what would I get for it. $2500-3000? Still going strong. Doesnt blow a whiff of smoke. The oil in my lawn mower has been there 11 years! I have shaken out the air filter once or twice. If thats what happened every 40-60,00K then I wouldnt have a car left.

Maybe thats from mixing non synthetic and synthetic, or maybe its just crap no name brand oil from a supermarket.

my bug gets changed every 300 miles and i do the commodore every 5000kms..... better to be safe then sorry i say.

300miles? I'm sure you meant 3000 right?

one other thing to consider is this, there is a balance between regular oilchanges and wasting good oil (ie. hurting the enviroment). A guy in ultraVW mag wrote about this a while back. We don't need to change oil more than about every 5000kms unless you have a racing engine. Also, fully synthetic stuff can be reused often. I knew a guy who used to drained the fully synthetic oil out of his commodore (running LPG) and put it in his missus van. After that he'd chuck it. He reckoned it came out of the commodore as good as it went in.

Other thing to be mentioned is, doesn't matter how good your oil is if you never change the filter.

you'd change your oil in a beetle regularly sure, it doesnt have a filter. If your engine is wearing at such a rate that it clogs the filter in 3000 miles, your in deep deep poo.