Porsche Maintenance Schedule

Does anybody out there know of a motor oil (real or synthetic) that will last 20,000 miles. If you do, send a 55 gallon drum of the stuff. Does Porsche really expect us to believe we should follow their maintenance schedule and change our oil ever 20,000 miles. Of course they want you to, it the great Auto Industry Hoax and its causing more harm then good. Has anybody noticed that almost every car manufacturer has increased their scheduled maintenance. Mercedes now claims you only need to change your oil every 13,000 miles. If you follow the manufacturers maintenance schedule, you will accomplish what they want from you, your engine will last about half as long as usual and you will have to buy another one of their cars that much sooner. I'll be changing mine every 3,000 miles. How many of you folks plan on changing your oil every 20,000 miles? I'd be curious to know? How about a poll on this subject.

For those who lease, it is great and less costly, but for those who own, you could have a point. I leased mine, so I won't budge until 20,000.

My dealer recommended First Oil Change 6000 miles or 1 year thereafter 12,000 miles or once a year They claim is because of the heat and the heavy trafic in Puerto Rico. I don't agree with the reasoning, but I agree with the schedule.No harm done, Heat here is no worse than the Southwest.

Changing oil every 3,000 miles was due to horrific tolerances from years long since past... We run some of our industrial engines for 4-5 years, non stop (that's over 10,000 HOURS) without changing oil. Our compressors operate at over 70,000 rpm's and some of them have not changed oil in over 10 years. They have all the same components: bearings, bushings, pistons, blah, blah blah... It's a sealed system, why would you change it? If the bearing blues or losses babbit then you'll know it first - as the engine grinds to a halt. I plan to follow their guidance: 20,000 miles (and frankly you probably never need to change the oil at all - period). Paul

Devo the equipment you describe is a sealed system. An internal conbustion engine by definition is not. Air and fuel go into a cylinder and detonate generating energy and all sort of nasty byproducts, furthermore the cold strats are the worst from the wear and chemical byproducts generated in an engine. I agree the engines today are much better, and 3000 oil change intervals are not necessary for Porshe or any other manufacturer. Is 20,000 teh correct interval I do not claim to know and I rather err on the safe side. This is a is a car I would like to keep for a long time. I have pick ups running with over 200,000 miles, and must agree the engines are in reasonable shape. The rest of the car systems are more prone to wear and harder to maintain. Just my opinion.

I think it is a old wives tale at this point to think anything over 3,000 miles will hurt your engine... the old service interval was 1 yr/ or 15k... now through continous improvement of parts the service life is 20k or 2 years.... If you believe getting your oil changed on a Tahoe at JiffyLube every 3k for $40 bucks is better than following porsche program every 2 years you are sadly mistaken.... Of course some service places recommend changing the oil sooner it equals more money... and actually is a big problem for these dealers as anything advertised or recommended shorter than what Porsche suggest can cause problems for that dealership.

I changed mine (myself) at 5k just to get the break-in oil out. I'll wait for 10,000 more miles or so before I do it again. Shane

I can say this. The time for 3K mile oil changes is long gone. As someone noted on Mercedes, I also know that MINI (aka BMW ) provides free maintenaince for some number of years ... the computer determine who soon you need it changed and except for the first one at 10K, its mostly 15K miles. If you don't believe the claims, you can always send a sample of your oil here http://youroil.net/ and see how your oil is doing. BTW, your oil can be 'black' and still be fine. Edited by - chows4us on 07/10/2006 4:48:18 PM

I had my oil changed after 1500 miles (including one track day). Apparently the oil was dirty as hell. I plan to change my oil regularly. If I wasn't doing the odd track day it wouldn't bother me as much. But for the cost of a few hundred bucks I like the idea of having nice clean oil in my engine. Apparently the faster you drive and higher you rev, the more chance there is of petrol getting into the oil. My next oil change will depend on how many track days I do. I'll probably change it again in 12 months max.

No way. Can you imagine what would happen to Porsche's reputation if all of their engines started dying prematurely because of their recommended maintenance? Porsche's success depends heavily on their ability to continue making cars that last. There are 911SC's and Carreras from the '80s that have gone 250,000+ miles without needing a rebuild, simply by following the recommended oil changes at 15,000 miles or 1 year. The 928's V8 enginewas built for even more longevity - it is not uncommon for them to go 400,000+ miles before rebuilding, following the same maintenance schedule. Nothing wrong with changing oil more often than needed, except that you are wasting money. Porsche is not pulling anyone's leg - follow the maintenance schedule in the book that came with your car. Porsche does countless hours of testing of their engines 24/7. The maintenance schedule that they recommend is a result of their exhaustive tests. Believe me, they know what they're doing.

I have several vehicles and don't put a lot of miles on any one so I change the oil (synthetic) once a year. It just seems logical to get rid of contaminants that might build up.

I will change the oil at 3,000 miles and then probably every 5,000 miles or maybe 10,000 miles after that. Of course it will be with fully synthetic oil. With my car now, I change the oil every 5,000 miles, but it's a VW so it's probably cheaper than having a Porsche serviced. Anyone that has had their oil changed, could you give me an idea as to how much this service costs at a Porsche Service Center? Thank you. Cheers, Jason

Spot on. Porsche knows their own engines, if they can design a great car then give them credit that they know what they are talking about.

Porsche recommends every 20k my dealer said 10k would be if you want to be 'extra-cautious'.

The company I work for runs a couple of thousand company cars(admittedly not Porsche)with 20k (or longer if you forget) service intervals and they keep the cars to 100k miles. The problems we are seeing do not relate to extended oil change intervals but premature failures of ancilliary parts which lead to catostrophic engine failures I will be changing the oil in our car after 2 years which will equate to 9,000 miles Edited by - neil.c on 08/28/2006 3:16:39 PM

I think the 3000 mile oil-change is a thing of the past. The first car owned by anyone in my familywasa 1971 Mercury Monterey. Every 3000 miles, we put 5 quarts into that V8 (351, I think...). With modern engines and modern synthetic oils, along with better filters and combined with larger oil capacities in smaller engines, I don't think longer oil-change intervals are unreasonable. Oil companies will still recommend 3000 oil changes. Car companies will recommend 20k mile changes. My personal formula is to use the best oil I can find (currently Mobile 1 Synthetic) and halve the manufacture's recommneded intervals.

If anything, Porsche is hurting themselves by extending the service interval, not setting up an engine mortality schedule to pay off in the future. By the time an engine dies, it's not a Porche dealership that will be replacing it. It wont likely even be replaced with a new Porsche engine. They will be out of that potential revenue stream. Service is a fat part of a dealerships revenue. They charge about $100 -$150 for an oil change. They buy the oil and parts cheaper than you can, but as you've seen in the nice article posted here, it's a cinch to change your oil if you are so inclined. If there is a marketing angle to the oil change interval it's this: It allows more time for un-covered wear items to need replacing and then they can hit you for those w/o you feeling like you've been nickel and dimed by 5,000 mi oil changes.

The real issue here is 'why' oil is being changed, rather than 'when'. And oil that 'looks' dirty doesn't solely, by appearance, lubricate any less effectively than oil that 'looks' clean. Detergent oil traps dirt particles, that come from burning fuel, among other reasons. The oil filter condition is most important as it's job is to remove the particles that are large enough to cause immediate problems to the engine The 3,000 mile oil change interval came from higher reving, 4-cylinder engines and poor quality oil filters - and not from the inability of oil to survive the trauma. And the basis was to replace the filter. Should a filter clog, then either a by pass valve opens (good filter) and the crap enters the orrifices enroute to bearings or you just get oil starvation. And we all know that anytime the filter is changed, so also should the oil be changed. Synthetic oil will easily handle above 12,000 miles in a CS. I will be changing mine at 10,000 miles, becasue I won't trust a filter any longer than that.

Riamqa. are you for real or just winding people up? ANY decent modern oil can last 20K miles....