What is the best practical, cost effecient mileage interval to change the oil in the max? I know everyone says 3000 miles is best and the driver's manual says 3750 but is 4500 OK?

I do put on alot of highway miles..

 

I think if you are running synthetic, 4500 is fine for most driving conditions. If you are running non syn, I would stick to the 3700. No sense in risking anything.

But yeah, 4500 probably won't hurt anything.

 

Check out this site.

http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/s.../interval.html

Your choices range from the simple to the exotic.

 

7500 miles unless you are a south Texas cab driver. You may shorten your engine life from 300k miles to 275k miles, but who keeps their car that long?

 

I recommend you checking the oil spreadsheet (sticky in the General Maxima Discussion forum) and see how different brands/types of oil react to different change intervals. Doing your own oil analysis would be even better. I decided to go 4k using synthetic (Mobil 1).

 

I use Mobil 1 synthentic. I try to change it every 3K. But sometime I get lazy and let it goto 4,500K.. But never more then 5k.

 

Since most of my driving is in town, I stick with 3000 mile intervals even w/ my premium filters and synthetic oils.
Using Valvoline 5w-40 now, since I have observed its solvency to be better than MOBIL1, but will switch to MOBIL1 0w-40 as soon as I am satisfied my engine is clean internally.

Fred...

 

I thought you swore off Valvoline over the whole Group III vs. Group IV issue.