I went to my dealership earlier this week for my regular free oil change...the service rep. tells me that their policy has changed and oil changes are now at 5000 mile intervals?..is my dealership just cheap or has this happened to others?..is this possible or bad for the max?

 

wow, how can a dealer say somesh!t like that, are they running synthetic oil now or something?

 

I'd want it in writing. this is very interesting. most will agree that high quality oil (especially synthetic) last longer than years past. I would request this in writing from the dealer so when the freebies are done, you can continue to keep the interval.

My service depatment is convinced 3000 is necessary, even syn. I inquired about the new Mobil Extended and they said no way Nissan would warrant you engine if over 3750 intervals.

the manual does say 7500 for easy driving conditions.

I have 2 more GTX changes. 20k I am switching Mobil1 5-10k miles.

 

I was told every 6,000 km (3,750 miles) by the Nissan stealership when I bought my car new, despite the manual saying every 7,500. I would go back and raise hell
and ask for it in writing.

 

is you use quality oil such as castrol gtx dino oil, you can get away with 5000 mile drain intervals.

the oil analysis spreadsheet can prove that

or you can be paranoid like me and send out every other oil change sample to blackstone labs to get it tested

 

The old 3000 mile change interval is dead and buried. You can go 5000 to 7500 on dino oil with normal driving, even further with synthetic. Oils have come a long way in the past few years. Read bobistheoilguy.com for confirmation. In the end, it's your money spend it or waste it as you see fit.

 

I put low miles on my Maxima. Sometimes I don't change the oil for 9 or 10 months and its still under 3,750 miles on dino, mostly Castrol GTX. A stealership recently suggested that I change the oil a minimum of every 6 months because of the potential for moisture to get in the oil.

I think this business of every 3,000 miles or 3 months is simply a marketing ruse perpretated on the naive motoring public.

 

My old 540's -whose computer displays oil change intervals (miles to next oil change) real time based on driving habits, amount of total fuel consumed and amount of time that car spent at > x amount of throttle- would recommend an oil change about every 12k miles. Granted, it had a filter the size of a one pound coffee can and took eight quarts of Mobil 1 on each oil change, but still, I could never bring myself to go so long between changes so I changed it every 6k miles.

On the Max, I use 5w-30 Pennzoil synthetic and change every 5k miles. That's what I did on my Gen4 Max and it had 157k miles on it when I sold it and still had near-perfect compression & would burn a quart only every 3k miles, so....I'm good with 5k oil change intervals.

 

Whether you need to change every 6 months depends on the type of driving you do -- when you do drive your Max (or any vehicle). If your engine never gets a chance to run at operating temperature for more than an hour before you stop and turn off the engine, you definitely should change every 6-months. If the engine does get to operate (from time to time) at regular operating temperature for longer than an hour, then you can go longer. I certainly would not go longer than 12 months before changing the oil.