I have a factory service manual and it calls for oil changes every 7500 miles. What are your thoughts on this? I know most new cars today go 10,000 before an oil change.

 

sure its not every 7500 kilometers? i do mine every 4-5 thousand miles with synthetic rotella and a mopar filter.

 

It was 7500 miles in the day. That's light duty.

Severe service was 3500 miles.

I do 5000 miles. Use a good oil filter!!! Wix, Napa Gold, Mopar.

 

i change once a year, regardless of miles...for me, works out to 3000-10000 miles

5w30 oil, store brand or w/e is cheapest, oil filter i try to purposely get the fram to go against the haters.

 

This. If you look at the categories more closely, almost everyone fits into the "severe service" category.

If you are considering extended oil change intervals and your engine is original, it would be wise to send off a used oil sample to folks like Blackstone Labs. With modern oils and large and quality filters there's no issue there, but in a gasoline engine, fuel and carbon slipping past the rings will screw **** up. If there's too much your oil will dilute and be useless.

New vehicles have a lot tighter clearances - my coworker's 2012 Mazda 3 will explode if you don't run 0W20. Old Jeeps you could run 20W50 in if you wanted to! So get the UOA and see if it's reasonable.

 

 

put a new fram filter on yesterday

 

I'm glad.

 

New? Too expensive.
Just rotate your Frams, install the one you took off last time and put this one on the shelf for the next change. Just touch up that bedliner with a shot of Autozone's cheapest undercoating and you're good to go.
They're that good.

 

XJ's aren't 'most cars today', lol. The newest is over a decade old and the motor tech dates back to the Kennedy presidency.
I change mine at 3,000 because I mostly do short trips and it never really heats up good.

It's really an individual choice. If you have heavy blowby and your oil is getting a good dose of gas, or you do short trips, it needs more frequent changes. Tight motors that are warmed up on longer trips can go much further. Blackstone is an excellent idea to set your baseline.

 

5500 mile intervals here, oil analysis came back great. Might try and push it some more... Running rotella t6