After how many hours to change the oil in a car engine?
Content
The issue of the frequency of engine oil changes is still relevant for drivers. If we read the service book of your vehicle, it will contain information about the maintenance schedule. One of the operations that is carried out during maintenance is changing the engine oil. Usually, the vehicle manufacturer recommends calling in a car service to change the oil every 15 thousand kilometers and at least once a year.
It is clear that different drivers operate their cars in different ways. For example, if you commute to work every day in Moscow, St. Petersburg or other million-plus cities with heavy traffic, you will have to get to know traffic jams and toffees better. And the distances are sometimes hundreds of kilometers a day. A completely different situation is drawn in small provincial cities and district centers, as well as with regular trips along intercity routes, during which you can easily develop optimal speed modes for the operation of the power unit.
Thus, it becomes necessary to find some other starting point for the most accurate determination of the engine oil change time. And it exists - engine hours. Motor hour, as it is not difficult to guess from the term itself, is one hour of engine operation. An hour meter (tachometer) is located on the instrument panel of almost any car that is produced in the Russian Federation or imported from abroad.
How to determine the oil change time by operating hours?
On modern German or Japanese cars, hour meters are integrated into the on-board computer. When the estimated service life of lubricants is approaching, the OIL CHANGE DUE type indicator lights up on the instrument panel, that is, “oil change required”. It remains only to go to the nearest official car service, where high-quality synthetic or semi-synthetic lubricant will be poured into the engine in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations. You also need to change the oil filter.
If we talk about products of the budget category of the domestic or Chinese automotive industry, this function is not provided by the manufacturer. In this case, you need to use the summary table, which indicates the resource of a particular type of lubricant:
- mineral water - 150-250 hours;
- semi-synthetics - 180-250;
- synthetics - from 250 to 350 (depending on the type and API classification);
- synthetic polyalphaolefin oil (polyalphaolefin - RAO) - 350-400;
- polyester synthetics (a mixture of polyalphaolefins and polyester base oil) - 400-450.
How do you use this data? In addition, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the engine hour is a rather arbitrary unit of the report, because there are many modes of operation of the power unit at different speeds. But regardless of whether you warmed up the engine for half an hour at idle, drove at a speed of 100 km / h on the German Autobahn, or crawled in a traffic jam along Kutuzovsky Prospekt, according to the hour meter, the engine worked for the same time. But he experienced different loads.
For this reason, you need to remember two formulas for calculating the oil change time by engine hours:
- M = S / V (we divide the mileage by the average speed and we get the hours);
- S = M * V (mileage is determined by multiplying engine hours by speed).
From here, you can roughly calculate the mileage at which it is time to change the engine oil. For example, if you have synthetics filled with a resource of 250 engine hours, and the average speed, according to the computer, is 60 km / h, we get (250 * 60) the required 15 thousand kilometers.
If we assume that you live in Moscow, where the average speed of car traffic, according to various estimates and at different times of the day, is from 27 to 40 km / h, then using the above formula, we get:
- 250 * 35 = 8750 km.
Agree that the data obtained is perfectly consistent with real life. As you know from automotive practice, it is in traffic jams and during slow movement that engine resources are consumed most quickly.
What happens if you don't change the oil on time?
Many drivers can say that they do not count the operating hours, but simply follow the manufacturer's instructions for passing MOT every 10-15 thousand km. It should be understood that these rules are drawn up for average ideal conditions under which the car is operated at average speeds of 70-90 km / h, which is almost impossible to achieve in the realities of modern megacities.
Engine oil, regardless of its type and the cost of the canister, is designed for a certain service life of engine hours. Upon expiration of this period, the following occurs:
- viscosity decreases - the integrity of the oil film on the cylinder walls and crankshaft journals is disturbed;
- in the case of mineral water or semi-synthetics, the viscosity, on the contrary, increases - the fluidity of the lubricant decreases, it clogs into thin ducts and oilers, oil starvation occurs;
- oxidation - additives lose their protective properties;
- the accumulation of metal particles and dirt in the lubricant - all this clogs the ducts, is deposited in the crankcase.
It is clear that an experienced driver is responsible for such a procedure as measuring the lubricant level, which we previously wrote about on our portal vodi.su. If the oil is black, foreign particles are felt in it, then it's time to change it. The problem, however, is that in many modern cars it is quite difficult to get to the oil filler plug.
Note also that the frequency of replacement largely depends on the condition of the engine. The above data are compiled for more or less new cars under warranty that have passed no more than three maintenance. If the mileage has exceeded the 150 thousand km mark, the service interval will become even shorter. At the same time, do not forget that you need to fill in oil with a higher viscosity index to maintain the pressure at the desired level.
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