Since I have an oil leak, I figured that why should I change the oil if it just leaks out? Yes, I am a woman. Anyway, I had a look to see if I should add some yesterday, and it was almost dry as a bone. I put 2 quarts in. Everything seems fine.
Mazda has 160,000 miles, my mechanic told me that I probably shouldn’t invest in any big repairs in the future. But, other than oil leaking, it seems ok.
My question: If I have to buy another vehicle, what do I get?
What I want in order of importance:
1.ease of getting in and out of vehicle, I get in and out about 40x a day. Don’t want to wreck my knees/back
2.decent milage, I drive about 25 city *san francisco hills, and 20 freeway per day
I have a dog walking business and transport about 6 small dogs at one time. Like to have a flat cargo area. My friend does her dogs in a honda fit and everyone fits in just fine. I’d love to have a fit, but it’s too low to the ground for my body.
My Mazda Mpv is more than enough room!
I was thinking of the Mazda5 smaller van option. I love the seats in the mazda and being higher than a regular car.
Any ideas? Want a used vehicle, any specific years I should looks for.
Somehow this has worked out for me. I never changed the oil in any of my vehicles, and they did all last as long as my friends cars. I will for sure take good car of my next car, it may be my last!
And there are people who smoked all their lives and never got cancer or any lung problems…and there are people who never wear their seatbelts and never get in an accident.
I’m with Whitey…You got LUCKY. I’ve seen engines that never had their oil change…and it’s NOT pretty.
@shrimp, I’m glad it’s worked out for you, but realize you’re an anomaly and not representative of the rest of the world. I agree with MikeInNH…I’ve smoked for 30 years and don’t have lung cancer. But there’s no way anyone would suggest that smoking isn’t bad for you.
Any used vehicle you find make sure you have records indicating oil changes have been done before you stop doing them.
When you sell the car, make sure you divulge to the buyer that the car has never been maintained.
If you don’t do this, bad karma will follow you for the rest of your days.
I would hope that if the OP buys a low miles, near new car that loses more oil than the Exxon Valdez due to never having had the oil changed they will not point the finger at the seller…
My advice is going to be a little different. But, what I think you should do is based on a number of factors that you so far have not divulged. I do think you should get the oil changed periodically. Your logic does have a little merit, but it does not account for the fact that some of the oil leaking out is the fresh oil you just added. All the oil that leaks out is not the old oil.
For that reason, your oil is deteriorating, though maybe at a slightly slower rate as you are “contaminating” the old oil with some fresh, but after adding 4 quarts of fresh oil to replace what has leaked, you have not done the equivalent of an oil change. You still have about 31% of the old oil still in the engine. If you are adding a qt per 1000 miles, then the first qt you added will have also reached its change limit, so you are looking at less than half an oil change. And don’t forget that the filter needs changing too.
Fix the leak or not depends on two factors, what is the rate of oil loss and what is the cost of the fix. Your leak could be as simple as needing new valve cover gaskets or a new oil pressure sending unit. Maybe even a new PCV valve might greatly reduce the loss. Possibly you might just need a new washer on your oil drain plug, which could be changed along with the oil at the next oil change. If it is something cheap and simple, get it fixed.
Now if it is something like a rear main seal or front crankshaft seal, the cost to repair would be way too high to ever recover the cost of the oil saved. If it is the front crankshaft oil seal, that could be done cheaply if you have a timing belt and it comes due for replacement. Once the old timing belt is removed, replacing the seal is a quick job, but to tear that far into the engine just for that seal would not be cost effective.
What you may not realize is that the oil system has a filter, and that filter will break down over time and spew bits of itself into the passages, potentially blocking them and causing catastrophic damage to the engine.
“I got away with it this time, so it must be OK to do it again” is the kind of thinking that blew up the space shuttle, and not a reasonable way to approach equipment.
Car manufacturers do not recommend oil changes out of some grand conspiracy with the oil companies.
How long is “never”? I doubt that you are the original owner.
I have worked on vehicles that people stopped changing oil on because they planned to replace the vehicle soon. After the years go by and they are still driving that vehicle I think they wished they had taken better care of it.
A co-worker of mine – this was 15 years ago – had a 12 year old Toyota Corolla that she had purchased new and had never changed the oil even once. She never changed the oil filter either. She just added some oil when it got low. Worked for her for 12 years I guess. She felt she had got a good deal out of the car, since while it complained and needed some attention at a couple points, like the occasional brake job, headlamp replacement, maybe a set of spark plugs, her car never broke down and stranded her while she was driving it. For her, 12 years of mostly trouble free economical & reliable-enough-to-get-you-there-and-back driving was good enough, money well spent. If the next stop was the crusher for her car, ok by her. She’d just buy another one.
If she tried to do this with a newer Corolla, one with the variable valve timing, it might be more problematic. The newer ones seem to be a little more sensitive to oil deposits gumming up the works.
Me too…It always amazes me how people can spend tens of thousands of dollars on an item and then treat it like cr*p and expect it to keep right on running…Good luck when you buy a home.
Can you make enough money walking dogs to buy, maintain and insure a motor vehicle? My brother-in-law lives in D.C. He charges $1/minute to walk dogs. He stays pretty busy…
@Caddyman, there are at least two dog walkers in my DC neighborhood.
If they getting even close to $1/minute oh boy!
I’ve seen one who takes as many as 8 dogs at a time, and another who takes 4-5 biggish dogs and they pull her on a skateboard.