Oil change

Bought my wife a new 07 Lincoln Town Car last June, 10 months later it has only 3700 miles on it. Oil changes are discussed in mileage, not time, so when do we change oil, once a year will not produce enough mileage.

You should read your owners manual and follow the severe maintenance schedule. The schedule in the manual is based on both mileage and time.

If I were you, I’d change your oil every 6 months (fall and spring work well) or at 3,000 miles, whichever comes first. You’ll want to follow the time schedule for all maintenance, not just oil changes.

I like to change oil the first time within the first 2000 miles. I know anymore, they say you don’t have to worry about break in oil, but it can’t hurt anything. That said, I’ll put about 2000 miles on in about 3 weeks. After the first change, I got every 5000 miles on my gas engines, and 6,000 to 8,000 on the diesel trucks.

In this case, you aren’t hardly driving the vehicle enough to justify owning it. I still would have changed the oil at 2000 miles. I’d probably use a good synthetic oil and change it yearly if your mileage remains the same.

Skip

Your owner’s manual will list miles OR time for frequency of oil changes. Look there.

A good rule-of-thumb for lightly driven vehicles is an oil change every six months, spring and fall. The suggestion above for an annual oil change using the more expensive synthetic oil is another acceptable possibility.

In fact, MB, it probably does not have any info about time intervals. My '99 Merc manual and My wife’s 2002 Ford manual don’t have any time info for service, only mileage.

To the OP, if she takes a lot of short trips, be sure to follow the severe duty schedule. If she drives it long enough to warm it up, just not very often in it, you should be fine with once a year.