Recently was looking over the service history of my 2015 mazda 3 and noticed something terrible. I went from 6/22 - 11/23 without an oil change. I hardly have been driving this car so I didn’t even realize it had been so long. My sticker only had a mileage on it and not a date and I stupidly didnt realize how long it took me to do 5k miles. The car only has 85k on it.

I live in Chicago which is a harsh climate with mostly city driving. However, the car was opened up on the highway every month or two for a decent amount of time/distance. How much damage might have I caused? It had full synthetic in it at least but I am terrified because this car is expected to see a lot of use from here on out and needs to last which I’m afraid is not going to happen now.

  • izikpavlyuk@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    While it’s definitely not great to have 17 month oil. I think it’s pretty safe to say if nothing feels amiss in how it drives, just get it changed and try to keep it under 12 months ;) While it would be pretty hard to say what, if anything, got damaged. Running old or dirty oil won’t lubricate the internals as well thus creating “more wear”. But I really wouldn’t worry about it considering it was only a couple months after the manufacturer recommended 12 month max interval.

  • paulbunyanwascool@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I still haven’t changed the oil in my honda and it’s been over 20k easy. Is it smart? No but I don’t enjoy the car at all and have another

  • rayco37@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    So much misinformation here… actually I don’t care. Yeah do you oil changes every 10k dealerships will love you down the road

  • DiamondplateDave@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I had a '92 Sentra I bought from a friend; had 175K on it. He told me he hadn’t changed the oil since he bought it, think it was about 1 year? And he drove lots of city miles, hard, every day.

    Was still running perfect when I scrapped it because it rotted out.

    The car I have now, 2004 Sonata, 117K, I went 12 months without changing the oil. I don’t drive that much, so was less than 5K. I did drive it 20-40 miles on the highway every month or so. I’m guessing the 2.4 will still be running when it goes to the scrapyard as well.

    I doubt you did any damage at all to the Mazda.

  • Herdnerfer@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Honestly it probably didn’t do any damage, modern cars can go a lot longer than they used to between oil changes. If you need to put your mind at ease you can ask them when you get it changed if the oil looked unusually bad.

  • Molecularmann@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I would get one of these oil analysis kits from blackstone labs and see what they say based on your situation. It’s like $35 and it would just be an interesting report for yourself and other redditors to look at. Either way, I think you are fine if you just change it asap.

  • W0lff_F0rge@alien.topB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Oil sits on the shelf at stores for years, the time intervals are a scam. I’ve always changed my oil off of mileage, all my cars engines have lasted over 200k.