jhbrennan

Since Porsche now says 1 quart/600 miles is "normal", not sure I'd wait for 3K to check - I check mine after every drive - takes 10 seconds or less.

Chris from Cali

FWIW, I do all three of my cars (all German, all running full synthetic) every 5K. Cheap insurance...

USMC_DS1

Every 3K miles or 5-6 months which ever comes 1st. DIY @ ~$75/change keeps the cost low and my vehicle well maintained. On average I only putting 5K+ miles per year on the car.

slicky rick

Im sticking with the yearly maintenance or every 15k kms. Acutally hit the 15k kms/ year only on the first year... Now just averaging 6 to 7k kms so am ok. Maybe will go with the 5w 40 after warranty expires.

sbpsu354

5k miles on both the Boxster and the C2S, probably because it make me feel better

Devil Boy

Every 5000 miles for me. It's an easy interval number to remember.

jakes dad

I believe that the first oil change is the most important..... I changed the oil at around three thousand the first time and I'll probably do the ten thousand change after that..
Problem is that I've had the car for around three years and I've only got 6500 miles on it so far...
Looks like I'll be doing the two year change from now on....
and that folks is my piece of "unsubstantiated conjecture"
chow

spourreza

I thought Porsche recommends oil change every 10k????

Michael Air

I would say every 5k mi or every 6 months whichever is sooner. Both time and mileage should be considered given the primary degredation mechanisms: viscosity breakdown and contaminant loading. Viscosity breaks down over time and is affected by heat and how hard it's being worked. So it's more related to mileage. But with contaminants, the factors are more related to operating environment. Even if you don't drive much and your viscosity is fine, you don't want your oil with contaminants (including acids) sitting in the engine for 4+ months over the winter storage season (if applicable). What is the contaminant loading in your oil at any given time? Good question... So not a bad idea to change oil spring and fall. That would be every 2 X pi months.

Palmbeacher

I don't have a choice. My extended warranty has a clause that mandates I change oil and filter every 6 mos or 5K miles, whichever comes first. For me that means an oil service every 3-3,5K.

Fahrer

Actually if the car is sitting, you are not adding acids and the additives have done and are doing their job. Vicosity breakdowmn is mostly from shear ( use). Oxidation is from high temp exposure and ca result in sludge under sever circumstanes. I would only change the oil more often than once per year for a car that gets only 5000 mile per year use would be if those trips are short ones (e.g., 2-5 miles/trip). If one gets the oil temp up over 200F for each trip there is no reason to change the oil more often than once per year.

McCulla

Every 3K mi.

aaks38

im doing around 8-10k or one year, i sent my oil analysis to blackstone labs and they recommended 10k drain intervals based on my samples. Even at 9k, my wear was well below industry average taken from most cars they have on file.

RJKflyer

This is an interesting thread, as predicted.

My two cents:
1. The manufacturer sets these things based around a prudent balance of engineering demand versus cost.
2. Whatever interval they choose, it will be based around some sort of statistically 'average' or 'acceptable' conditions.

Quite obviously, the need to change anything depends upon how you drive it and under what conditions. If you're driving in the desert, not too surprisingly you'll need to change the air filter more frequently than 'average'.

Same with spark plugs - I don't leave them as long as the manufacturer 'recommends' simply as I gauge i drive my car harder than 'average' and therefore do more sparks than 'average'. And spark plugs will, in principle, wear out faster if you get more sparks out of them...

So, to oil. If you do lots of short journeys then that's more punishing than 'average' as your oil will hold more undesirables than someone who does a 10 mile drive that warms it to 90 deg C, and so you might benefit from more frequent changes than 'average'. Equally if you track it every weekend, and are running 120deg C throughout, then ditto.

So, surely we just apply our judgement and adjust accordingly. Yes, chances are, we'll be 'OK" with the manufacturer's interval, but some of us like to improve our 'chances' and err on the safe side. A taxi-driver friend of mine has done 350k miles in some ropey old Peugeot, same engine, no work at all on it, but he's changed the oil every 5k.

For me, on my 997.2TT, 5-6k or 6 months, whichever comes first. If it wasn't a TT then I would probably double that. As the prior poster has alluded to, if you really want a better 'answer' than we should get the oil tested and build up an experience profile.

As a closer, what i do find interesting is that the interval on our sorts of cars is the same as on my wife's 2 litre BMW, and i really would have envisaged a more demanding change schedule for us. Simply as I'm not sure I accept that the Porsche engine is engineered than much better...

Minok

This seems a bit of an arrogant thing to say, to attack owners personally, and to think you have special insight into the design decisions Porsche made in developing the engine and manufacturing specifications and tolerances.

First, there is a difference between stupid and ignorant.

Second, do you think Porsche made a blunder in the design like someone got a digit wrong in the data sent to the plants making engine parts (not quite the Mars landing imperial vs metric debacle but similar)... maybe fat-fingered it on data entry? Or did they make a design decision that trades some oil burn in exchange for other performance outcomes?

Quite a few cars burn oil and it seems to vary from make to make and model to model.

If you want a car that burns no oil, I would think you would have to lease a car for a year to get some experience with that build and if its not up to snuff, try another car, and keep going till you end up with one that burns to your liking. I'd argue that if it really burns no oil at all, the lubricant cannot be doing its full job.