My mom's car is using/leaking about 1 quart of oil every 500 miles. It only smokes at start up if it has been sitting for over a day. Heck, I'm thinking if it's leaking a quart of oil every 500 miles, that's 4 quarts every 2,000 miles.

So, my question is, do we do an oil change every 3,000 miles or just change the filter every 3,000?

 

Do an oil change. You could do it every 4000 or so because it is alot of new oil. But you have no way of telling if it's the new oil being burned or not. Plus just changing the filter would get messy if you you didn't completely drain the oil.

 

I've always been told that removing the oil filter will not drain the oil. Never tried it but just thought it would be easy to do. Also, once you turn the key to start the car it will mix all the oil. The oil will always be 25% new from my estimate. Every 500 miles add a fresh quart.

 

that is why I suggest you change it every 4-5k miles, because if it is at 25% it will not be fresh oil, but you will be able to last longer between oil change. Good question...I am curious to get others views because I am by no means an expert.

 

Also you could probably go even longer than that if you put in some additives too. From all the cars I've had, the oil immediately comes out, but haven't done one since I've owned a Volvo. Would be interested to know, let me know if you find out for sure, or I'll let you know when I change mine.

 

I usually do the same. When I got my yellow T-5R, the oil looked like it was brand new, like vegetable oil. I changed it anyway and later learned that it was synthetic. Then when I got this wagon it was the same way. I believe it had about 500 miles on the oil and it was very clean as well. So I left it till I got it home, 1,500 miles. I run synthetic in it now.

 

Yeah, it's best to run the turbos with synthetic because the temperature they run at. Well, I do a semi-synthetic sometimes because it's cheaper.