How often should I change my vehicle's oil?

How often should I change my oil? Welcome to Mercie J Auto Care, where compassion and craftsmanship come together, I'm Rick Smith. Now that's a loaded question and if you ask 10 different technicians, you're probably going to get 10 different answers. I'll give you the short version quick and then I'll explain it. We recommend that you stick to about a 6000, well anywhere from 5 to 7,000 Mile oil change interval and that you use full synthetic oil. Here's one of the challenges that we're facing. Most of our automobiles have what's called variable valve timing and that has very tiny passages, requires really good high quality oil and it does require to be changed fairly often. The problem is some of the manufacturers are saying that it doesn't need to be done for long periods of time. Take this 2012 Camry for example. When they came in, it was out of oil and the reason it is out of oil is because we have low tension piston rings and it is causing it to burn a little bit of oil. So it's important to check your oil between oil changes and have your oil changed more frequently than what they recommend. There's a number of reasons they recommend the long times and some of them are political but I won't get into that. Bottom line is if you stick around 5000 miles and you check it in between you should be able to protect your car and not end up like this Camry with bad cam phasers which is a major auto repair bill. I hope this has been informational to you and until next time, safe travels and blessings to you.