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What Happens When Car Oil Is Not Changed Regularly

ByTsukasa Azuma-September 08, 2024

Just like blood inside your body, car oil is equally important to the engine. Car oil helps the engine run smoothly and accurately. But the oil cannot stay clean itself, and it is your job to change it for your car’s sake. Changing a car’s oil irregularly will reduce the car’s working efficiency, working age, and many more.

Hidden Dangers For Not Changing Car Oil Regularly

No matter how modern the car is, you will send it to the grave early if not change the lubricant every 10000 miles. It is the key factor to smooth the impact between metals. And as many drivers do not know, the impacts of old car oil on their vehicles are much worse:

1. Reduce car engine working efficiency

Old car oil creates difficulties for engine (photo source: http://www.tcservicecenter.com/engine.jpg)

After a long time of servicing, the heat in the working process will burn away all the coolant, which makes the engine hotter. Old oil is one of the reasons of engine overheating. This not only reduces the working efficiency of the car engine but also makes the engine hotter and damages other car parts.

2. Create dirt inside the engine

Horrible scene for all lazy drivers ! (photo source: piximus)

In the working process, engine details parts will be damaged which leads to abrasion. Leaving the oil without changing for too long will cause oil loss; more dirt will accumulate and the filter will not work effectively. At this time, dirt can wear out the engine. If the engine oil runs out, dirt will stick to the engine parts and cause damage to the vehicle. Not only that, high temperatures from the oil will also create dirt. Normally, this dirt will be collected under the hand of the “oil filter” to avoid sticking under the car engine. However, if car owners are too lazy to change the oil, the leftover car oil might be too little to “transport” all the dirty dirt to the filter.

Why do we need to filter this dirt? You can see the horror from the image upward. The dirt will firmly stick to the engine and slowly destroy it if drivers wait too long to change car oil.

3. Release polluted smoke

Imagine a luxury car letting out black smoke, terrible right? (photo source: thingsautos)

The older the oil, the easier it burns and releases toxic smoke. If you are a big fan of the environment, this is a huge problem! Drivers should change their car’s oil often as new oil creates less exhausting black smoke.

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4. Consume more fuels

Old car oil actually affects fuel-consumption (photo source: Dmitry Kalinovsky)

After driving for a long time, the lubrication effect of the oil has been decreased. As a result, car engines will be much hotter when working, which consumes more fuel. So if you do not want to lose a huge amount of cash from your gas bill, change the oil regularly!

5. Reduce car age

Change car oil regularly or change your car regularly (photo source: Kevin/Flickr)

This is by far the most common reason why your car breaks down so early. Irregularly oil changing not only decreases engine working efficiency but also scratches and damages other important vehicle parts. Not to mention, if your car runs out of oil, car owners might need to replace the engine with a new one.

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When You Need To Change Engine Oil?

Automakers often recommend changing engine oil after 5,000km or 10,000km… These recommendations are correct but not for all cases.

Depending on the vehicle’s usage conditions, oil changes may vary. For example, vehicles operating in harsh weather conditions, bad roads, driving a lot… will need to change their oil sooner than vehicles operating in favorable conditions.

Another way is using the dipstick. Based on the oil dipstick in the engine. The best way to check is when the engine is cold, the oil must not be lower than min; When the engine is hot, the oil should not be higher than max. Look at the color of the oil on the top of the dipstick. If the oil is black, it is time to change the oil. If it is yellow or orange, the oil is still good and should not be changed.

Note: Engine oil is not always the thicker the better. Currently, multi-grade lubricants both ensure viscosity and help the vehicle start easily whether at high or low temperatures. This type of lubricant is not too thick like previous single-grade lubricant products.

Tsukasa Azuma is an awesome car blogger of Car From Japan. He owns a car repair shop at downtown Osaka, and he put all that experience to good use in his sharing posts. Tsukasa’s blog is one of the best resources for information about keeping your favorite imported car running smoothly. Moreover, because of being passionate to learn about the recent happenings in auto industry, he doesn’t only provide great car maintenance tips, he also always updates latest trends in among car brands and share them in his own interesting viewpoint.

Comments

Kevin14:29 May 01, 2018
Reply

Dear Car from Japan,
I’m driving a new Jaguar and I found out after purchasing that the recommended period for servicing is one year and not 6 months like typical Japanese cars. Forumers say that the modern engine is designed to take that long duration of wear with the same engine oil. What is your take on this? Are modern engines different and thus exempt from the 6 monthly / 10000km advice?

Bahirwa john bosco16:24 November 19, 2017
Reply

I have been impressed by your car tips. Probably we just drive cars but we don’t know what may cause some problems. Thanks for teaching us.

kondo k.kondo04:06 October 15, 2017
Reply

tutorial is really educative and help people . to understand.
thanks