Yup, agreed. The darker color is the suspended junk in the oil.

But..if there is an abnormal change, something is up. If the oil is normally amber and suddenly is jet black, get a UOA to see why. If it looks like a chocolate milkshake, it's bad news. No color at all, don't drive it. Fuel dilution and coolant cause the color to change.

I don't know how the message center gets it's info. If it does some sort of simple UOA with electric current or it reads milesage from the last reset, no idea. I don't think I'd trust it anyway.

 

get an oil analysis. That is the only way to tell how the oil is interacting with the car.

I am using mobile 1 every 7k plus track days.

Identical user did 8k plus 3-4 track days and is in completely normal wear levels. I will be sticking with 7-8k miles on my mobile 1 5w-20

 

It would be interesting to know how the message center does this. Will google tonight.

 

Question regarding 4 months oil change interval. The counter says its left 10% or a week. The car is new and i have driven only some 1000miles .do i still need to change oil?

 

Why not just stick to the manufacturer's recommended PSI? Raising tire pressure will make the ride more harsh and can cause preemptive wear.

 

As stated, I've gotten MUCH better wear out of tires (mileage wise) since I started doing it differently. My father-in-law and I had had same year-model Ford F150s with the same factory tires (General, I think). He always ran recommended PSI... and that was the vehicle I started running higher with. He replaced his by necessity at around 40K miles; I replaced mine at close to 80K, and more because I found a deal on new ones than the wear. Surprisingly enough, no service personnel have ever even questioned me about it... including three Ford dealers and the tire shop. The only time I notice a harsher ride is going over speed bumps.

 

You will of course get much better milage since you're dramatically decreasing the amour of friction between the car and the road--less surface contact. If the rubber and seals are good enough, the increased weight per square inch on the tire tread is negligible. As long as you're not overinflated by more than 5 psi or so, you should be alright.

 

There's an old post on the oil life indicator on the message center but I'm not going to look it up now. It lists the criteria the car uses to determine oil life. In older vehicles, this was simply a mileage counter. In the new Mustangs, the computer is looking at crankshaft revolutions, temperature, rpm, and some other factors that I don't remember. The computer's going to have a very good idea of you hard the oil has been used and when it should be changed. Some people are going to change their oil based on instincts but I'm going with the computer.

The exception is time. The manual says to change the oil at least once a year, even if the computer says it's not worn out yet. If you put your Mustang away every winter and you never rack up enough miles in a year to get close to zero on the oil life monitor, change it before you put it away for the winter.

 

Good advice! I'll look up that thread when I get home tonight

 

This. I'm going by the computer too. Coming up on 6k miles for me and I have about 65% oil. Waiting for the little light to ding before making my appointment

 

Here is a link to the Ford Owners page. The video is about 4 minutes long and explains the Intelligent Oil Monitoring System (IOMS), and the method of operation.

https://www.flmowner.com/servlet/Con...&model=Mustang