Dlouie

Hey guys,
Just got a ecoboost premium in august, and the dealership said Im due for a maintenance for oil change and tire rotations. Thing is, this car is a weekend driver car for me and only has 720 miles and the intelligent oil monitor says im at 61% health with the oil and everythings okay. It sits in my driveway for the weekdays and im just curious if I need to oil change it so fast, I plan to do it at 1k to get the metal shavings out after breaking in the new engine. After that they told me to change it every 9 months on full synthethic and 6 months on semi synthethic to prevent hoses and stuff from "drying out" but Just wanna ask the experts here I know it shouldn't but freezing temps in NY area are iffy, I also plan to change the tires to all seasons as I live in NY and kinda a mustang newbie so sorry for the inquiries but please help a new mustang enthusiast out! As im used to the 3k or a year oil change and the dealership here is a little iffy sometimes as most of em kinda are scumbags, but please let me know! I would prefer to do it at firestone or any other mechanic since the mechanics are known to mess up sometimes there. Any other maintenance I should do?

Jazzman442

Yea same thing happened to me. Found out later that is the way to get you back in for service. My first oil changes was at the year mark with 2800 miles.

Dlouie

Yeah would figure, was told by a friend to have it swapped at 1k after the engine breaks in and any metal shavings can get rooted out. Was curious if my driving habits of not driving much and short distance (I go about 10+ miles each trip) would dry out the hoses etc.

AWmustang

Short trips are harder on an engine than long trips as the car is happiest when everything is up to operating temp which takes a lot longer than you think. (I only found this out with my ST which has an oil temp gauge. The oil takes WAY longer to come up to temp than the water). However, I've never heard of hoses drying out as the result of those short trips. Usually its exhaust system rusting since it doesn't get hot enough to evaporate all the water.

My dealer says I'm supposed to come in every 5000 miles, but I just follow the oil life monitor. That's enough to keep the warranty happy and I'm leasing so long term concerns are not an issue. For our explorer I'm thinking I'll still use the oil life monitor but aim for 25% instead of running it down into the single digits.

As for the timing since you drive so little, Ford says never go more than 12 months between changes regardless of what the mileage is or what the oil life monitor says. So 9 months seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Joeywhat

Short trips mean water in the oil. It never gets hot enough to evaporate all the condensation inside, which is especially a problem in cold temps. Warm the engine fully at least once per tank of gas. This usually means about 30 minutes straight driving.

Dlouie

@Awmustang Since I own the car, I plan to do this long time. The area I live in doesn't really have 30+ minutes of driving more like 20ish minutes at most. I planned to do the yearly 12 months as that's what I've been told for most of my life. But I heard about the condensation happening and the dealership said more frequent oil changes. But what are ways to counteract that effect and keep it healthy?

@Joeywhat Yeah I heard about that but my area of driving is maximum of 25 minutes unless I'm going to two places, relatively small area (I know) so how can I keep this beast healthy to live a long life?

Joeywhat

Drive longer once in a while?

Dlouie

Will try, for sure Joeywhat but from one end to the other end of the island is about like 30minutes total. Besides that maybe I'll drive 30 minutes or spurts of 10-15 in a day will changing the oil more help? Or something? That's what the dealership "claims"