by Jeffrey Sammerson

Created on: September 17, 2007

If you really need to ask how often to check your cars' oil, then you had better run outside and check it now. The oil in a car is by far the most important maintenance item to keep up on. The oil is just as important for your car as your blood is to you. Without it the car will seize up and die.

With that being said, lets talk about some different scenarios we all fall into with our cars, and how often we should check and/or change our oil. I tend to check my car's oil every time I think about, but I try to use the following as a rule of thumb.

Obviously, how often you check your oil will partially depend on how often you drive and how long the trips you drive are. If you drive your car thirty miles a day, which sounds like a lot of miles, but if you work fifteen miles away, this is you. These people should check their oil at least once every two weeks. I am in this category and I check my oil once a week.

Now if you are over thirty miles a day or you make a lot of short, stop and go trips, you should try to check it once a week. But if you can do it every ten days or so that will suffice.

Some of you are probably saying "I barely drive my car half of that". Then you are in another group. If you don't drive much or carpool to work or use a lot of public transportation, you should check your oil no less than once a month. But try not to go too far over three weeks under any circumstances.

Another thing to remember if you are in this group is not to go over three months before changing your oil because it will lose viscosity just sitting stagnant in your engine. Just something to keep in mind. On your cars oil cap it will tell you which kind of oil to put in the car, so that will help with viscosity problems as well.

Viscosity is very important. If you oil is too thick it will take too long to circulate through your engine. Leaving vital engine parts unprotected and vulnerable to metal to metal contact. If your oil is too thin. It will heat up way too fast and break down and lose viscosity which is just as bad.

Now I am a little meticulous about my cars, so I like them to be in tip top shape, so I don't expect everyone to check their oil every week. But to sum it all up, the more you check your oil the better off you are.

It only takes a minute or so and you don't need any tools at all. So if you are half way through an oil change and you haven't checked your oil recently, do yourself and your car a favor, go check your oil. Just by checking you oil on a regular basis you can get many more miles out of the car in the long run.

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