Oil change dilemma

[CANAM 4 Stroker]

Drive it. You have 200 miles on brand new oil. That is one day. Your situation is not different than someone that changed their oil before storage. In fact better maybe, considering that you ran for 200 miles and cleaned up the internal engine with new oil. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[Attack gt]

I would not change it with only a couple hundred miles on it if it is a quality full synthetic oil. If it is the semisynthetic or conventional oil I would change it and go full synthetic. Even though you have very little miles on it time is the factor you are looking at now. I am using AMS oil signature series 0w 30 and change the oil at the end of every season. This oil is good for like 25000 miles or one year according to AMS Oil. It being a quality full synthetic I trust changing it at the end of each season just before storage. Just my opinion.

 

[Irv]

Its fine. After studying the repeated oil studies available from even cheapo oil as a engineer I am almost convinced you never need to change the oil EVER. The engines are so clean and the oil is so good its just not needed like it use to be.

Just validate you dont have a leak or coolant in the oil or anything catastrophic like that and your fine. I changed my oil filter once and wont touch it again. Snow has to be the very best environment for oil in 4 strokes. Zero dust, etc.

I'm going to every other year on my oil changes as long as the dipstick smell and flashlight test show it looks good. That is on my supercharged trail sled that is a lot harder on engines then stock.

Does oil not accumulate acids eventually, especially if it is not changed at least annually?

Yes but it takes sooooo long before the oil goes bad. Oil studies of different oils showed at 80,000 miles the levels of accumulation were still way below the reccomended change level.

Its easy to say "it feels good" and its cheap but its just a pure waste if you ask me. I used to change my oil every 3000 miles on my vehicals. Now I go about 12,000-20,000 miles between changes on my cars, saves me a TON of money especially since the truck is no less then $60 by the time I get out of there and I put on 30,000 miles a year on. I think there is something to be said for the sleds though that sit for long periods of time vs one that is used daily. That is why I will go every two years. Even that is probably a waste. I will send off the next 2 year oil sample to be analyzed and see what they say. If it comes back that the oil is barely contaminated and has 90% life left I may just never change the oil when I average 1000-2000 miles a year.

This isn't something easy for me to do I want the best for the machine and my vehicals but the data is very overwhelming and starting to sway me.

Thanks Kinger.

I remember seeing a show on T.V. a looong time ago where they sampled oil from N.Y. City cabs, and in all cases they showed the oil still had lots of life left in them after they were ran 5,000 miles in stop and go traffic and excessive idling.
(Which is the worst we have been told?)
Those oils that were tested were also regular Dino oils, not synthetics so that says a lot too.

I also do once a year oil changes in my dailey drivers as both receive synthetic so I know they are still good with the amount of miles I do. I just always thought, as I have been told, that all oils should be changed once a year regardless of milage due to acid accumulations but now I may rethink that.

I would also love to do a UOA on my vehicles and sled just to see but there is no local place around to do so.

Curious, what oil are you using? I am running Mobil-1 0W-40 Euro Formula and have seen countless UOA's on bistog.com but those were all taken from cars and trucks, not high reving snowmobiles or motorcycles.