Maybe a stupid question but how often do you guys change your oil if using a good synthetic like amsoil? The manual for my 2008 Sportsman 500 HO says every 100 hrs, 620 miles, or 6 months whichever comes first. Well, the 6 months is nonsense but how often does everyone else do it if you don't hit the recommended mileage or hours in a year? My amsoil still looks new after 2 years and 600 miles.

 

We always did the 25 hr break in oil change and reset the speedo to 50 hrs and let the customer decide! I know the manual says 100 hrs,6 months, 620 km (1000 miles) BUT the way I looked at was you are dealing with only two quarts of oil versus several thousand bucks you paid for the machine. Two quarts and an oil filter is actually cheap when you really look at it. I'm the same type of guy that took a loooooong time to go longer than 3,000 miles with synthetic on my autos. I still won't go past 4500 miles tops.(still semi old school) The call is yours as far as oil change intervals. If you think the oil is still good at 620 km,you can run it longer. OR you can send a sample to Bob the Oil Guy to analyze it for you OPT

 

I'm with yah on the intervals there OPT, except I still am old school on the auto's, every 3K. It's $25 INVESTMENT, and my wife's Pontiac Grand Prix with 3800 V-6 is approaching 300k on the dream meter and burns no oil between changes!!!!!

 

I've always done 25hrs, then 100hrs for the second. After that it really depends on how/where you ride. Prior to snorkelling and extending my vent tubes I changed all fluids at least twice a year (after Spring mudding and before Winter). Diffs got done more frequently if I went really deep. Will just be doing fluid changes annually unless I put on a lot of miles. Like the others stated, it's not that expensive to do it once a year and the benefits are peace of mind along with a maintenance record to show a potential buyer it was kept up when the time comes to sell/upgrade.

 

Thanks for the input. I'll probably chg the oil this week. I don't ride it hard but 2 years is kinda past my comfort level i guess.

 

Don't blame ya on this! I would change oil too even if it looked spotless after TWO years. You have to consider not just the oil breakdown itself(which might be minimal) but the gas contamination which happens to all the engines,especially on first crank up with the choke on to warm the engine up. Not all the fuel is burned properly and a small amount can find it's way back to the oil. The only thing I change oil on once a year on and tuneup is my riding mower that I use twice a month for about 6 months.All this oil change talk makes me want to go change the oil on my old Honda now even though I hardly ride it OPT

 

Most People average 10 mph. 100 hrs would be closer to 1000 miles.
100hrs or 600 miles is averaging only 6 mph. That must be alot of idling time or putting around the household yard.

Anyways I Just change the oil once every spring, but up here ATVs are stored most of our 3 to 4 month long winters.

 

Yep,TLC seems like most of break in oil changes that I did had between 200-250 miles on the speedo at 25 hrs which averaged out close to 10 mph. Same thing when I averaged out most oil changes on tuneups,it always came close to 10mph on average. Was thinking the same thing on mileage and time that elapsed. OPT

 

I change ours once every spring, but ours don't see a ton of use either. If we used them more, I would probably go ahead and change it about halfway through the year. Even with minimal use, I wouldn't leave the oil in there more than a year. Our machines don't have odometers or hour meters so I don't know exactly how many miles or hours we are actually putting on them.

 

I did my first at 17, second will be done next weekend, at 50. For the winter I may do every 30 hours, since it will be ridden and plowing. May go back to 50 for the summer, will see!!

RP 0W40 & AC PF 2135 Filter.