I'm interested to know what your philosophy is towards oil changes. Atleast in Sweden, Renault says it's 2 years or 12500 miles between oil changes on a 265 (or whenever the "car" tells you to) I however wouldn't want to drive much more than 6000 miles between changes in a car that sees some good thrashing from time to time. Seeing as the counter currently says 11months/5200 miles left I was wondering if I should bother changing the oil now or just wait. Looks fine when you pull the dip stick out and have a look (hard to tell, but yeah) So how often do you guys do changes? What oil do you use?
Once a yr at least. about 7-8k if your doing more then that. I don't personally trust the 2yr service intervals. Always use quality oil to
Stick to the manufacturers service schedule. Against the grain I know, but all the problems I've had (many) have had nothing to do with not changing the oil enough. Personally I think you're all wasting your time & money.
I was thinking of switching to Motul 300V 5w40 when I first got the car. I have used Motul on some previous cars. Then compared the price of ELF with Motul and gave up on the idea. If the factory says to change every 12500 miles guess that is what we are supposed to do. I change every 7500 miles.
I stick to the schedule....the car does no track time and isn't thrashed every second of the day, so I don't see why Renault wouldn't know how often the oil in their own machine needs changing
Mine's done once a year which works out about every 6k at the moment - it hardly even gets a chance to go dark. When I was doing trackdays and more mileage I would change it once myself between each service, but it's not worth it at the moment. The oil is designed to last a lot longer than we leave it in there! I change the oil on my Caterham every year at 3-5k! Admittedly, that does a few trackdays and does rev a good bit higher than the Megane. I found that Fuchs Titan Race Pro works very well in my Caterham (might be snake oil but I swear the car runs better on it). If you want a quality oil for your Megane, you can't beat that stuff.
If you are doing normal road driving i agree with the above Or annually (Regardless of miles). If you do track time 6k or 6months
I change every 5000 miles on both the Megane and Audi. The cams on my Audi actually wore out due to the previous owner having the car on a "long life" service schedule. First oil change was carried out at 32,000 miles - I kid you not. Had to change the cams, rockers, lifters.etc at 120k, about two months after purchasing the car! Now approaching 200k with oil changes every 5k (blanked off the EGR) - every time I look through the oil filler the head looks cleaner every time, oil stays golden for at least 2000 miles - not bad for a diesel. Using Titan Supersyn in the Megane at the moment, I can hear the slightest of tapping on cold starts for a few minutes (no aftermarket exhaust to hide the sound yet) - So trying the same stuff I use in the Audi at the next change (Helix Ultra 5-40) - I did think about going for esther based oil, but the car doesnt do a lot of miles and is mostly driven by the missus - it is her car I guess!
