I use synthetic and change it every 3k miles... and it gets REALLY expensive (especially for a student) Im wondering if im just wasting my cash. The manual that came with the car says to change the oil every 5k miles under normal conditions. I don't know what's normal but I don't drive my car hard at all; put about 9k miles on it per year, rarely shift over 3k rpm, i dont even think ive ever been stuck in rush-hour traffic. Basically im thinking I can continue using synthetic and change it every 5k or switch to the natural stuff and keep changing it every 3k, it would cost about the same, what would be better? Also what about synthetic blends, are they any good? (like castrol syntec)
With 9K miles/year, that's only 2 or 3 oil changes per year ?!?! Even with synthetic, it's not that much! I pay about 50 buck per oil change, it's like 2 tanks of gas...