Video: Is the oil life monitor accurate?

[Mooseman]

I was actually surprised. And a bit of history too. This guy knows his stuff.

However, that being said, I don't believe what he said about the time factor where it won't let you go over a year. During the pandemic, the TB sat a lot and it did go over a year without an oil change and I'm pretty sure it won't take into account the little old lady going to church scenario neither. When my TB and Caprice were owned by the RCMP, they had very low usage but they always changed the oil every year regardless or even at winter/summer tire change. I'm gonna dial it back for the fleet I'm managing now to 1 year as many of them don't get used enough.


That being said, I still change it before the OLM tells me to, typically between 25-35%, especially my diesel. That usually comes to about 7-8000 km.

 

[christo829]

With the change to teleworking and a few other alterations to the pre-pandemic routines, I've definitely gone over a year without changing the oil, and that was following the monitor. Switching the TB over to full synthetic has helped, since they're less prone to breakdown than dino oil. I have a short drive to work (1.5 miles), so in theory the algorithm should be dinging me, but I do try to get it out on the highway at least once a week just to get ti up to temp and speed. (I'd walk to the office, but a coupe of the roads I would cross are *not* pedestrian friendly and neither are some of the drivers.) I usually buy the next case and filter when the OLM hits the 20% point, and change it before it hits 10%.

I'll have to go hunt down my notes to see just how many miles that equates to...or look on the filter next time I'm under the truck. I know it's been over a year.

 

[TJBaker57]

don't believe what he said about the time factor where it won't let you go over a year.

Maybe in newer vehicles?

My old vehicles don't have any internal calendar and the Onstar hasn't worked for years so I don't think it is getting any date information there either.

And doing a test on a rental vehicle where you cannot know if the oil life indicator was even reset at previous oil change(s)??

Not disputing the oil life monitor at all. I use it myself and generally change before it gets down to say 15 or 20%. I would change more often if not using full synthetic oils.

I wonder if my 2002 LL8 actually uses the engine oil temperature sensor instead of some calculation? And did GM gather data from these 2002 LL8s with actual engine oil temperature sensors?

 

[Mooseman]

I would imagine they did some testing on it before its release in 2002. I do believe it might be on the conservative side as they would want people to bring them in more often for oil change$ and avoid warranty related failures if people do follow the OLM.

And the history he talks about that they used OnStar data to develop the OLM algorithm is wrong as OnStar didn't even exist until 1996. They might have refined the OLM later once OnStar was capable of sending data back to GM.