First oil change ?

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944own

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I am about to hit 1500 miles on my new express. Should I change the oil at 1500 like a break in oil change or just go ahead and go to the normal mileage. Thanks and what oil is preferred. Not much of a fan of synthetic. Maybe just my luck but every vehicle or mower I have ran it in has developed a oil leak so I plan on sticking to conventional. thanks
 

NYCruiser

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The manual says break-in change is not required. I changed mine at 4k miles reading about 48% on the display.

I used Penzoil conventional oil as recommended in the manual. That is also the factory fill. I used a K&N oil filter.

You'll get all kinds of varied advice on here.

Hope that helps.
 

JoeDirt

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I changed mine at 4k, castrol and a Mopar filter. I use castrol in everything I own.
 

Burla

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Reconsider Synthetic, whatever your problem was had nothing to do with your oil being synthetic. Don't take my word for it, pose that question over on the oil site (bobistheoilguy) and I bet 100% of the oil guys tell you synthetic oil had nothing to do with your leak. Most group 3's like penzoil Platinum or Mobil One are made of the same exact things as your conventional oil, they just take out the impurities. Even better group 4 and 5 oils will have better film strength at operating temps and no impurities. You wouldn't purposely use a dirtier gas when a cleaner one is available, you wouldn't use dirty water in your cooling system when distilled is available, so why use the dirtiest oil?

I'd change it now, and use synthetic media filters.
 
OP
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944own

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Thanks for all of the replies
 

B-g-K

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I always change mine at 1000-2000 miles the first time. I also always run full synthetic. That had nothing to do with your stuff developing oil leaks. It would be similar to saying once you started running premium fuel your fuel tank started leaking.
 

zogg

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I always change mine at 1000-2000 miles the first time. I also always run full synthetic. That had nothing to do with your stuff developing oil leaks. It would be similar to saying once you started running premium fuel your fuel tank started leaking.

X2.....and I generally use a mopar filter :) :) :)
 

RangerGress

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Reconsider Synthetic, whatever your problem was had nothing to do with your oil being synthetic. Don't take my word for it, pose that question over on the oil site (bobistheoilguy) and I bet 100% of the oil guys tell you synthetic oil had nothing to do with your leak. Most group 3's like penzoil Platinum or Mobil One are made of the same exact things as your conventional oil, they just take out the impurities. Even better group 4 and 5 oils will have better film strength at operating temps and no impurities. You wouldn't purposely use a dirtier gas when a cleaner one is available, you wouldn't use dirty water in your cooling system when distilled is available, so why use the dirtiest oil?

I'd change it now, and use synthetic media filters.
+1 the synthetics don't cause oil leaks. This quit being a concern decades ago. When synthetics first started coming out 20-30?yrs ago there were some teething pains. One of them was insufficient gasket conditioners that were needed to help old school gaskets stay swollen. As a result there were some problems with gaskets shrinking and oil leaks. But the oil mfrs fixed that decades ago and gaskets have improved a lot since then.

That doesn't mean that paying more for synthetic oil is a good idea tho. They have some charms. Among them good resistance to high temp breakdown. Less reliance on viscosity modifiers so the oil can be reasonably thin on cold mornings.

As Burla mentioned, the place to learn is bitog, BobIsTheOilGuy. Oil is surprisingly complicated. Make a short list of oils that seem like good choices and then do some searches at BITOG. You'll be surprised at how much knowledge you'll find in those threads. It's pretty cool.

Doing your first oil change on the early side is not a crazy idea. OP, if you feel like doing it, drive on and make it so.
 

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