CWD said:
Thanks for you inputs, especially Brian Nystrom.
I asked Hyundai Auto Canada, below is their official reply (I can't believe
it!!!)
"We must say that one flaw from the owner's manual is that it's published
for the world markets and does not always cater to the individual markets
when it comes down to maintenance. And in our case, the Canadian market, the
oil change recommandation if slighly off. We have to consider the cold
weather and as such we recommend an oil changed every 3-months or 6,000kms.
Have a nice day
Hyundai Auto Canada"
That's a good point, though I wonder what difference cold weather makes
on oil. If you lived in a particularly cold area, there are oils
designed specifically for those conditions. A good example would be the
0W-40 synthethic oils that have become the standard in Europe.
If you live in parts of the southwest where it's extremely hot and
dusty, you could construe your everyday driving as "severe", too, but if
you use an oil appropriate for the climate, you should still be able to
use reasonably long intervals.
Since I use synthetics and do mostly highway driving, I don't see any
need to shorten the change interval from the "normal conditions"
recommendations.
The owner's manual also says: "If the car is being driven in severe
conditions, more frequent oil and filter changes are required." I am in
Toronto, which has similiar climate in New York, I don't believe it's in
"severe conditions".
It would depend on the type of driving you do, but in the times I've
spent in Toronto, I've never experienced anything that I would consider
"severe condtions". For a large city, the traffic wasn't bad at all and
the weather was similar to what we have here in New England, abeit a bit
windier.
Just mee: I checked my owner's manual, there's 1 set of "schedualed
maintenance" only.
Any comments?
Check the Maintenance Log. Mine only has columns for the normal
intervals, but there are notes in red that indicate the "severe
conditions" recommendations.
If you really want to know what's going on with your oil, there are
services that will do a laboratory analysis of it for you (do a web
search for "oil analysis"). They send you a kit with instuctions on how
to sample the oil, you send in a sample and they send you back the
results of the analysis, along with directions for interpreting them.
You could do this once at 3000 miles and see how much life is left in
your oil. Repeat it again at the recommended 7500 mile interval. That
will give an idea of how often you really need to change your oil. I'll
bet that you'll be surprised at the results.