by Tammy Neal
VehicleMD Staff Writer
Originally published in Spring 2011 Issue

Nothing is more frustrating when you have one person telling you one thing and another person telling you something different.

One television show in particular demonstrates this at its finest—"American Idol." In seasons past Simon Cowell was the infamous dissenter. When everyone else loved how the song was sung, Cowell thought it was dreadful. How would you feel to be the singer? I would surely be confused.

Most of us won't be appearing on "American Idol" anytime soon, but we are likely to find ourselves in at least one confusing situation—like deciding on an oil change interval.

The service sticker on your windshield says to come back in three months or 3,000 miles. But your oil change light doesn't come on for about 6,000 miles. Or you saw that commercial on TV that says using such-and-such an oil can let you go 7,500 miles between oil changes. What's the right answer to the question, "How often should I have my car serviced?"

In a nutshell: It depends.

The long and short of such a complex topic is that there are almost as many different types of service recommendations as there are types of vehicles on the road. Each company that builds cars has its own ideas on how often those vehicles should be maintained, and many of those ideas are contradictory. The only real way to know how often to have your car serviced is to read through the owners manual. But who has time to do that? (And who would really want to!)

So to help you sort things out, we've come up with a few quick questions that can help you determine what service interval is right for you.

1. How do I drive?
In years past, most automakers recommended two distinct types of service recommendations, "normal" and "severe." The only problem is that most of us who live in urban or suburban areas predominantly drove in conditions that fell into the "severe" category (like stop-and-go driving, frequent short trips, etc.) even though we considered ourselves "normal."

Today, automakers have attempted to eliminate that confusion by either recommending a single service interval for all conditions (like Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo and others do), using a computer program to estimate when you need to have your vehicle serviced (like GM, Honda, Mercedes and newer Chrysler vehicles, which use a dash light to indicate the need for service), or using very specific language to differentiate between the "normal" stop-and-go urban driving the vast majority of us do and the "special operating conditions" (as Ford terms it) that require more frequent service intervals.

Examples of "special operating conditions," as defined by manufacturers like Ford, Nissan and Hyundai, include:

• Repeated short trips of less than five miles in normal temperatures or less than 10 miles in freezing temperatures.
• Stop-and-go traffic in hot weather or low-speed driving for long distances.
• Driving in dusty conditions or on rough, muddy or salt-spread roads.
• Towing a trailer or using a camper or car-top carrier. • Use of E85 ethanol fuel more than 50 percent of the time.
• Driving on uphill, downhill or mountain roads.
• Driving as a patrol car, taxi or other commercial use, or vehicle towing.

We admit, the terms can be a bit ambiguous, so when in doubt, it's our recommendation to stick to a shorter interval to keep your vehicle in tip-top shape. Which leads us to our next question:

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