(Aftermarket) Oil change sensor?

[kzemach]

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/03/12 ... /#comments

OK, so this is news to me. Someone there claims 95% of all new GM cars tell you when your oil needs to be changed based upon a realtime inline tester? Really?

Obviously, if this is true, it isn't as accurate as a full oil analysis, but something like this inline with an AMSOIL system might give me a better piece of mind with the long change cycles.

Comments?

[jage]

95%? There is a 99% chance that is a made up stat. Unless GM makes 20 models and exactly 1 will not have the sensor...

[Ford_6L_E350]

I don't believe the GM oil life monitor actually monitors the oil. Rather it infers oil life from various parameters like engine temp, throttle position, rpms, etc. Then based on the usage, the CPU will flash a message to change the oil.

On my Chev P/U, I can go between 3000 and 7500 miles before the message comes up. Lower mileage oil changes occur with around town, stop and go, cold starts,etc. Longer oil change interval come with long distance highway driving and only one cold start/day - when traveling across count for instance.

I really like the system. I don't have to monitor when to change oil, just do it when the light comes on.

I wish the SMB had a similar system.

Mike

[kzemach]

Originally Posted by Ford_6L_E350

I don't believe the GM oil life monitor actually monitors the oil. Rather it infers oil life from various parameters like engine temp, throttle position, rpms, etc. Then based on the usage, the CPU will flash a message to change the oil.

Mike

Ahhh, but then we'd have to calibrate it to AMSOIL anyway. Interesting though; thanks for the feedback.

BTW, the original post link seemed to indicate that the new technology was going to actually monitor the oil quality itself, claimed through some viscosity and conductance measurements. The last paragraph reads:

"One single sensor, and the intelligently processed information which is already available on board the vehicle, are sufficient to determine the various parameters of the engine oil. This onboard oil quality surveillance is currently being prepared for series application in commercial vehicles. The resulting precise calculation of due times for maintenance stops will allow oil change intervals to be extended by about one-fourth."

If applied in an AMSOIL system, might it not extend the change even longer? Everyone seems to claim that when oil analysis is done at 15k miles on AMSOIL systems that the oil still tests fine.