Carpokes Porsche Forum

Change Oil after break-in?

smurfgt4 wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 2:50 pm Change Oil after break-in?

I've told this story before, so I'm sorry to be a broken record, but... When I got to 2000 miles in my 992TTS, I took it to the dealer to have the oil changed. The tech let me come back and chit chat while he changed the oil. When I asked him if he thought it was a waste, he picked up the old oil filter and fanned it out to show me all the metal flakes it had captured. It looked like silver glitter in there. He said that's normal on a new motor, and why people have been changing oil after break-in for the last hundred years or so. The filter is there to protect the motor, and I'm sure it would have been fine until it was 'due' for oil, but seems like a no-brainer to me to get a clean filter and new oil in there after seeing that.

Tom wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 4:01 pm

smurfgt4 wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 2:50 pm Change Oil after break-in?

I've told this story before, so I'm sorry to be a broken record, but... When I got to 2000 miles in my 992TTS, I took it to the dealer to have the oil changed. The tech let me come back and chit chat while he changed the oil. When I asked him if he thought it was a waste, he picked up the old oil filter and fanned it out to show me all the metal flakes it had captured. It looked like silver glitter in there. He said that's normal on a new motor, and why people have been changing oil after break-in for the last hundred years or so. The filter is there to protect the motor, and I'm sure it would have been fine until it was 'due' for oil, but seems like a no-brainer to me to get a clean filter and new oil in there after seeing that.

Absolutely Tom. I did the same on both the TTS and the GT4. Oil (even synthetic) and filters are inexpensive insurance, especially compared to motor replacement costs.

I'm old school (okay, I'm old too), and it's been hard enough just moving to 5W or 0W oils in the modern cars. I have no trouble going with synthetic oil, but the ExxonMobil (actually Esso) motor oil school I attended in 1972 imprinted some things that just won't go away. One of those is regular oil changes, and "oil is cheap insurance ." Even if the oil will now go 10, even 15,000 miles, the contaminants accumulate and I change evert 5,000-7,500 miles. Too old to change my ways, plus with almost "maintenance-free" vehicles now it's one of the few things I get to fo mechanically to my cars.

I changed mine at 2,000 miles. I went to the local dealer and purchased the filter, plug and oil. One night before changing the oil I opened the filter box to look at it and it looked just like the oil filter for my previous 981. Low and behold, they sold me the wrong filter. Luckily I discovered that before I was laying on my back with 10 quarts of oil and 30 fasteners removed. The filter I removed did have metal flakes in it.

Southbama wrote: Mon Dec 12, 2022 6:20 am I changed mine at 2,000 miles. I went to the local dealer and purchased the filter, plug and oil. One night before changing the oil I opened the filter box to look at it and it looked just like the oil filter for my previous 981. Low and behold, they sold me the wrong filter. Luckily I discovered that before I was laying on my back with 10 quarts of oil and 30 fasteners removed. The filter I removed did have metal flakes in it.

Hmmm. I had a 981 GTS and the filter for my GTS 4.0 is exactly the same as for the 981, Mahle OX 366D I think. I changed my oil at around 2000 miles using Liqui Moly 5W-40 since no Mobil 1 C40 oil was available then, and used one of the Mahle filters I still had in the cabinet from my 981. Looking it up on any of the various parts suppliers shows the same filter too, so I'm not sure what your situation was, except that the dealer just sold you another spec filter?

The filter they sold me was for a 4 cylinder 718, not a 6.

Àh, that explains it. Until just recently most online catalogs would show me parts for the 4 cylinder GTS when I tried to find things for my GTS 4.0. Some still do.

A question about this subject. Coming from Japanese sport cars, my old habit is to always change the oil of a new car at or before 1000 miles. If I do this for my new CGTS, is another change at 2K miles too much?

xcursion wrote: Wed Jan 18, 2023 8:23 pm A question about this subject. Coming from Japanese sport cars, my old habit is to always change the oil of a new car at or before 1000 miles. If I do this for my new CGTS, is another change at 2K miles too much?

Yes.

But on the other hand, I've had a hard time reducing the burned-in-my-brain notion to change the oil every other day, even with the advent of incredible synthetic motor oils that have been around for a lot of years now. One thing is certain, outside of your time and the the high cost of Porsche's recommended synthetic oil and the not inexpensive Porsche filters, nothing is harmed with more than recommended oil changes.

However, If it were me and if sensible, I'd do a change after reaching the break-in miles (2,000 miles for a 4.0 Cayman) and then again at 1-year or 10k miles.

It's what I did - I had my GT4's oil and filter changed at 2,200 miles using Porsche's recommended Mobil 1 ESP X3 0w-40. I then waited until the car's 1-year birthday for the next change.