Does the car use more oil when towing

[mustangcats]

Car manufacturers try to promote their vehicles as economical to maintain. By stretching out the oil change intervals, they are able to "save" their customers on the yearly cost of maintaining a vehicle. My Ram pickup calls for 8000 mile intervals or 6 months. I certainly don't follow that recommendation. I'm old school and still follow the 3 month/3000 mile schedule. The oil change and service costs me about $35 each time.

[yrock87]

Not to hijack the thread, but synthetic 0w20 isn't cheap. Just oil and filter cost $60 for the subi. And that is if I do it. I go the allowed. 6,000 between changes..

Having said all for this about maintenance schedules. I am a firm believer in full synthetic. Realistically you can get 10k miles out of a quantity oil and filter without drama. The subi burns oil so it can't make it that long. But I had a 99 Ford escort that I bought at 100k miles. I out in amsoil with a 25k filter and changed the oil at 125k. It went through about 1 qt in that amount of use. I sold the car an oil change later at 150k miles and she ran like a champ still.

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[dmdc411]

Not up Subarus, be careful not to exceed the manual tow ratings! I have killed 2 transmissions towing a 1000lbs fishing boat setup. One a Chevy Lumina, and a 3.0 v6 Dodge Spirit. Now I only tow with a pickup. Lessons learned!

[Lesbest]

Ford and GM have a threshold of 1 qt in 750 miles is normal....they won't start to look for use until it is less than that. The newer engines are much better with oil consumption......keep this in mind though, all newer engines have low tension rings and they don't tolerate OVERHEATING. BMW's are famous for this....if you O/H it and oil use increases, you get to buy an engine. Tolerances are so critical that rebuilding like in the past is not possible in a repair facility. Oil is cheap to the life of the engine. YMMV. Hop this helps. Les