Oil change intervals

[Gaston]

There is an oil change meter that shows up when I start my '95 318ti. It's been
about 3,000 miles since my last oil change and the meter shows red. But the last
change was with fully synthetic oil. On a Mustang (cars which I know like the
back of my hand), I will go about 6,000 miles between changes if using synthetic
oil. Is there any reason I should listen to that light? There is no way sythetic oil
is no good after only 3,000 miles.

[cooljess76]

The green lights are for the oil service and the red and yellow lights are for inspections. The green lights will slowly dissappear depending on how hard you drive the car. Unfortunately, the car doesn't know what kind of oil you're using, so it isn't accurate. You could just drive it like that with the light on, or you could reset it. Since the red light is on, I'd comply with whichever inspection applies to your mileage. The dealer will reset it for you or you could just do the paperclip trick. With the key in position 2, look under the hood and find the 20 pin diagnostic port. Unscrew the cap, and insert a paperclip into pin#7 and pin#19. Hold it there for about 15 seconds and it should reset the lights. Older e36's use a 15 pin diagnostic connector, in this case you would run a wire from pin#7 to a ground on part of the chassis. The strut tower bolts work fine and are somewhat close, just make sure they're sanded down to make a good contact. Hope that helps, If not click here

[Gaston]

Hey thanks

[elfhearse]

I usually change my synthetic oil at 7,000 miles. (BMW / Mustang / Xterra)
I guess the original models were still set up to run dinosaur oil with the 3K oil change. (Before BMW changed to free maintenance and a 15K oil change interval)

[aceyx]

Originally Posted by cooljess76

The green lights are for the oil service and the red and yellow lights are for inspections.

The lights count down regardless of what type of service needs done (oil or inspection I or II).
Yellow means do it asap (and tells you the type of service required), red means do it yesterday.

I think Steven started me on this, but I run full synthetic, doing a full oil change every 9k miles. Halfway through (4500 miles) I change the filter and top off the oil.

[pnosker]

I've gone 4k miles and only one green light has gone out. I run Mobil 1. I think there's a sensor that checks the oil's cleanliness and that is what judges the need to change oil.