This is interesting to me, because my daughter and I had this conversation just a few days ago. She wondered whether her 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe really needed the oil changed every 3,000 miles. And why wouldn’t she wonder? Super marketing and advertising by quick-lube companies like Jiffy Lube have convinced millions of Americans that they need to change their oil every 3,000 miles. It’s just not true. California has become so 
concerned by the number of folks doing it that they’ve started a campaign to get folks to “Check Your Number” to find out what your auto’s manufacturer recommends as an oil change interval. From the L.A. Times:
The long-held notion that the oil should be changed every 3,000 miles is so prevalent that California officials have launched a campaign to stop drivers from wasting millions of gallons of oil annually because they have their vehicles serviced too often.
“Our survey data found that nearly half of California drivers are still changing their oil at 3,000 miles or even sooner,” said Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery, which has launched the Check Your Number campaign to encourage drivers to go with the manufacturer’s recommendations.
Improvement in oils, friction proofing and car engines have lengthened the oil-change interval, typically 7,500 miles to 10,000 miles for most vehicles.
In California alone, officials believe that reverting to the manufacturers’ recommended oil change interval will save about 10 million gallons of motor oil per year. Wow. Just think how much that figure would be on a nation-wide basis.
