If you want to keep your engine in the best possible shape, Chevrolet oil change service is a must. Your owner’s manual will tell you the right intervals for you to get these changes, and your oil life light will come on to remind you if it’s time. But how does the service keep your engine healthy?
What Oil Does for Your Engine
Oil has a couple of important functions in the engine. The primary one is lubrication. The oil provides a fine film that keeps all the parts in your engine from rubbing against each other in a way that would wear them down prematurely.
But that’s not all the oil does. Another important function is removing some of the heat as it passes through the engine. Your car has a coolant system, and this is critical, but your coolant system would struggle if it did not have the help of quality oil. It will run hotter if you don’t have fresh oil, and a hot engine is an inefficient one and one that is likely to have issues sooner.
Oil also removes dirt and grime from the engine as it passes through. All of this gets deposited in the oil filter, which strains the oil and then sends clean oil back to the engine. This allows your engine to work more efficiently. Modern synthetic oil also has special detergents that clean the engine and protect it from rust.
Why Old Oil Is Bad
As your oil gets older, all its abilities to protect your engine are compromised. The intense heat to which it is always exposed starts to break it down. The oil filter gets full of the dirt and grime that the oil is removing from the engine, which means eventually it can’t remove any more. Once oil gets this old, even if you still have plenty of it in the tank, it’s just not doing its job to protect your engine. The engine works harder, and whenever you force your engine to work unnecessarily hard, it doesn’t last as long.
How to Tell It’s Time
Most of the time, you’re safe sticking to the schedule in your owner’s manual or following the oil change light. But there are some occasions where your oil may get used up more quickly than expected, such as if you regularly tow heavy loads. Always check your oil levels regularly using the dipstick, and if they start to get low or if you notice that the oil is looking grimy rather than translucent, come see us.
If it’s been a while since you changed out the oil in your Chevy, come see us Frederick Chevrolet in Lebanon, PA today.
