I remember back in the early 80's when I was an auto mechanic at a dealership, a man came in for some thing, I can't remember what, but while I was working on his vehicle, we got to talking. I noticed on the odometer he had over half a million miles on a slant six Chrysler. I asked him if he was the original owner, and he said he was, I then asked him what he did to the engine in that amount of time as far as rebuilding. He said nothing, I mean I've had to put a couple starters and alternators on it, and a water pump, and distributor, but that's about it.
I was shocked, and then asked him what kind of oil do you run, thinking he found some golden lube the rest of us never heard about, and his answer was even more shocking, he said I run the cheapest crap I can find on sale at Kmart or where ever.....BUT I change it every change it no later than 2,000 miles or when it looks dirty, and that can be as little as a 1,000 miles. He said heck, oil is cheaper than a rebuild, so change it.
He also said I NEVER move my vehicle until it is warmed up no matter what time of the year is it, but especially in the winter, I'll let it run for 10 or 15 minutes before moving her, and I always let her run a minute or two to cool off, before shutting it down.
I will also add in that you should limit short slow farting around trips that never gets your engine up in RPM, because you do need to get an engine out once a week or so and stretch her legs some. Take her out and run her at 40 to 60 MPH for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. This is more for the oil than the engine. Oil has to get up to operating temp and stay there for a few minutes at least, to burn off any contaminates like fuel and water that has made its way into your engine and oil as well as other gear boxes, and those two things are what cause ANY oil to lose lube properties and cause engine wear.
What happens on short trips, is you warm up the engine and oil, but the oil doesn't get hot enough, long enough, to burn off contaminates, BUT instead what you are doing is warming up and cooling off over and over, and condensation will build up in the engine and gear boxes, and cause oil to start to fail, even when the oil is brand new.
This is especially true as we get into colder months. You start your engine and get it up to operating temps, and all that air space in your engine expands and the moisture in the crankcase gets mixed with oil, and just as everything starts to get hot enough to burn off that water, you shut your engine down and it cools off, and now that hot air that has expanded in your crankcase during engine operation, is now starting to cool off and becoming more dense and creating a slight vacuum in your crankcase and drawing in new air and with it new moisture. The next day you repeat this with another short trip, and just as your engine and oil are at operating temp, you shut it down and this is how moisture build up gets inside not just your engine oil, but all oil and gear boxes.
This is also true for automatic transmissions. Many people think that the lines running from the trans to the radiator are cooling lines, but in fact, they actually there to take heat from the radiator and warm up the trans fluid as quickly as possible, because in colder months, that trans fluid may never fully reach operation temps to burn off the moisture and for an automatic transmission, that will be costly sooner than later.
So, this is why you take it out once a week and stretch her legs, to break up this heating up and cooling off cycle that's happening. This also helps with fully recharging your battery, but I doubt that's an issue here with most Roxor owners. That's more of an issue with soccer moms running to a dozen different stores and coffee shops every day that are within a half mile of each other and after each start, they never really fully top off the battery and over time, it slowly loses capacity, and now add in the cold, and it just compounds the problem.
I'm sorry for the long post, but some times to understand some of these principles, a lengthy explanation is needed to truly understand the "WHY" of the matter, so we can make adjustments and extend the life of our vehicles.
