Best time of year to change oil?

[CorvallisBMW]

What's the best time of year to change your oil, if you only change it 1x per year?

I drive my 'vert ~5-7K mi per year. It comes out of the garage sometime in May, and goes back in sometime in October. The garage isn't "climate controlled" but it is insulated and stays above freezing, and I try and fire it up once a month or so and let it get up to full operating temp at idle. I always use 15w-50 Mobil 1 (m30b35 swap, BTW)

So I'm wondering, is it best to change the oil when I pull it out and May, so it has fresh oil for the driving season? Or change it in October, so that it has fresh oil to rest on during the winter? Or am I just wwaayyy overcomplicating this?

[MC Hammered]

You are overthinking this quite a bit.

If you are worried then do the oil change now so you don't wonder if you did change it in the future.

[nrubenstein]

Fresh oil before storage. Get the contaminants out of the engine first.

[jlevie]

Fresh oil before storage and if the engine run every month or so when in storage, after the first drive when it comes out of storage. That first drive should include 30 minutes of sustained highway speed travel.

[Bimmerista]

This reminds me, I need to do an oil change as well.

[Simon S]

ha.. yeah - that is a toss-up there..

In your shoes, I do a "cheapy/quick" oil change with dino oil mid-fall w/out filter change - then do a full-on "good oil"+filter change mid spring..

[CorvallisBMW]

You are overthinking this quite a bit.

Fresh oil before storage. Get the contaminants out of the engine first.

Fresh oil before storage and if the engine run every month or so when in storage, after the first drive when it comes out of storage. That first drive should include 30 minutes of sustained highway speed travel.

Probably correct on all 3 counts haha. I'll change it this week.

[603Racing]

I would change the oil in the summer then again in the fall just before storage. I wouldn't want to go 7k miles on one oil change with a m20 or m30, regardless of what oil is used.