What happens to your car if you do not get an oil change?

Answer 1

Well, For one thing you will eventually lose the motor. When you are driving, your motor is drawing in air to burn with the fuel. The air has moisture in it. Under compression some of this air, and moisture squeezes past the rings and into the crankcase. There the moister, and it can build up quite an amount, mixes with the oil. This is called sludge. If you change oil say between3,000 to 5,000 miles, the sludge comes out with it. If you don,t, the sludge starts to accumulate on internal parts and becomes gritty. After a while the grit starts to get into the oil passages and wears bearings. What do you think would happen if you pour a tea spoon of sand in you're oil every say 5,000 miles? Same thing. You can see how much moisture goes through the engine on a cold day on start up. That cloud of steam coming out the tail pipe is the moisture in the air going through the engine. And a small amount gets into the oil. Driving mostly on the highways gets rid of most of the moisture by stirring the oil and getting it hot. Short trips and around town driving doesn't and therefor needs more frequent changes. Multi grade oil is best and doesn't slude as bad.

Answer 2

So I have read some of the previous answers, and some are partly correct and some are off the mark. Engine oil will get aciddic after long use and also loses the viscosity properties that are required to keep surfaces lubricated. Soon the oil will also cause the filter to become less efficient and the bypass valve will open and the oil will no longer go through the filter and all the little contaminants will continue going through the engine causine bearing and other metal-to-metal surfaces to "grind" to failure. Bearings will wear causing a larger gap between the crank surfaces and the bearings and the oil pressue will drop, then other parts will fail. The vital moment in every engine is when you start a cold engine. If there is a lot of contaminants settled in the bottom of the oil pan(which is where the oil pick-up is), all the solid contaminants will pass through the engine, again causing bearing surface failure. If you cannot afford to change the oil, at least change the filter and add new oil to replace the lost oil in the old filter.

Answer 3

Three different problems build up over time:

1 - The oil breaks down and is less able to lubricate your engine's internal parts. This can lead to increased wear because the metal parts rub against each other, without the protection of fresh oil.

2 - The oil gets contaminated with a combination of the combustion by-products (exhaust gases, carbon, etc.). When this mixes with moisture from the air, it can form acids which increase wear inside the engine.

3 - If your car uses, leaks, or burns any oil, you may eventually get to the point at which there isn't enough oil in the engine and it stops running because the metal parts overheat and seize up. At that point you essentially throw the motor away.

#1 and #3 can, to some extent, be prevented just by constantly checking the oil and topping it up. However, #2 really requires draining the oil that's in the motor and replacing the filter, because the junk that's in there will continue to attack your engine until you get rid of it.

Answer 4

You should get it changed as soon as you can, The light is a dummy light it comes on when you have went to many miles past the recommended amount of miles that the oil change is required. If you do not get it changed the oil will break down and the friction on the metal in the engine will cause it to wear out faster and eventually to trow a rod or lock up, causing you to have to replace the engine. You probably have a few more miles until anything really bad happens, but you could get it changed and as soon as posable. That way your car will last for as long as it can, I would have the air filter checked too, that makes your engine last too and the transmission fluid and filter if you have a automatic transmission.

Answer 5

Dude, spend 15 minutes of your time at a mechanic & just change the oil. Bad stuff can happen if you don't. You don't need 10 people around here giving you detailed answers as to what can happen.

Answer 6

Oil changes are the cheapest maintenance item you can buy. Oil is the lifeblood of a car engine, as it breaks down it becomes an inefficient lubricant and as the sludge builds up it will block vital oil lines and galleries to parts of your engine. Change it every 3,000 miles or 3 months whichever comes first.

Answer 7

Have you seen the Dodge Nitro commercial where the Nitro jump starts the broken down car. I'm pretty sure that the broken down car did not change his oil.

Answer 8

The oil turns into sludge, your engine gets severley damaged and in the new cars the engine shuts down.... older cars the engine seizes and in both cases you just destroyed an engine due to extreme laziness.

Answer 9

if you run an engine without oil it will seize very quickly the moment your engine seizes there is nothing that can be done other than replacing your engine.can also snap your drive shaft and things if you moving when the engine locks up

Answer 10

Eventually the oil filter gets clogged up and with low oil pressure, you damage your engine...