3K oil change in Puerto Rico? Why?
 

Why does the manual recommend an oil change every 3,000 miles in Puerto Rico, but every 7,500 miles in the U.S.? Does Puerto Rico have a law about oil changes?

By the way, is it my imagination or does 7,500 miles seem like a hell of a long time between oil changes? I get the oil changed on my crappy Honda Civic twice as often as that.

Maybe it is due to the higher temps of Puerto Rico,and I have never been there,but there could be a higher concentration of dirt/gravel/unimproved roads which would bring more dust.Therefore you would want to change the oil more often.The same as if you lived here in the US but had to travel a lot of dirt roads.On top of that it could be due to heavy traffic that would cause more stop and go,and shorter oil life.Also it could be that gasoline there is of a lower grade(That may be a stretch).I am just guessing here,because like i said I have never been there.

I'm from Puerto Rico, its real hot and humid down there. Not really dirty.........and most people keep up with their cars. I was just there in May and I saw one RX8 the whole 8 Days I was there. But I cant give you a def answer, but I'm guessing because of the Humidity and Temp.

No its not that, they have the same kind of gas as we do in the US but its alot higher in Price :D

Let's see . . . Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana . . .

That's very odd, I always assumed more dusty roads is the reason of PR to be on Schedule 2. Us Canadians are on Schedule 2 as well but that's apparently because of the winters (but once you cross that 49th parallel .. Schedule 1!!).

Like you said Quack P, maybe it's a law or that Mazda knows they can trick us Canadians (and Puerto Ricans) into doing it every 3000.

Actually it's about the same price or even lower!! We just price it by liters, right now it's at 43.9 cents per liter regular and 48.9 premium so it's about $1.66 to $1.85 :p

For some unknown reason we use a mixture of US and metric units everywhere, speed limit in miles per hour but distance in road signs are in km; milk, juice, drinking water, etc. in US gallons but gasoline in liters... and more! It's confusing even for a born and raised Puertorrican :confused:

Most if not all manufacturers recommend 3000 miles for oil change in Puerto Rico, but there's no law regulating this. Some people extend this interval a lot and don't do much maintenance, sort of gas it and go way of thinking and if it runs no problem then keep going!

I venture to guess it's because a varied number of reasons:

High ambient temps
High humidity
Sea Air
High dust in -some- areas
A lot of short trips, stop and go or bumper to bumper rush hour traffic
Very mountaneous (sp?), continuous elevation changes and curves instead of nice and flat...

And one last very important one... Puerto Ricans love to push any engine to it's limits!! :D

For whatever it's worth, I change my oil every 3000-4000 miles just as a "good practice." I've done this with every car I've owned and they've all be running like new when I sold them.