What Happens if you Don't Change your Oil
What Happens When You Don't Change the Oil in Your Car? 4 Ways Oil Changes Protect your Engine at Archer Volkswagen
Failing to change the oil regularly in your Volkswagen engine can lead to big problems. Your engine is constantly battling the forces of heat, friction, carbon build-up, corrosion and other kinds of decay -- but the motor oil helps protect the engine from these ravages. However, as the oil in the engine gets older, it loses its protective properties, and must be changed. Otherwise, severe engine damage can occur!
All modern VW vehicles are designed to run on synthetic oil. With synthetic oil, you can go up to 10,000 miles safely between oil changes according to Volkswagen. Or, if you've got an older VW model that still uses conventional oil, you'll want to be a bit more proactive, changing the oil every 3,000 miles.
On this page, we'll tell you four important ways regular oil changes protect your engine.
4. Keeps the Engine Cool
Oil inside the engine plays a big role in keeping the engine running at a safe temperature. Engines that overheat can sustain severe damage, so keeping them cool is crucial. While today's modern engines also have sophisticated cooling systems so they can run long and hard at a safe temperature, older cars had only the engine oil and airflow to cool them down -- and they worked fine in their day! Today's engines still need a high quality oil to help coat piping-hot metal parts and keep them protected from heat damage.
3. Keeps the Engine Clean
Byproducts of combustion called carbon deposits can form inside your engine over time. To keep them from collecting on parts like intake and exhaust valves, where they can decrease your engine's performance, modern motor oils have additives -- detergents and cleaners which keep carbon from building up in your engine. These special additives prevent the carbon from bonding to the metal surfaces inside your engine, keeping it suspended in the oil instead. During your next oil change, all that carbon just gets drained out. Without regular oil changes, carbon can build up on the engine valves and severely reduce your performance.
2. Conditions Seals and Gaskets
Engines that leak can be a pain in the neck to fix, and a blown head gasket can set you back thousands of dollars. Did you know that the oil in your engine helps to keep these soft gaskets in better shape for longer? Engine oil helps coat these seals, keeping them from drying out, cracking and springing leaks. Since replacing seals inside your car's engine can be a huge, expensive job, keeping them in good shape with regular oil changes is a much better way to go.
1. Lubricates Pistons and Valves
Of course, this is the one most people are already familiar with. Under the hood at thousands of rotations per minute, all sorts of metal parts are opening, closing, sliding and scraping alongside one another. When coated with a layer of quality motor oil to protect them, these parts will play nice for hundreds of thousands of miles! However, as the oil gets older in the engine and breaks down, it can't do its job of lubricating these parts as effectively. Also, sludge can build up in the engine, robbing you of performance. To prevent sludge build-up and protect the innermost workings of your engine, be sure to have an oil change performed regularly at the Archer Volkswagen service department.