I changed oil in my F-Type last summer (2022). Used STJLR.512.5122 spec. oil and Jag filter. I didn't change it this Spring (It's only an occasional summer drive car) because I put less than 700 miles on it over the past year. Reading some old threads I noted "some" saying that Jag recommends a yearly oil change regardless of mileage. On the internet you never know who "some" really is. Support for that were "some" saying oil "ages". Well, if that be the case, why don't oil manufacturers put the date refined on the bottle? Why would synthetic oil in the crankcase age but the new stuff in the bottle doesn't? One more thing, is the Titanium in the STJLR.51.5122 spec the reason many other 0W-20 oils don't meet the spec? Motor oil meeting the Jag spec is a never ending discussion. I wish somebody would provide a labratory analysis providing definitive proof of why so many other oils don't meet the Jag spec. Have a good day.

 

I believe most of us car enthusiasts will always change the oil annually at a bare minimum. I have done that with all my "toy" cars and the F Type as well. I put on about 3000-4000 per year but change annually. I do feel oil will degrade and a cheap safety measure by doing it annually.

 

What's the argument for not changing it yearly? It's cheap and easy to do yourself.

It's like changing your underwear daily...you could get away without, but it's well worth the effort!

 

Pretty big difference between the shelf life of fresh unused oil and that of used oil that has a natural buildup of contaminants in it, no?

That is my understanding behind the 1 year max recommendation, irrespective of mileage.

 

Oil does age. It will become slightly acidic as well as begin to absorb moisture. Running the engine to temp boils out the moisture when the car is driven. Change it once a year regardless of whether it is driven.

 

Oil is organic. So, yes, it ages. For oil that's in use, add to that all the contaminants that it picks up (dirt, acids, combustion residue). Some here advocate changing even synthetic oil every six months, regardless of mileage. Nothing wrong with that, although I'm like the post above - I drive about 3,000/year and change it annually.

There's no great mystery on JLR oil spec. If an oil meets it, it will say so. There's nothing proprietary about the brand. In addition to the refinement spec, there are additives (including the titanium you mentioned), and a special dye which tells on you if you use something else. Would others work satisfactorily, maybe so - at least for everything other than warranty coverage. After you price out a new engine, the choice on how much you spend on oil is up to you.

 

About that titanium, yes the Castrol spec oil contains lots of titanium and very little molybdenum as owners have proven with oil analysis results.
I don't know of any other brand of modern oil which also contains high titanium and low molybdenum, pretty much all of them are the other way around with high molybdenum and little to no titanium. I read somewhere many moons ago that JLR claim that the catalytic converters on modern Jags don't play well with molybdenum which is why the recommended Castrol brew is high in titanium instead.
Thing is I have NEVER used Castrol oil of any type in my XFR or F-Type, instead I have used oils which still meet the respective spec but contain high molybdenum and little or no titanium, and I have never had an oil related engine problem or cat converter problem.
So years ago I called BS on the JLR claim and I am convinced it is nothing but marketing hype as part of a cosy deal with Castrol.
As I said, plenty of oils these days which meet the JLR spec and the only other thing I look for is ILSAC GF-6A.

 

Oil in sealed containers and stored under moderate temperatures will be good for many years. But once opened it can begin to oxidate, although slowly. Oil in an engine is a different story as pointed out above. Given that our Jaguars are $100k vehicles, a yearly oil change for $125 doesn't seem like throwing away money.

I have attached a Blackstone Oil analysis that I had done when I drained the factory fill out of my 2019 F Type R at around 2750 miles. I assume it was the Castrol Edge Professional EC5 formula that met the newest STJLR.03.5006 specification that has been in effect since around 2018. You will see that the reading for Moly was much lower than the Universal Averages while the Titanium was much higher.

Interestingly enough, when I had my oil changed a few months ago at around 6500 miles by the dealer as part of the free scheduled maintenance plan, I also bought a quart of Castrol Edge Professional 0W-20 oil from their service department. Just to have around in case the engine needed any top off oil. The oil they sold me was NOT the EC5 STJLR.03.5006 specification but states on the bottle that it meets VW and Porsche specifications. I have no idea what the bulk oil was that the service department used. Doing some online research it appears that Castrol no longer offers the Edge Professional EC5 0W-20 oil that they formulated exclusively for JLR. I might just send a sample of the VW/Porsche spec oil to Blackstone and have them do a virgin oil analysis for comparison to the last one I had done. It will be interesting to see if VW/Porsche also specify low Moly but high Titanium content.

 

Regarding the “every 12 months” requirement: What no one has mentioned or seems to have taken into account is that the assumption by Jaguar in this requirement is that despite a possibly very low distance covered over those 12 months, the distance may have been accumulated by numerous very short runs in which neither the engine nor the oil itself has reached proper temperature. There is an enormous difference between oil degradation in a car frequently used to go to the corner store and back and one in which all the distances covered are long enough and fast enough to burn off contaminants.

My cars accumulate very low kms over a year but every run is a highway run of some distance; it is not used for multiple brief errand runs. The oil in the cars used this way remains clear and light in colour (an indicator, not a guarantee of condition, agreed). But my wife’s Jaguar X-Type (19 years of daily use and still running as new) gets use of the “bad” kind: not many kilometers in a year, but almost all accumulated by those short errand runs. My F-Type gets only highway use; nevertheless the oil is changed yearly regardless of the kilometrage.

 

700 miles per year and do a yearly oil change? Before you do that, have Blackstone analyze your Jag's oil if you really needed that oil change and see what they have to say.

 

Short answer is. I don't care if you drive the car 500 miles or 5000 miles, change the oil at least every 4-6 months. Those of us who drive it harder, every 3 months. It is not worth it (to me) to not change the oil (~$100 DIY) to protect the internals. Oil degrades. Maybe if you really drive it less than 1000 miles, you could get away with every 6 months, but do not go by JLR's fluid change intervals. Just my 2 cents.

 

I can only hazard a guess that the problems typically seen with F-Types have nothing to do with the oil change frequency.
If the engine is as robust as is often quoted in this forum, then why should it be treated so differently to other vehicles?
Having said that my (full synthetic) oil is changed annually on all cars, typically at 6,000 to 8,000 miles.
It used to be that even dino oil changes on the Jeep were only recommended at 10,000 miles.

 

I do not arbitrarily change the oil every 12 months @ $100+. Not that it is costly, but rather I don't like pouring perfectly good oil into the waste oil pit. Instead, I have an analysis run annually on the oil (including the tbn) and allow the professionals at Blackstone to weigh in on when to replace. Over the past 12 months I put 2500 miles on the car and all specs came out looking great including the tbm at 4 times minimum. Blackstone suggested another 2000 miles would be a very conservative estimate for the useful life on my current oil. Note: barring the time constraint, that 4500 mile total is still 3 times more conservative than the mileage spec listed by our friends at JLR.

 

I guess I still don't understand why jag should be any different than other high performance manufacturers. They have used the same engines in a third of a million Land Rover / Range Rovers a year for many years and I doubt many of them are doing oil every few thousand miles. We have a Disco V with the 3.0 V6 SC engine - done over 80k miles with an annual oil change at 15-16000 miles. Never had any issues. Our prior one had the AJ133 5.0 V8 - at least 12k annually to nearly 100k miles over many years and again no issues.

I know back in the days of old engines and low grade oil it made a massive difference. But engine and oil technology has moved on a lot. Would be very interesting for a few more of us to run Blackstone analysis when we change oil and post up the results. I'll do that at next oil change on the V6 SC.

 

Just curious what does it cost for Blackstone to run an analysis? I would think all said and done it can't be too much cheaper than changing the oil-is it?

 

The analysis, including the extra for TBN is $45. The TBN (Total Base Number) is used to measure how much of the original additives package remains, i.e. how much life the oil has left.

I originally started this to assess the recommended extended oil change intervals but now do it to keep an eye out for changes. I missed last year because they got me in early for my service and I forgot, and I missed the year before because it got lost. My latest sample is literally in the mail right now. My analysis of the results I have is:

First oil change should be between 3500 and 5000 miles, regardless of what The Book says.
Annual changes with ~10k miles are not a problem. The oil is still protecting at that point.

This is with the recommended Castrol Edge, and with a note that your mileage will certainly vary. Follow The Book to the letter, make your own assessment, follow "conventional wisdom" from the past, or take the advice of an Old Wife (no offence intended to the Old or Wives of any age, just a feeble attempt at humor). It's your car and this is a loaded topic.

 

The primary legacy reason (other than revenue) for annual changes was before elevated temp thermostats. Some moisture may not boil off and start some sludge and break down the lower quality additive packages. As oil has drastically improved over the last 40 years I've been rather surprised the annual requirement stayed (perhaps back to my revenue statement).
Chevrolet (as I recall) finally changed the annual 'paradigm' to 3 years with the Vette. I'm in South Fl and have never honored the annual stipulation. For decades I've run extended intervals and analyzed oil. In a few weeks I'll have a full analysis (including additive analysis) for my F type: 2 1/2 years ans ~11K miles. I'll submit analysis results then.

 

No, it's all marketing BS in my opinion.

 

Over 65 moment - it turns out this past January on my analysis I actually did test for TBN. The remaining TBN number was 2.1. Blackstone's target is greater than 1.0. The oil had just under 3 years on it and 6K miles. They said keep going (another 2K miles). See attached