Firstly, I am very meticulous about the maintenance on all of my vehicles so this sort of seems like a silly question. BUT, the circumstances may be right so I am looking for feedback. Last August I performed my annual maintenance, complete oil change, new air filters, new cabin filter etc. Since then I have only driven about 1000 miles in the car most of which has been highway driving. The oil is still nice and golden. Does it make any sense to change it before I put it away for the winter? I'm thinking I could go without changing it this year. Am I crazy?

 

Change once a year regardless, cost you at the most $500 if you do it a dealer, potentially save you 5 figures if something goes bad from not doing it

 

I personally would wait and change it when you pull it out of storage. But if you're OCD about it, or if you're worried about a gap in the maintenance history (for your own sake, or for the sake of a potential buyer down the road), I'd say just change it. DIY is under 200 bucks, or 3x that at a dealership, but either way it's peace of mind.

 

I easily could go either way when using synthetic. Toss a coin. But if you do wait, don't change it in the spring, just change it before putting it away next winter because if you change it in the spring, you might as well change it before storing it, which is the preferred approach.

 

What I have done in the past is just replace the oil and not the oil filter. This way you don't have used oil sitting in the car over the winter storage period. It's simple enough to do it yourself at a fairly low cost.

 

I agree with the comments so far as it really does seem it could go either way. I do agree that if I don't change it I would just wait until the end of next season as changing in the spring is really not gaining me anything. I'm going to flush the brake and clutch fluid for sure so I'm leaning towards changing the oil while I'm at it. It does still seem somewhat wasteful with so little mileage on the oil...