What happened to owners maintaining their planes?

[bcg]

have to admit, i only change the oil every 40 to 50 hours 8)
I do worry about putting less than 10 hours a month on her, it's like every weekend but still its not all that much.  barely made 100hours last year

If you're who I think you are, given all the issues you've had, you're doing great to have averaged 10 hours a month.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[LANCECASPER]

14 hours ago, EricJ said:

Turbos heat the oil quite a bit, which accelerates the breakdown of the longer molecules that provide the best lubrication, so running a shorter schedule for that might make sense.

On the Bravo engine (TIO-540-AF1B) Lycoming specifies 25 hour oil changes. https://www.lycoming.com/sites/default/files/attachments/SB480F%20Oil%20ServicingMetallic%20Solids%20Identification%20After%20Oil%20Servicing%20and%20Associated%20Corrective%20Action.pdf

The Mooney Maintenance Manual does also.

At an M20M seminar at a MAPA homecoming in the late 90's, a Lycoming rep mentioned that they had data that showed that in the TIO-540-AF1B the oil loses it's much of its viscosity after about 25 hours. He attributed it to the extreme heat in the "hot section" which are the valve guides that it cools in this wet-head engine and the turbo charger. He mentioned that their tests showed that metal wear went up considerably after that point. He made the point to say that in most engines longer oil changes didn't make a lot of difference in wear but in this one in particular it did. I had been doing mine around 35 hours and switched to 25 after that on my Bravo. On the two Bravos that I owned later on I also did them at 25.

[Z W]

I think some of what you're seeing is caused by the mechanic shortage we've all been experiencing since 2020.  Shops are backed up, maintenance takes a long time, and a new or remanufactured engine can be 9-12 months out.  Makes sense lots of people are trying to sell their planes in less than pristine condition.  And as a buyer, you have to worry about how you'll get the catch-up work done, or where you'll source that new engine from.

[Pinecone]

An interesting data point.  BMW in the 90s had oil change indicators driven by a number of factors. Cold starts. High temp. Low temp etc. 

what they found was the single best indicator was fuel burned.  
 

So 2000s cars have a counter in miles, but it goes up and down to count down to the predicted point where you have burned 600 gallons.