First Oil Change for the Fuse

Well I got the oil changed in the Fuse at 6800 miles.    I sputtered and sputtered and wondered.  Do I do it at 5000 miles, 7500 miles, 10,000 miles?  Do I wait until the computer tells me to?  Would that be too late if I was out on a trip?   I lost my nerve and decided to get it done.

I went to my local SuperLube shop in town and asked it they could do it.  I bring my cars there including my diesel F-250 and they do a good job so why not.  I was talking motorhomes and I got a strange look.   When I said it was roughly the size of a UPS truck they understood.  They pointed me at their location on the other side of town with larger bays.   The manager said they do fleet oil changes/maintenance on vehicles like that so I felt better.

I brought my vehicle to the store and they guided me in.  They had never seen a Fuse and were a little apprehensive.  Then they scanned the VIN and it popped up Ford Transit 350HD and they were all smiles.  They do these all of the time, just not with houses on the back.

They asked me one question,  regular or synthetic oil?  I asked a question.  What is the price?  Well the oil change was $85.00 for regular oil and $130.00 for synthetic.  About the same as the truck.

I decided to splurge and go synthetic as an experiment to see if it helps mileage or anything else.  I get mixed answers about which is better, so we will see.  Feel free to comment if you can help answer the question.

15 minutes later I was out the door.  The manual said 12 quarts and 12 quarts is what it took.  They were nice enough to guide me out, so I did not clip the rear end.  I was actually anxious about that, but no problems.

After we were finished I asked a couple of questions:

• First, how bad was the oil?  He said it did not look too bad.   Not a scientific answer, but I will take it.  From the way he talked it had another couple thousand miles before it really needed to be changed.  On the other hand this was not an oil analysis.
• Second was how bad was the filter?  He said it was pretty clean from a casual look.
• I asked him how big was the filter?  He pulled one off of the shelf.  It was tiny compared to the one on the F-250 or the tractor.   Somewhere I read it was the same as on a gasoline F-150.  I can believe that once I saw it.
• I asked if they were going to pre-fill the filter.  He said they do on the big filters, but not on the small ones.  I forgot to ask why.

I do want to commend the guys that were working at the SuperLube on Tennessee Street.   I saw and overheard a conversation between the crew and a young lady who pulled in and wanted her oil changed.  She went in and sat in the waiting room as soon as she got there. They looked at the dip stick and the oil was clean.   They thought it had less than a thousand miles on it.  Instead of taking her money, they checked the fluids and told her she did not need it.    She swore it had been five thousand miles since she had it changed, but the crew there was convinced that it had just done.  She looked in her glove box and in a few minutes found where her dad had it done less than 1000 miles earlier.  I really like it when folks do the right thing like this.