Changing Oil FILTER only, and topping off with fresh oil.

Hey All. Well since I only have only gone about 2,000 miles in my car since I did the big oil and filter change in August, with the Castrol Edge Synthetic oil, and it is suppose to last a long time, and A LOT more miles, it is only now just turning brownish, as I mentioned in a past posting. Can I JUST change the oil filter, and then top it off with fresh oil?
Or will I loose more than 1/2 a quart of oil when I take off the filter? After letting it sit for a few hours? I recall only loosing from a few drop of oil, to loosing maybe a half a quart, when taking off the oil fiter during a full oil and filter change.
But in my 2006 model, (I dont know if the oil filter position has changed over the years or not)..., can I just change the filter and top it off with the Edge oil I have left over? I have about half a quart to work with.

you can just change the filter, but with the oil pressure check valve, you "should" loose more than a few drops..

Why are you only changing the filter?

when adding new oil to old oil, you should only add 10% to prevent the oil from varnishing, which would turn to sludge and be really bad for your engine

i didn't think that happened with synthetic oil? and i thought there were newer additives in conventional that prevented that?

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Originally Posted by snrusnak

Why are you only changing the filter?

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Well...since I did the full oil and oil filter change in August, with the Castrol Edge Synthetic oil, and Fram Filter, the oil was like $8-9 a quart then, its even more now. I put it in because it is suppose to last a LONG time...miles wise, so it was a $40 oil/filter change, and I have only gone less than 2K miles since I changed it. I am TRYING to save some money on changing oil SO many times. By changing just the filter, so the oil can be 'filtered' with a fresh filter, and save the very good and expensive Edge oil.
And not have to crawl under the car, drain the oil, spend another $40++ on the oil. The idea was to not have to change the oil for at least a year, maybe after a whopping 5K miles by then? Thats why i spent all that on that Synthetic oil. I could just put in plain old Dino oil if I HAVE to do a complete change every 2K miles. I often heard of guys only changing their filters and topping off the oil, when they used Synthetic oil. so this time I want to try it.
In 20K miles, I have changed it like 10 times already, nearly always Synthetic. So it is costing a lot. so I either go back to Dino oil, or just change the filter on this one time. Opinions?

do yourself a favour and use a good xtended milage filter(k&n,amsoil,mobil1,purolater gold)not fram with cardboard ends that fall apart.if u use the right filter you can go 1 yr(10,000k) and not worry about switching out 5 dollar filters every 3 months.the extended filters say on them what they are rated for, but gm doesnt agree if its still under warranty.i use wixx 6 bucks and castrol edge (on sale wally mart 22.00 4.4 liters) in my aveo and dodge ram right now.but change it every 3-4k miles religiously.

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Originally Posted by petrified.rabbit

i didn't think that happened with synthetic oil? and i thought there were newer additives in conventional that prevented that?

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even synthetic oil will break down, just not as fast as conventional oil
and with the use of additive it will still be subjected to varnishing

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Originally Posted by FlaAveo5

I could just put in plain old Dino oil if I HAVE to do a complete change every 2K miles. I often heard of guys only changing their filters and topping off the oil, when they used Synthetic oil. so this time I want to try it.
In 20K miles, I have changed it like 10 times already, nearly always Synthetic. So it is costing a lot. so I either go back to Dino oil, or just change the filter on this one time. Opinions?

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with synthetic oil you can easily go to 8000 miles before you do an oil change, it is normal for it to get darker with the heat from the engine

when you talk about dino oil, i'm guessing you're talking about conventional? switching back and forth from synthetic to conventional is a bad thing to do, because it will desintegrate your seals and then you'll have leaks all over the place, and then you'll have to do a complete gasket job, which could cost you about $2000

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Originally Posted by charlieb

do yourself a favour and use a good xtended milage filter(k&n,amsoil,mobil1,purolater gold)not fram with cardboard ends that fall apart.if u use the right filter you can go 1 yr(10,000k) and not worry about switching out 5 dollar filters every 3 months.the extended filters say on them what they are rated for, but gm doesnt agree if its still under warranty.i use wixx 6 bucks and castrol edge (on sale wally mart 22.00 4.4 liters) in my aveo and dodge ram right now.but change it every 3-4k miles religiously.

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Is that Canadian money? Wal-Mart has SYNTHETIC 'Edge' in the 'gallon' jug now, for $22 US dollars, or Canadian dollars? I would change the oil tomorrow if it is only $22 for Synthectic oil. I think 'Edge' is only Synthetic. Isn't it? I cant belive that they have it for $22 in the 'gallon' jug.....well 4.4 quarts. Two weeks ago I went to look over the oils for a sale, and the single bottles of Edge were over $9 a quart. So thats 5 quarts, enough to fill the car, with a bit left over,(couldnt be 4 quarts or 5 quarts, it has to be like 4.5 quarts...thanks GM). I will have to go up in the morning to see if they have it in the jug for $22 US.