Unused mounts adjacent to rear motor mount?

[dugnichols]

Did my 1k oil change last night and was surprised by the open area directly under the engine. There are two mounts at the rear, on either side of the engine mount. I was guessing that upgrading to the aluminum skid plate would provide protection here, but looking at it appears to just replace what is already in place in plastic.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[IATelluride]

Did my 1k oil change last night and was surprised by the open area directly under the engine. There are two mounts at the rear, on either side of the engine mount. I was guessing that upgrading to the aluminum skid plate would provide protection here, but looking at it appears to just replace what is already in place in plastic.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Just curious...why change at 1k? Where in the owners manual does it recommend first service mileage vs. Regular 7500 mile intervals.

 

[dugnichols]

Just curious...why change at 1k? Where in the owners manual does it recommend first service mileage vs. Regular 7500 mile intervals.

Based on my research and the manual, there is no needed reason to do an oil change at 1k with this vehicle (or frankly vast majority of new vehicles these days) -- Full Stop.

TLDR: I'm a nerd.

I'm a wrencher, steeped in the tradition of older machine design/assembly for engines and particular break-in requirements needed to be required in the days. A very traditional rule of thumb is to do an oil change at this mark (and even earlier for high-performance engines) largely to help work various engine-part sealants work through any seepage issues. Part of my desire was out of this tradition and also just wanting to go get in there and do something mechanical myself and visually verify how the oil looked at 1k. (old school wrencher here) Motor oil was very clean and no signs of metal flakes. perhaps slightly dirtier than I expected, but it's been 10ys since I bought a new vehicle so take that with a huge grain of salt.

I did also take the opportunity to switch to synthetic oil when I did this. There's plenty of debate on various new vehicle manufacturers shipping with conventional oil vs synthetic. My personal take was that I wanted to baby the engine through break-in (strict 2k - 4k RPM for first 450 miles, no major accelerations until I hit 850, then let er go) with the conventional oil, then switch to synthetic for long-term engine life. I tend to keep my vehicles for +10 years.

 

[gman1868]

Based on my research and the manual, there is no needed reason to do an oil change at 1k with this vehicle (or frankly vast majority of new vehicles these days) -- Full Stop.

TLDR: I'm a nerd.

I'm a wrencher, steeped in the tradition of older machine design/assembly for engines and particular break-in requirements needed to be required in the days. A very traditional rule of thumb is to do an oil change at this mark (and even earlier for high-performance engines) largely to help work various engine-part sealants work through any seepage issues. Part of my desire was out of this tradition and also just wanting to go get in there and do something mechanical myself and visually verify how the oil looked at 1k. (old school wrencher here) Motor oil was very clean and no signs of metal flakes. perhaps slightly dirtier than I expected, but it's been 10ys since I bought a new vehicle so take that with a huge grain of salt.

I did also take the opportunity to switch to synthetic oil when I did this. There's plenty of debate on various new vehicle manufacturers shipping with conventional oil vs synthetic. My personal take was that I wanted to baby the engine through break-in (strict 2k - 4k RPM for first 450 miles, no major accelerations until I hit 850, then let er go) with the conventional oil, then switch to synthetic for long-term engine life. I tend to keep my vehicles for +10 years.

You and me both!