Nothing wrong with being too coservative or trying to tweek a little longer life out of your machine. It kills me how some of these guys error on the side of stupid though.

 

I installed a magnetic drain plug in my 98 at 900 miles. Recently sold the truck and got 02. The 98 had 120,000 miles on it when i sold it. Changed oil every 3-5000 miles and there was very little metal on the magnet at changes. Like a little bit of graphite mabye the size of a quarter on the paper towel at all oil changes. The 98 had piston slop on cold mornings since 40,000 miles.

I was suprised though at how much stuff was on the magnet in the transmission pan at 60,000 mile transmission fluid change. The magnetic drain plug was like 2 buck at any auto parts store.

 

Hey Eduk8er ,
If I lived in your neck o' the woods and drove around all day then I guess be too conservative would be good and probably still not enough . Besides I would have a hell of alot more miles on my truck if I drove around up there all day. But...wait ... If I just parked it the other half of the year (night time) it would equal out ..

Never mind

 

i think that most everyone would agree that the filter doesn't catch EVERYTHING in the oil (otherwise it would for the most part be that nice clear/tan color we know and love). For the extremely cheap price that these magnet belts cost (~$15 at JCWhitney), it is about the cheapest price insurance we get.
Before y'all open up on me, consider your oil choice: most of us use synthetic. Why? Because it gives us peace of mind. (yeah, there are studies...) For $15, it is a cheap feel good thing, regardless if it works or not.

It does make sense to use, imo. Your transmission pan has a magnet in it (check your Chilton's). For those that have a magnetic oil drain plug, the belt that straps around the filter would be more efficient (sp?): the suspended micro particles would rarely drift to the bottom of the oil pan, but they defintely get to the oil filter.

 

Hey Slicker, You got that right. Only thing though, no roads. Well. we do have 3.6 miles of roads if you can call them that. 550 miles from the nearest real one though. Low miles but hard ones.