Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

This tag was found on a 1929 626 sedan parked in 1955 with 82000 miles the oil was changed at 45310 miles could not see a date. the tag says Packard Columbus motor car company 340 east broad street columbus ohio at the bottom it says Packard crystal motor oil at your Packard dealer only. I just thought others would like to see this tag

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Thank you for posting. We all enjoy historical information.

I'm not good at reading things sideways, so turned the pic around!

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Another thing I forgot to say on the tag it says to change oil every 8000 miles wow

Changing oil every 3000 miles in today's car is a bunch of bull****! Everywhere else in the world its 15,000 kilometers (approximately 9500 miles). Now with a 80+ year old car its a different story of course.

Let's not forget that motor oils back then in comparison to today were very crude and completely without any friction modifiers, detergents, or other additives. Nor were engine tolerances anywhere near what we have today; if you look in the 1934 Service Letters you'll see that oil consumption of 800 or 1000 miles per GALLON wasn't unusual. Packard typically recommended oil changes at 2000 mile intervals in the 30s. I find it quite surprising that a dealer would recommend extending that to 8000 miles.

I started to second guess my self on the 8000 mile oil change so I took another look. It said change oil filter every 8000 miles it does not say how often to change oil. sorry about that. I tried to take a better picture but could not.

Thanks for checking and correcting, that makes complete sense. The filter change recommendation for the Purolator full-flow filter (L-6 and L-8) as used 1934-39 was also 8000 miles. The filter on your car was a Purolator EF-2.

Hi

As Owen points out, the engine protection qualities formulated into motor oil today is a vast improvement over what it was decades ago.

Anecdotally, a garage owner here who'd been in business since the 1930's said that oil changes between 1000-2000 miles were the usual practice back then. Given the qualities of the oils, combined with carbureted engines that ran rich when cold, short trips because folks didn't drive as far then, frequent oil changes were the only way people kept their cars going while minimizing costly engine repairs.

Steve