In 1986, I broke up with my girlfriend, and gave her my Golf, which had 
26K miles on it.

She never made any payments (hence the bank refused to transfer the loan 
to her), and 5 months later I took it back.

It had 44K miles on it, and she had never even _checked_, much less 
changed, the oil.

I changed it. It was still golden (turning grayish-gold, but still gold).

And it had lost less than half a quart.

I'd had synthetic in the car since 5K or 6K miles. I changed it every 
7500 miles, including filter.

That car ran great, and only a (semi) drunk driver took it out of this 
world (at 51K!).

--Dave Mancuso