The add-ons make me crazy. First it was undercoating, then paint sealers, upholstery protection, glass etching, extended warranties that overlap standard warranty. I don’t know if it’s all Subaru dealers but in Virginia they sell you what’s called the Commodore Protection Package, basically $1,000 for a jar of wax. They will lock the door and not let you out until you buy it.
Getting people to understand the change in oil technology has been and looks like will continue to be a huge challenge. Of course a well-maintained car will go 200K miles with conventional oil but there’s a bigger picture.
Our environment has to absorb all that used oil and filters. That’s a huge and unnecessary burden. The best synthetics last 25K miles so there’s also the savings on labor for changing oil one time instead of five.
Lest you think me naïve I know this won’t convince you to switch even though Ray has made the same argument. The fact is the conventional oil tradition has been around for something like 108 years and it’s not going away any time soon.
The basic motor oil used today is semi synthetic, so I don’t feel bad driving 5-6k miles. Maybe it’s not full synthetic, but I’d wager a lot of people don’t even know what is being put in the car. Just like $80 cabin filters, blinker fluid, and $$ nitrogen air.
Since oil change intervals have been pushed between 6-10,000 or more miles there has been a significant rise in serious engine problems and engines needing to be rebuilt. Maybe you can drive 25k miles between changes, but most people I know have no knowledge of anything except for putting gas in the tank. Those people need 5-6k mile oil.
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My town LOVES used oil. The more they can get the better. All the DPW buildings have Waste Oil Burners for heat. I’m not a fan of the Fast Lube places, but most of them also have Waste Oil Burners to heat their buildings.
Burning it doesn’t make it magically go away. It’s just harder to see the waste products because it’s now gaseous and ash. It’s better than dumping it on the ground but proper recycling is better than burning it…
I guess you’re saying that owners who are oblivious to maintenance are better off with frequent oil changes and maybe you’re right although it’s a sad state that people make the second biggest investment of their lives and can’t read the owners manual.
If you would, please give a link to extended oil change intervals causing engine failures. I have generally found that lots of people think automobile engineers have in mind to lie and force people to replace their car more often.
The proof are those people in your life who always have a car broken down. I have friends who come to me and say, “Oh crap, my car is 10,000 miles over the oil change.” They are the ones that drive until the car runs out of oil. If you also want some evidence, go on car fax and read a sample of a cars history. Take for instance Honda’s 2.4 K motor. If you read into the data, you’ll see the people who extend their oil changes beyond 7000 miles are having issues with timing chains. That Honda engine as been around since the early 2000s at least, and lately issues have been cropping up with VTC actuators. Stretching oil changes to the max has been a phenomenon in the last decade or so, and so have been the complaints of oil burning, VTC actuators, and timing chains.
Looking back afar at all manufactures and its the same thing. Oil burning complaints, premature wear, etc. Look at the claims today. Mobile has a 20,000 mile oil, and many car companies are pushing 10,000 mile intervals or more. When I look at car fax, I see a lot of cars going 10,000 miles or more between changes. I still see plenty of cars going 5,000 miles on car fax, and if I had to keep a car for 15 years, those would be my bets as a car to check out.
Trust me… it is nothing new.
Back in the early '70s, I had the misfortune to take a trip from NJ to FL in a co-worker’s Maverick. At the first gas stop, the attendant who checked the dipstick came to the driver’s window and asked “When was the last time that you changed this tar”? My co-worker replied, “Oh, I don’t believe in oil changes”.
It turned out that he had never changed the oil in the 3 years that he had owned it, nor had he done any other maintenance. We broke down twice on the way to FL…
So does MOBIL!
I worked the night shift at a gas station in Waukesha, WI in 1970. One customer, a gentlemanly sort with an accent like Ricardo Montalban said he didn’t change oil, only the filter. His car was a few years old and looked pretty good actually. I wonder if he kept that protocol for the rest of his motoring days and how it worked out.
We sold recycled oil - I don’t remember the actual term for it - rerefined? - in glass 1 qt. bottles with a metal spout. They came in a metal wire case sort of like how glass milk bottles were transported.
My grandpa did that all the time. Changed the oil rarely, but always refilled it. He usually had Buicks or Oldsmobiles. I only remember the 1960s and 70’s he had. It always bothered me so today I like to keep my cars in tip top shape.
Yes, I think that was the term… back in those days.
My brother had a '54 Ford six cylinder, and he was the third… or fourth… or… whatever … owner.
Once he got a handle on its oil consumption rate–which was prodigious–he started to buy “re-refined” 40 weight oil in gallon jugs in order to keep from having to go to the Poor House.
That guy was amazingly ahead of his time. When synthetic oil replaced conventional oil owners were advised to change the filter and leave the oil. The logic was that the synthetic had an efficient scrubbing action that removed the sludge from the conventional and left it in the filter. I actually had this happen to me.
The problem with your customer was that he was so far ahead of his time that there was no synthetic oil back then.
I bought a new Toyota in '16 with a 10K miles/synthetic oil maintenance interval. I live in a rural area 10 miles from town, none of my driving is stop and go, short trips in cold weather, or trailer hauling. After 10K miles the oil was on the full mark and still clear amber. Anyone who tries to tell me that the Toyota engineers are wrong, I don’t think so.
OK, suit yourself but don’t try to sell me your used car either saying it was well maintained.
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Next time you change your oil, look inside the filter housing, clean it out with a white rag.
Let me know when your car reaches 300k miles and we can have this conversation again.
Are you under the impression that Toyota engineers wrote that? Almost guaranteed they didn’t. The 10k mile oil change came from the marketing department. Marketing-types are notorious for coming up with stupid ideas that the company then runs with.
Sometimes it costs the company serious money, like when marketers for Red Lobster decided to run an all-you-can-eat snow crab leg promo, in a year when snow crab prices were higher than they had ever been before, knowing that they’d lose money if a customer ate more than 6 legs. The average customer ate 24. The restaurant lost its shirt.
And sometimes it costs the consumer, like when one car maker ran ads showing a guy welding his hood shut because “no maintenance” was required for 100,000 miles. People believing that, guaranteed, shortened the life of their car.
If you were to run a Carfax report on any vehicle I have ever owned, it would show the oil was never changed. It would be completely incorrect.
Don’t rely on Carfax for maintenance history.
OK I imagined the oil was on the full mark and was clear amber. Had it not been for the marketing people I would have thrown out that oil and filter after 3K miles.
We’re almost in 2019. That’s not your grandfather’s Oldsmobile or his 1960 oil. Amsoil created synthetic oil after WW II for jet engines which run at higher temperatures and stresses than internal combustion engines. Times have changed.
Leave your mind open to new ideas. Ray has a lot of experience with cars and he says synthetic oil is the way to go, it saves you money and saves the environment.
No one is saying synthetic is a scam. We’re saying that even with synthetic, going 10k miles between oil changes isn’t very smart.
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