Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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My opinion is that the less oil changes I have to perform on my cars, the better. Both vehicles in my household are driven a combined 50 k miles per year. Instead of 16 oil changes per year we only do 4, 2 per vehicle. This means that we save several hours of our valuable time (there is so little left after work and commute), about 50 quarts of oil won't have to be purchased or disposed of. I won't even mention the savings in money because the fact that we use synthetic oil is a strictly personal and optional thing.
What I consider valuable though is the information obtained by regular oil analysis (only US$ 14 per analysis). Potentially very expensive repairs can be prevented if you know when coolant contaminates the oil or when abnormal wear occurs in the engine of one of our cars.
So please, everybody keep changing their "dino" oil at 3 k miles or synthetic at whatever interval. There are more important things happening in this world today that are really worth fighting for.
I wish you guys (and gals) a great weekend and NO SNOW and ICE.
My Chevron was $1.08 after tax and my Supertech filter was $2.15 after tax for a total of $7.01 per oil change. I am confident that I can go 4K per oil change and get wonderful oil analysis and at least 152K miles on my engine. That would be about 10 years for me and as long as I would care to keep the car. After 36K I am averaging 25.8 MPG and could not be happier with the car. Assuming these costs remained constant including gas at $1.35/gallon my total costs for oil and gas would be (38 oil changes x $7.01 = $266.38 and 5,891.5 gallons x $1.35 = $7,953.53) a total of $8,219.91.
I paid $4.385 per quart (could have gotten a substantial discount with a larger order but was afraid the additive package would not last sitting on a shelf for more than a year or two) for Schaeffers to be shipped to my home which would raise my oil change cost to $21.88 per change ($4.385*4.5+$2.15). If I am able to get 8,000 per oil change then my oil would then cost ($21.88*19 oil changes = $415.72) for 152K. Assuming I get 2% better gas mileage I would then get 26.316 MPG and my gasoline cost would be 5,775.95 gallons x $1.35 = $7,797.53 and my total gas and oil costs for 152K miles would be $8,213.25.
The difference in costs is only $6.66 over 10 years. If my mileage stays the same (very likely in my opinion) then the difference in costs is still only $149.34 over 10 years. This is nothing either way. I change the oil less often and should be getting less engine wear on my many short trips and cold starts and that is the main reason I want to try something else.
IMHO it just all depends on the individual vehicle and driver. If I had a car that used enough oil to require topping off inbetween oil changes there is no doubt that I would be using Chevron Supreme. If I lived where it is really cold and I was doing a lot of cold starts and making short trips then I would definitely use one of the "real synthetics". There are a lot of us that are somewhere inbetween and it just depends. In my accounting courses in college the correct answer to nearly every class problem began with "It depends........."
All of these generalizations that have been made in this thread are total BS. It is not black and white. You can't fit a square peg in a round hole. Just my personal experience. I am just glad to share with others so that I can learn some of this without having to experience all of the hardships on my own.
Whew!! I feel better.
Going to a quick oil change place will take at least as long if not longer and how many horror stories have we heard about stripped threads-filters falling off and so forth.
I think there are some people who don't like to get their fingers dirty-that's cool too.
Pulgo I'm with you, Following the same reciepe today that they were following in the 70 doesn,t make sense to me.
Good oil and filter, followed by a car well maintained can go longer than 3000 miles on an oil change. Like you I have better thing to do than sleeping under my car,but hey, some likes it and it is absolutely ok. It's a hobby like any other .Happy holidays to all of you .
My assumption (with some justification from Johnny) is that SuperTech will be switched over to Shell's Equilon refineries once Texaco is switched over and the Shreveport blending plant closed-- so the entire SuperTech line might get to look a lot like Shell in the next year or two. I'd always heard that Shell varied greatly geographically, so I'm not sure what this will actually mean.
Shell is closing the blending plant that makes ST some time in the next year. When that happens, there's a pretty good chance that the blending will be shifted over to some of the excess Equilon capacity. That means in 12 months, ST will probably look more like Shell or the Equilon Havoline than it looks like the present oil.
All this can be avoided by persons who have a place to accomplish the work for themselves. Like you, I enjoy doing the routine maintenance on my vehicles, to the extent that I can assure myself that all has been done correctly. I have had some hard lessons concerning having others do these jobs.
Anybody see any recent claims about Teflon as an additive?
Also will try to find a reference to a news story about one of the people owning/marketing one of the better known snakeoil products-guy has spent over 20 years doing the same thing-talk about no shame.
Would you leave things alone, or would you recommend any sort of oil additive or other procedure or product that might help to reduce this consumption?
I'm not sure if consumption alone is anything to worry about, as long as everything else is okay. And I'm not sure what underlying factors may be causing this consumption, and whether any of them can be resolved.
Jack
1. sounds like another flavor of 'snake oil'
2. product seems to address sludge/dirt issues, not consumption issues
I used Auto-RX once and the next oil change was a lot cleaner. Engine ran quieter after about 200 miles with it in too. Noisy valve lifters have quieted down. Sorry, but I personally like Auto-RX.
Jack
I still wonder, though, if/how our 98 Trooper developed significant sludge in the engine. I've never exceeded 4,000 miles on conventional oil or 6,000 miles on Mobil 1 and always used well-regarded filters. And even though our Trooper sees its share of city driving, it does not fall into any extremes (tons of short trips, no long highway trips, very cold or hot weather, etc.).
You hear some on Bob's site tell of a change in oil brand &/or viscosity changing the consumption habits of and engine.
Bob's site has the virgin oil specs for many oils. Nose around over there and you may find an oil loaded in detergents to try.
Jack
Personally, I now like the Schaeffers Neutra which can be placed in the crankcase as well as gas tank. Have used it in two engines now to clean up a little, one the Rodeo after the RX and it did get more of the varnish out and in my 150,000 mile Camry. I have a slight oil consumption issue in the Camry but nothing like your Isuzu. As I just did change out the Neutra in the Camry I don't know as yet if it had any effect on oil consumption. The Neutra is very inexpensive as compared to the RX but both seem to work for most people that post about usage.
The cumulative effect is that more and more carbon is being deposited in the cylinders, oil keeps going in and then partially burning- leaves more carbon in the cylinders-spark plugs start getting fouled, engine runs worse, you know the story,,,one thing triggers another kinda thing.
If the auto-rx can clean the rings out or make the valve seals stop oil passage from the top end, then do it.
Eat healthy (or drink good tequila) when you're young, you'll feel better when you're old,,,engine does the same thing.
Rando
Actually, there's quite a bit of work I'm planning to have done in the next couple months - timing belt, probably new brake pads (even though brakes work fine and had 50% pad life as of shop's inspection 10k miles ago) and wheel bearing repack at same time, new plugs, etc.
Any advice on how to time the maintenance work vs. reducing the oil consumption? E.g. is there a good reason why one thing should be done before another thing?
Blue smoke at startup (first start of the day is the best to check) is oil going past valves seals/guides,,,,that would tell you to pull plugs and see which ones have the most buildup, would let you know if it is all cylinders or just a couple.
If it turned out that valves were probably not the culprit, then the rings are the other alternative and that would require bottom end work.
Top end work just requires work on the head(s), (I don't remember if you're talking about a 4 or 6 cyl..), bottom end means doing the whole job, pistons and cylinders....I guess you just have to see how much is needed...
Anybody else agree/disagree?
see ya
Rando