Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[TorqueDog]

Some manufacturers are now stating 20,000 - 26,000 KM oil change intervals (*cough* JLR), which is f-cking insanity.

I do them every 7,000 - 10,000 KM, with a heavier 5W30 than JLR now prescribe for my 5.0L S/C V8, mainly because 1. 5W20 was the original oil spec when the engine was first built and I’m running an extra 150 horsepower in this thing, and 2. the current 0W20 spec they recommend is to squeeze a few extra MPGs for Corporate Average Fuel Economy reasons and not reliability / longevity.

[Fuzz]

What about oil age? We don't put on many miles, so I just try to do it every 8 months or so. Not sure if that is overkill with synthetic these days.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What about oil age? We don't put on many miles, so I just try to do it every 8 months or so. Not sure if that is overkill with synthetic these days.

The oil monitoring system on most modern vehicles also takes into consideration time for vehicles not being driven much. Most of them will all indicate oil change required after a year if the mileage has not been met.

[WideReceiver]

What’s the expected lifespan of hybrid e-batteries, specifically Toyota.

[moncton golden flames]

I have a 2016 Honda Fit LX with 130k on it.

We have hail damage (not severe) from the July 13th hail storm that came thru the NW. Insurance says the car is unrepairable due to value vs cost of repair. They are offering me 2 options. They buy the car from me or I keep the car and they pay me a reduced amount. I am looking for comparable vehicles to maximize the dollar amount, no matter which option I choose.

If I let them buy it, I would need to find a lateral move into something similar, but without the hail damage. Having to look for a used vehicle feels like a pain in the arse.

Just curious if anybody had opinions and/or other options I haven't explored or how to deal with the insurance company to maximize value.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

What about oil age? We don't put on many miles, so I just try to do it every 8 months or so. Not sure if that is overkill with synthetic these days.

I used to look around on bobistheoilguy and read people's Blackstone oil analysis results. It seems 1 year for synthetic is no problem in most cases, and milage is much more important.

It also seems like for a lot of cars 10,000km isn't an issue.

I change mine once a year. For one car that's 9-11k km, for the other that's about 4k km.

[Fuzz]

Awesome, good to know.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by moncton golden flames

I have a 2016 Honda Fit LX with 130k on it.

We have hail damage (not severe) from the July 13th hail storm that came thru the NW. Insurance says the car is unrepairable due to value vs cost of repair. They are offering me 2 options. They buy the car from me or I keep the car and they pay me a reduced amount. I am looking for comparable vehicles to maximize the dollar amount, no matter which option I choose.

If I let them buy it, I would need to find a lateral move into something similar, but without the hail damage. Having to look for a used vehicle feels like a pain in the arse.

Just curious if anybody had opinions and/or other options I haven't explored or how to deal with the insurance company to maximize value.

Do you care about the aesthetics? If no, take the payout, keep the car and keep driving it. If yes, still do the same and then private sale the vehicle as a winter beater/more conveniently look for a replacement vehicle when the hail rush dies down.

I did this with my last vehicle. Sold it to someone who wanted reliable first vehicle (was borrowing) and didn't care as much about how it looked. they received the vehicle several weeks after I got into my new (to me) vehicle so I didn't have to insure two at the same time, be without/had extra time to search for the best vehicle for me etc.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by dubc80

My wife got oil changes on it regularly. Everyone seems perplexed at why this happened. Looks like an engine swap is around $8-10K for this van based on other estimates Ive been getting.

This van has been pretty good to us but this catastrophic failure has not been ideal. I guess $10K is better than a new van at $65K?

Capital cost on something that large could be both a great investment but also a downside risk as long as you look at it with open eyes.

$8k engine swap and you get the #1 component done and it could last a very long time. The deprecation on a new or newer fan could very well exceed that capital cost. A newer/used van may also have engine concerns.

That being said, an $8k engine won't increase the value of the van really much. It doesn't make it more valuable and something major could occur in the near future where you lose that investment. Theft, hail, accident etc and the insurance company will just pay you market value.

If you do decide to go down another car route, make sure you buy one where the maintenance history is known and verifiable, specifically engine/transmission services. A lot of used cars like lease backs are just randomly checked for basic things when they have been neglected on oil change/transmission service wise. Just because a dealer says a car passed some inspection, doesn't mean they opened up the engine head and had a look inside for oil sludge which leads to damage. An insane amount of people treat their leased cars like rental cars with little to no give a crap factor.

Either way, best of luck! I know it sucks but hopefully you make the best decision for your family.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Flacker

10-15K oil changes have been the norm in Europe for decades (some now as long as 30K). The 5-7K North American maintenance window is the "made up maintenance garbage".

I spend a far amount of time in Europe yearly and I have never really looked into maintenance schedule for oil changes but you may be right. I do believe some of the additives in EU diesel are much stronger than USA standards so that may also be a factor in oil viscosity breakdown.

I know the trend for oil change intervals are long and getting longer now. I have always had time wrapping my head around how an engine from a manufacturer 20-25 years ago recommended 5000 km oil change. A similar, more modern engine but a modest evolution of the one from 20 years earlier, using effectively similar oil now says 20k change and there isn't going to be an issue long term? Technology and standards have changed for sure but that much?

It's cheap insurance for me and at the end of the day, if a car has an engine issue within the warranty period, the manufacturer will pay. If your car has a engine issue at 150k it's not like the manufacturer or oil company is paying. The client pays.

The newer standards of really thin oil like 0W-20 + really long oil change intervals seem more like a corporate CEO/environmental strategy as opposed to an engineering one for longevity.

[Fuzz]

I'm going to assume it's because synthetic oils have actually come a long way in the past 30 years, and don't break down as easily. Electronic fuel systems with more sensors and smarter management reduce soot buildup and all the nasty crap incomplete combustion leads to, meaning there are far fewer contaminants getting into the oil.


I don't think this is any sort of conspiracy for the environment. That makes no sense.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I used to look around on bobistheoilguy and read people's Blackstone oil analysis results. It seems 1 year for synthetic is no problem in most cases, and milage is much more important.

It also seems like for a lot of cars 10,000km isn't an issue.

I change mine once a year. For one car that's 9-11k km, for the other that's about 4k km.

I used to be one of those "I always change my oil at 6k km's regardless of MFG intervals" but once I got into new BMW ownership and free maintenance I just went with their 10k intervals and since then just kind of stick with the vehicle oil life monitors all my vehicles as synthetics are so good these days and all new engine designs and manufacturing tolerances. I've not had a vehicle that consumed any amount of oil since my old STI as the days of requiring a liter of oil in the garage to top up are long gone.

[Ironhorse]

But how long are you keeping those BMWs?

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I'm going to assume it's because synthetic oils have actually come a long way in the past 30 years, and don't break down as easily. Electronic fuel systems with more sensors and smarter management reduce soot buildup and all the nasty crap incomplete combustion leads to, meaning there are far fewer contaminants getting into the oil.


I don't think this is any sort of conspiracy for the environment. That makes no sense.

It's not that it's some grand conspiracy for environmental reasons but the really thin oils today do help with very marginal increases in fuel mileage. It's a fraction better but at what long term longevity cost?

If you look under a lot of new cars the amount of covers, shields and more plastic in the way of major components is crazy. This allows marginally better airflow for an increase in mileage but it also is incredibly wasteful from a plastic perspective and harmful for an owner as you can't see fluid leaks very easily until sometimes it's really late. It also makes it a lot harder to do very basic work on your own and increases the cost of shops doing work as the panels all need to be removed for basic maintenance.

There are other innovations for environmental reasons that just add cost, complexity and reduce overall service life and costs for little to no value. Cartridge style oil filters, start/stop feature that reduces battery, starter, engine life, non serviceable CVT transmissions that are not really repairable and become throw away units but on paper save 50 cents in fuel per tank etc.

The extended life oil changes and more are more marketing gimmicks to lower cost of ownership. Some coolant says it's good for 15 years and 300k. In reality you can drain and fill a radiator for $40-50 in coolant cost from a dealer a lot of times so why risk the investment on expensive, modern cars with expensive repairs?

I own a fleet of cars from 98-2025 and I can tell ya which ones are my favorite and the 2025 model (RAV4) is at the bottom for reasons above. At the end of the day it's consumers that are paying huge costs for things above when that wasn't the case before. This is systemic and it's bankrupting the working people with nonsense.

[Fuzz]

It's not a conspiracy, but here are a whole bunch of things I think are conspiracies...

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's not a conspiracy, but here are a whole bunch of things I think are conspiracies...

I’m sure the dealers love him coming in to pay them to change his super long life coolant on his fleet of vehicles every year. The customer is always right.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It's not a conspiracy, but here are a whole bunch of things I think are conspiracies...

Nothing I said is remotely wrong and it's showing up in the data. The automotive tech shortage is reaching critical levels and getting worse, despite the industry graduating a lot of skilled techs. People are leaving the business like you wouldn't believe. This is while dealerships charge $170+ in labour rates too, btw.

You probably don't like to be shorted by tens of thousands of dollars annually on compensation, getting harassed and not appreciated. If you know, you know how bad things are in the business. A huge problem is the garbage and how it's been engineered ,the complexity of systems that don't need to be overly complex for simple operations.

The younger techs at most shops are being over worked with tech/diagnostic issues and being short changed on things like warranty time and diagnostic time (ie: working for free) The old timers who are amazing parts replacers/ fabricators are aging out and having to contend with the nonsense I described above and a lot more. Furious customers, people stiffing them on jobs cause the repair bill on essentially new cars is higher than the value of the car.

If you have any automotive tech family and friends, they will tell you 100% the same things. If you know, you know.

[Wormius]

You believe all of this, but the possibility of oils being better is a bridge too far?

[btimbit]

We could have had these extended oil change intervals long ago, but people were too used to crappy ol' dino oil that the idea of waiting 10-15k seemed too insane for them to grasp.

I admit it took me a while as well, and had to actually look at used samples to be convinced that its actually fine.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Wormius

You believe all of this, but the possibility of oils being better is a bridge too far?

Of course oil's are a little better, nobody is doubting that. I have used synthetic oil in a lot of cars for a long time but how much better are they really compared to ones 10-15 years ago of the same brand/viscosity?

If we take 4 cylinder and V6 Honda's and Toyota's of which there are tens of millions of them around. A lot of them called for conventional or synthetic oil. 10W30, 5W30, 5W20 and called for approx 6k km's oil change intervals under what the majority of people would be severe conditions.

Fast forward to more modern Honda/Toyota cars with minor modifications to their engines as the engine family's are not radically different. Now all of a sudden it's a thinner oil viscosity and a 16k oil change interval. There have been some changes in oil/engine tolerances for sure but is it 250-300+ % ?

After your warranty period goes at 100k, who's paying the bill? When automakers/parts makers say lifetime fluids, lifetime is defined as how long? When a coolant maker says "Guaranteed for 15 years and 500k km's" what loophole will they use when that stuff goes acidic, eats everything, rusts out your engine and more? Might refund your $24 bottle back if your lucky.


Anyhow people are free to maintain their cars as they see fit.