Oil Changes: your .02 ?

[justjohn]

I know I only looked for a few minutes. I might try to find real answers tomorrow. Although I would translate the last bit as

Getting your oil "moderately cold" = solids in your oil even after it's been warmed back up

And that's the first thing I was wanting to know.

[Frank Lee]

If there are so many "solids" then I'd imagine the stuff wouldn't be able to pass through the oil pickup screen and the oil light would come on. But if it's flowing, it's flowing.

When I see oil that looks like cottage cheese, I'll worry. Until then, I have empirically determined that around here, in spite of brutal -40F cold starts, the engines are the last thing to fail, preceeded by rusted out body structures.

[user removed]

Precisely a Frank said. The only difference here is the temp ranges are nothing like his and the rust issue is very much less than northern climates. Basically that means our cars die a slow death from failures of the many electrical components like power window motors which are required for a state inspection on the drivers side.

You can go to Uwrench it and see Metros with no rust at all. They just lost a timing belt, or burnt a valve. Enough to make the cost of repairs enough to put the car in the scrap yard. Oil related failures are virtually unknown unless you let it all leak out or drive it 40k without a change. People always like the way I tried not to sell them excessive maintenance or repairs when I worked on their cars. Many cases of a $250 bill instead of a $1250 quote from some competitor.

I watch the local salvage auction listings regularly and its hard to believe the average mileage on cars these days. Just saw a Nissan truck with 450k miles. Biggest killer is broken timing belts, and a lot of manufacturers are getting away from them altogether. I think Nissan may have eliminated timing belts on their US line of cars. Most newer Toyotas are not interference engines so if the belt breaks then you just replace it after a tow.

regards
Mech

[justjohn]

I suppose that's a good point in many respects. If the engine is going to be the last thing to "wear out" why worry about the oil not functioning quite right. Just due to personality I like to keep everything optimal if possible so I'll probably still worry about it anyway, but I definitely see the point.

[Joenavy85]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

In spite of brutal -40F cold starts, the engines are the last thing to fail, preceeded by rusted out body structures.

Don't rusted out body syructures preceed just about everything up north? my girlfriends uncle had a Porsche 914 literally rust in half from all the salt thrown down in winter time.(obviously the owner is partly to blame for not maintaining it but still)

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Joenavy85

Don't rusted out body syructures preceed just about everything up north? my girlfriends

The first line stopped there and then I was sadly disappointed by the lack of a punch line to follow.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Joenavy85

Don't rusted out body syructures preceed just about everything up north? my girlfriends uncle had a Porsche 914 literally rust in half from all the salt thrown down in winter time.(obviously the owner is partly to blame for not maintaining it but still)

914s are notorious for folding in half when the top is taken off. At least, in areas that use road salt, they are.

Un-galvanized sheet metal (that isn't massively thick) tends to disappear after the upper-midwest winters. Even new-ish cars with galvanized body panels and decent undercoating tend to start rotting after a while.

-soD

[Ford Man]

The motor oil I'm using in my cars has been stored in outside storage buildings where the temperatures vary from 0*F in the winter to 100*+F in the summer and most of it is over 10 years old with some of it being over 20 years old. I also still have about 20 cases on hand, so some of it will probably be well over 25 years old when I finally use it. The oil I'm using in my '88 Escort that's got 516K+ miles on it is probably at least 25 years old. The oil I'm now using in my '97 Escort wagon is the same oil I had on hand and started using in it when I bought it new, so that oil is at least 14 years old and I still have 2 or 3 cases of it. I guess you know my thoughts on shelf life and temperature variations. lol

[Joenavy85]

Service life. My ship used MILSPEC 2190 TEP oil in everything, short of the Emergency Diesel Generators. In my 5 years on the Ship we changed the oil in the Main Reduction Gears 3 times, and none were due to wear caused by usage, all were due to water contamination due to improper steam seal alignment. In those 5 years the Ship covered over 125,000 Miles of open sea and never had oil issues other than the water contamination. The reduction gear sets on the Ship are so expensive (due to the manufacturing process) that the Navy doesn't even own them, they are leased from the manufacturer for the life of the ship, and returned to the company when the Ship is decommissioned. My Ship decommissioned at the end of March this year and I contacted the Gear Manufacturer inquiring as to the condition of the gears, they said they looked like they had been in use for about 5 years, and the Ship was in service for 32 Years.

[Joenavy85]

Mobil USA | Car Engine Oils | Mobil Super

$20 says that this exactly the same stuff they've been selling for years, with no new additives.