Happy Thanksgiving;
Wife is working on Turkey so I'm here talking to you.
Recently re-read the "Taxi Experiment" that Consumer Reports did in the 90's. I know, I know it was bad science (no cold starts etc), but I think there are some reasonable conclusions that can be drawn from the fact that their teams were not able to MEASURE significant wear in either the dino or synthetic cars using the 6000 mile interval over 60K miles (granted, the UOAs were probably horrific by our standards):
1) "Stop and Go" driving is not as big a deal as the oil companies would have us believe.
2) The number "3000 miles" - indeed most people's use of mileage as a yardstick - is inadequate when it comes to oil changes. It has no bearing on how many times the car is started cold, or driven like 2 miles and shut off.
3) The carmakers' 7500 mile OCI for "normal" service is not as crazy as people might think. Likewise, people who drive in reasonable traffic are not necessarily in "severe service" as long as they get the oil good and hot. This Quicklube mantra that "Everyone drives under severe conditions" because there are some stoplights on the way to work is BS.
While I'm on that, who ever said that "normal" service automatically meant perfect conditions on a glass-smooth highway, starting the car twice a day and driving 100 miles? The results of this Taxi test suggest that this is more quicklube propaganda. I'm thinking the short trips in cold weather that skank up the oil are the real villian.
This leads me to believe that the best way to set an OCI is to have it more constrained by time than miles...ie X miles or X months. That way you can get your money's worth out of the oil when you are driving long trips but dump it at a prudent time when you are doing a lot of short trips. I bet most people could set an upper limit of the manufacturer's max (7500 or 10K miles) and a relatively shorter time (like 4 or 6 months), and be perfectly happy with the results even with Dino oil. Or use top of the line PAO synthetic and drive it for the 25K miles / 1 year that it ought to be good for.
What do you think?
Wife is working on Turkey so I'm here talking to you.
Recently re-read the "Taxi Experiment" that Consumer Reports did in the 90's. I know, I know it was bad science (no cold starts etc), but I think there are some reasonable conclusions that can be drawn from the fact that their teams were not able to MEASURE significant wear in either the dino or synthetic cars using the 6000 mile interval over 60K miles (granted, the UOAs were probably horrific by our standards):
1) "Stop and Go" driving is not as big a deal as the oil companies would have us believe.
2) The number "3000 miles" - indeed most people's use of mileage as a yardstick - is inadequate when it comes to oil changes. It has no bearing on how many times the car is started cold, or driven like 2 miles and shut off.
3) The carmakers' 7500 mile OCI for "normal" service is not as crazy as people might think. Likewise, people who drive in reasonable traffic are not necessarily in "severe service" as long as they get the oil good and hot. This Quicklube mantra that "Everyone drives under severe conditions" because there are some stoplights on the way to work is BS.
While I'm on that, who ever said that "normal" service automatically meant perfect conditions on a glass-smooth highway, starting the car twice a day and driving 100 miles? The results of this Taxi test suggest that this is more quicklube propaganda. I'm thinking the short trips in cold weather that skank up the oil are the real villian.
This leads me to believe that the best way to set an OCI is to have it more constrained by time than miles...ie X miles or X months. That way you can get your money's worth out of the oil when you are driving long trips but dump it at a prudent time when you are doing a lot of short trips. I bet most people could set an upper limit of the manufacturer's max (7500 or 10K miles) and a relatively shorter time (like 4 or 6 months), and be perfectly happy with the results even with Dino oil. Or use top of the line PAO synthetic and drive it for the 25K miles / 1 year that it ought to be good for.
What do you think?