Hours on oil vs miles

tiger862

tiger862

Joined
Mar 15, 2012
Messages
1,806
Location
PEARL River la
I just ordered an hour gauge for the Caravan since it doesn't have the upgraded instrument cluster. On my lawn equipment it is on 50 hours but on the vehicle I looked at owners manual and it states never go over 350 hours. I do have OLM but most I have read seem to go off at or around 10k with a few exceptions therefore I will go hours. I do lots of short trips and low speed with some interstate in there as well as idle some so I was thinking about 150 hours or even 200 hours and once a year as I average 7k a year. Opinions appreciated.
 
I’m not too familiar with this hour thing on cars. What do you mean not go over 350 hours? Is this an electric van of some type. I’m sure most of us run our cars over 350 hours a year anyway if that is what this is saying.
 
AutoMechanic said:
I’m not too familiar with this hour thing on cars. What do you mean not go over 350 hours? Is this an electric van of some type. I’m sure most of us run our cars over 350 hours a year anyway if that is what this is saying.
Click to expand...
No it is a Pentastar 3.6. According to manual only one that would hit the 350 hours would be commercial vehicles IE taxi, police etc.
 
an hour meter isn't needed, the van is not a stationary powerplant or grass cutter with no odometer on it.
the miles travelled is a decent indicator for service intervals. there may be a obd device that can give you the idle time , saw it on some YT channel.....
 
I did a thread on this a little while back. Let me try to dig it up for ya.

The short is 100 hour oil changes for conventional. 200 hour oil changes for full synthetic. At the 200 hour mark you will be somewhere in the 6-8K miles range but I don't even pay attention to miles to be blunt. I go off my hour meter.
 
Pretty good read here for a high mileage Pentastar.

626,000 mile Pentastar teardown

https://www.thedrive.com/news/34672...ysler-pentastar-v6-is-after-626000-miles Looks like the internals were in good shape except for the timing chains and tensioners. My question is would these timing chains have lasted longer with thicker oils?
bobistheoilguy.com
 
tiger862 said:
Opinions appreciated.
Click to expand...

Here are the facts

Both are indirect measurements trying to establish a relative scale to a machine. They are indirect because they are measuring a machine as a composite of parts- not any one single thing. It would be most accurate to call them a scale or ruler.

In terms of oil and/or engine wear- the "wear" (degradation) is asymmetrical to any one thing as all are a combination of varying factors including internal and external factors.

That being true and indisputable, other than time, the other lowest common denominator is RPM ( but even then that's relative because RPM will be coupled with torque in terms of wear potential)

So both mileage and total time measurement have merit and disadvantage. Neither one ( together or severely) is an accurate indicator of anything as they are both indirect counters with no direct bearing on any applicable parameter.

If your application has a significant amount of "run time" (RPM) where the vehicle is stationary, you would most likely benefit from an additional hour meter.
 
For my driving style on country roads - 4,000 miles is around 110-115 hours. If it took 350 hours to go 7,000 miles that would be an average of 20 mph.
 
ABN_CBT_ENGR said:
Here are the facts

Both are indirect measurements trying to establish a relative scale to a machine. They are indirect because they are measuring a machine as a composite of parts- not any one single thing. It would be most accurate to call them a scale or ruler.

In terms of oil and/or engine wear- the "wear" (degradation) is asymmetrical to any one thing as all are a combination of varying factors including internal and external factors.

That being true and indisputable, other than time, the other lowest common denominator is RPM ( but even then that's relative because RPM will be coupled with torque in terms of wear potential)

So both mileage and total time measurement have merit and disadvantage. Neither one ( together or severely) is an accurate indicator of anything as they are both indirect counters with no direct bearing on any applicable parameter.

If your application has a significant amount of "run time" (RPM) where the vehicle is stationary, you would most likely benefit from an additional hour meter.
Click to expand...
And that is why I got a hour meter. I do so much different drives from one day to next. When I carry wife and dogs with me the van idles while I shop as wife is in a wheelchair. She doesn't want to get out due to covid-19. Like I said it has OLM but this will just be another tool for maintenance.
 
My last vehicle had an hour meter. A mix of stop and go urban driving and a few hundred miles on the weekend at mostly highway speeds. I consistently averaged 30 MPH over many years. At this rate, 200 hours gets you to 6,000 miles and 350 will put you over 10,000 miles.
 
If a person is _only_ going to watch _one_ thing to base OCIs on, gallons of fuel used is the best of the incomplete single things to watch. I don’t know whether the old threads and data on this topic can still be dug up on this forum or not, but if you can find them it’s worth reading.

Does the Fiat OLM not calculate oil life from the myriad parameters that GM’s (to name one good example) does? If it _does_ use a decent multi-variable decay algorithm, why would you try to do better with an odometer and an hour meter? I can understand choosing a _different_ change point than they use, but I frankly can’t understand thinking that a one- or two-input hack is a better choice for making the degradation estimates.
 
bulwnkl said:
If a person is _only_ going to watch _one_ thing to base OCIs on, gallons of fuel used is the best of the incomplete single things to watch. I don’t know whether the old threads and data on this topic can still be dug up on this forum or not, but if you can find them it’s worth reading.

Does the Fiat OLM not calculate oil life from the myriad parameters that GM’s (to name one good example) does? If it _does_ use a decent multi-variable decay algorithm, why would you try to do better with an odometer and an hour meter? I can understand choosing a _different_ change point than they use, but I frankly can’t understand thinking that a one- or two-input hack is a better choice for making the degradation estimates.
Click to expand...
Supposed to be but I have never seen mine. I am going to base oil change on the three things until I figure out what is best. The main goal is to see if I hit the 350 hours before light goes off or change at 5k. Manual states 4k for severe duty not more than 350 hours but use OLM for other drives at that is the reason for hour meter.
 
The main goal is to see where I am according to hour meter vs mileage on my once a year oil change vs OLM. I did 6 months OCI last year and right now I am 7th month at 4k. So to answer your question I want to make sure I don't hit 350 hrs manual states never exceed. Not interested in extending interval past manual recommendation.
 
Just to give you an example of my drive today. 45 minutes to drive 10 miles round trip and vehicle never was shut off.
 
bulwnkl said:
If a person is _only_ going to watch _one_ thing to base OCIs on, gallons of fuel used is the best of the incomplete single things to watch. ...
Click to expand...
I would agree that quantity of fuel consumed is more likely than either distance or run time to correlate well with the degree of oil degradation. None of those is perfect.
 
tiger862 said:
The main goal is to see where I am according to hour meter vs mileage on my once a year oil change vs OLM.
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense (I do something similar on utility and play engines)

Difference is, I don't even acknowledge the existence of an OLM- much less pay attention to anything it might indicate. ( but that's my choice based on what technologies I have available which are more direct measurements of performance and condition)
 
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