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Americans and oil changes..


Barry Cade

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48 minutes ago, Wack said:

I got talking to a guy in a queue in disneyworld 10 years go, he'd driven from ohio ,1800 mile round trip for a 4 day christmas break

I asked him why he hadn't flown or taken the train

3 kids so 5 return plane tickets plus a rental car

the trains in the US go city to city so to get to florida takes days of zig zagging and still no car

Drive on a 4 lane highway that starts 5 miles from his front door and finishes in Orlando 70 gallons of fuel @$3 a gallon

The car is the only viable means of long distance transport for many americans

 

The hypothetical family Disneyworld trip from the midwest is "stereotypical American", and it's also interesting to be at Disneyworld and see a small microcosm of what a truly fully connected public transportation system.

My wife is the Disney nut, and has 30-some-odd trips in her life. I've only been with her twice. We fly, and it's usually $600 round trip for the two of us. Add in a hypothetical two children and it doubles. As you said, forget taking a train unless you want to spend a week wandering around to get somewhere. We can catch one relatively close to us, but I think we'd have to take it to Chicago then get on one to Orlando. It would take a couple of days with no real promise of an arrival time, and would cost about as much as flying. It would be more comfortable, but to get a sleeper or something drives the cost way up and considering that we'll tolerate a 2 1/2 hour flight. Fortunately at least as long as you fly into Orlando International, are staying at a Disney property, and don't plan to leave their property during your stay, you don't need a rental car(I'd go so far as to say it's a waste of money), but still just the flight itself can kill you for that many people.

My sister and her family are in Florida right now for an extended vacation, and they did spend a week at Disney. They have a camper my BIL tows behind his F150. Even at 10mpg(I think he does better than that), that saves them a whole lot of money not just on plane tickets but on staying places.

She has 2 siblings. Growing up, they drove down there a bunch. Once they were old enough and all had incomes and could go to an "everyone pays for themselves" system(or at least everyone but her 10-year-younger brother) did they start flying. It's just a little short of 1000 miles each way from here. Even at $4.00/gallon in a car that gets 25mpg, that's still well under $400 to get everyone there and back even factoring in things like tolls on I-75 in Florida and paying for parking during your stay.

Once you're there, though, you don't even need to get near a car until you get back home. They pick you up from the airport, and you can use their transportation system to get anywhere else you need to go. The "transportation system" of course is busses, monorails, boats, and now the Skyliner gondolas.

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16 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Ah yes, the General Motors 5.7 V8 diesel.  That was a shocker, it's true.  

The 6.2 was actually a good engine though.

 

Yes, diesels in America were dealt a double-whammy.  First by GM's spectacularly awful 5.7 V8 diesel.  Then, just as memories of those awful lumps finally began to fade and sales of German diesels were booming, Volkswagen's "Dieselgate" scandal happened and killed derv cars in America stone-cold dead.  Again.

The tortured tale of diesel cars in America could fill an entire book.

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On 1/18/2021 at 11:43 PM, Barry Cade said:

Doing lots of miles would mean oil would not need changed at such low mileages, and surely the air filter keeps dust and sand out of the engine? crap fuel, yes, but high ethanol content would burn cleaner I think?  I know some parts have extreme temp differences, but that would just mean winter and summer weight oil, but that's pretty old hat now.

I used to commute 120 miles a day, 12 months of the year. I had a Suzuki GSX-R which i changed the oil and filter every 10,000 miles as after 60 miles all the condensation would have been boiled away. The bike had two cold starts a day (maybe 3 if i had to refuel near work on my way home).

At 180,000 miles the engine and exhaust system were both original. Sadly totally destroyed in a crash with a Transit tipper.

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51 minutes ago, Ian_Fearn said:

My grandad spent the final 50 years of his life in the USA. I always used to ask him why Americans didn’t drive diesels considering the MPG benefits. He always claimed the manufacturers tried to push diesel in the 80s but they were catastrophically shite and public perception was set for the next 25 years.

Just when people were starting to get back into diesel in the naughties, Dieselgate happened.

It’s a filthy fuel and when gas costs buttons, why change? 

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Diesel is for heavy trucks and towing vehicles.

All small diesel engines are overly complicated and shite and noisy and the tiny little turbodisels they're pushing now just lack the sheer grunt demanded by most American drivers.

What is considered "quite fast enough" by European manufacture standards is "can't get out the way of it's own shadow" here. 

Particularly when you are driving up in the hills at 6000'+ and the vehicle gets gutless with no reserve left. 

Imagine hauling a vehicle, laden with kids, adults and crap when it's 38°C outside, with the Aircon on, full throttle up an 12-18% grade that continues for 6 miles straight... 

How long would a modern, small, highly stressed turbodisel last in that climate before popping a gasket? 

The car here has become expected to be able to tolerate that, plus also be able to potter to and from the shops without causing significant complaint.

Phil

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Diesels are a bit complicated.

It's the default for heavy hauling and the like-you likely won't find a tractor-trailer, large bus, or the like running anything else. There are some excellent big diesel engines for those applications here.

Even diesels sized for things like 3/4 and 1 ton pickups, and vehicles built on those size chassis, are good.

Passenger sized vehicle diesels are a different story. There was a push for them in the 80s, but American makers only made half hearted attempts and in many cases they just took a gasoline engine and cranked up the C/R. Needless to say, those weren't particularly good, and I think some of the attempts at those left a bad taste.

These days, the emissions controls on diesels kill mileage and drive up maintenance costs so high that TCO on a diesel vehicle tends to be higher than a comparable gasoline vehicle. It's even eating into the larger pickup market enough that Ford's come out with a big new 7.4L pushrod gasoline engine. It's a big, low revving, high torque engine with a lot of the same benefits of a diesel but without need DEF, particulate filters, etc. The biggest market I see now for diesels is young guys who want to Roll Coal in the Brodozer.

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Americans do seem to have very different ideas about acceleration.  I managed to watch a couple of Doug DeMuro vids the other day (before he got too annoying and I had to turn him off) and when he gives the cars his "Doug score", anything (even a family saloon sedan) with a 0-60 time of over 7 seconds automatically gets 1 out of 10.  Now to me, 0-60 in 7 seconds is fast as f*ck.  Out of the over 500 cars I've owned, I could count on my fingers the ones that could get to 60 in less than that.  I wonder what Americans would make of my Iveco which takes a full minute to reach 60?

Regarding driving at high altitude - surely a turbo diesel would be better in that situation than a big NA petrol, given that the turbocharger would compensate for the lower air density up there?

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2 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Americans do seem to have very different ideas about acceleration.  I managed to watch a couple of Doug DeMuro vids the other day (before he got too annoying and I had to turn him off) and when he gives the cars his "Doug score", anything (even a family saloon sedan) with a 0-60 time of over 7 seconds automatically gets 1 out of 10.  Now to me, 0-60 in 7 seconds is fast as f*ck.  Out of the over 500 cars I've owned, I could count on my fingers the ones that could get to 60 in less than that.  I wonder what Americans would make of my Iveco which takes a full minute to reach 60?

Regarding driving at high altitude - surely a turbo diesel would be better in that situation than a big NA petrol, given that the turbocharger would compensate for the lower air density up there?

Changing expectations.

20 years ago, sub-6-seconds was unheard of on outside true sportscar or muscle car territory(a lot of Americans, BTW, don't know the difference between the two, but then the line is blurry). 10 seconds+ would be typical for your average people hauler. Now, a V6 Camry does sub-6-seconds.

To a point, some things like short freeway onramps need fast acceleration to be driven safely, but really 15 seconds to get to 60mph is probably plenty safe even in those situations as long as you pay attention and plan, and anything faster than that is just fun.

Most folks here couldn't tell you their car's 0-60 time(unless you're a Tesla dick-waver, where that's the sole metric by which they claim superiority over every other car ever even thought of) and even if they know it, rarely do you even have the need or even opportunity to floor it and enjoy that 0-60 time.

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I don’t do much ‘haulin ass’ up 1 in 3 gradients with 6 people on board so a 2.0 diesel does ok, it’ll sit at 90 all day and do 42mpg round the houses. The 2.0 petrol is ok but it’s slower in the real world and does about 32mpg in similar circumstances. Ok the diesel can blow up and suffer all manner of problems but that’s the chance you take I guess. It’s maintained properly which I guess hedges your bets. The oil is dropped every six months but it costs something like £15 to change the oil when you are buying oil in bulk. 

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Mazda USA briefly offered a diesel engine in the CX-5 in 2019 but hardly anyone bought it.  Why was the diesel CX-5 such a hard-sell in America?  Allow me to explain...

The diesel engine was only available in the range-topping "Signature" trim, which was a $10,000 upgrade over the standard CX-5.  You then had to add an additional $4,100 to the price tag to spec the diesel.  The worst part is the $14,100 premium you paid got you an engine that was only rated at ONE mile-per-gallon better than Mazda's excellent SkyActive  petrol unit.  It didn't help that reviewers of the CX-5 diesel complained of tepid performance, either.  Also, when you consider the fact crossover shoppers looking to save money on fuel could buy the much cheaper Toyota RAV-4 Hybrid, the case for buying the derv-powered Mazda falls flat on it's face.

Taking these factors into account, I'm surprised they sold any at all.

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Acceleration matters to Americans more than top speed.  "Performance" means quickly pulling away from a traffic light or merging onto the highway.  Hardly anyone drives above 80 MPH, so top speed is irrelevant.  Unlike British car magazines, American car reviews seldom ever mention top speed.  It's all about 0-60 MPH.

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A lot of that comes down to frankly godawful gearing and heavy reliance on torque converter slip in 70's through early 90's cars.

The desire to have cruise RPM very low but not fit a better gearbox with more ratios led to the combination of a soft cammed engine, smothered with smog regulation crap, driving the car via a slushy torque converter into a very high ratio final drive (think 1500rpm at 70 in a 2.2 4-pot with mediocre torque characteristics that's out of breath by 5000 rpm) which has been rather brought forward by variable valve timing, better emissions equipment, better gearboxes, better fuel and spark control.

The desire to have a low RPM at cruise has persisted, though. Most American variants of European models have a much higher ratio final drive. That tends to demand a larger displacement engine for the additional torque required.

0-60 is usually achieved in gears 1 and 2 (sometimes as high as 3 on a close ratio box), and as said- you're not allowed to go fast but you might as well have fun getting to the speed limit.

On the subject of performance yes. Dodge is on a beeline to offer every vehicle they build with the Hellcat V8, it seems. They're touting the rose tinted spectacles at the end of the muscle car era (just before OPEC went cuckoo). 

They did the same thing in the fifties. Old and slow was replaced by glitzy and fast. Then efficiency was pushed, then family hauling, then a place to put your pipe and carpet slippers. Catering to the generation who could afford it all.

 

Phil

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2 hours ago, Bitzer said:

Not with the steering wheel on the wrong side.

Not the point though.  We're talking about a home market model being sold in it's own market.

Also, Cars in both Australia and Japan seem to be worth more than the UK, so the whole "RHD cars are valueless" thing doesn't really stack up.

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You beat me to it! I knew I’d read it somewhere that oil for the mercury was changed at 3000 or so miles. Crazy low. 
 
the trucks I work on are changed at 120000km, or 150000km if on long interval plan. 

They most hold a serious volume to be able to do that. My last sprinter took about 8 litres.
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3 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Not the point though.  We're talking about a home market model being sold in it's own market.

Also, Cars in both Australia and Japan seem to be worth more than the UK, so the whole "RHD cars are valueless" thing doesn't really stack up.

Point taken. However, I still believe that the low prices of used cars in the UK are result of (virtual) impossibility to sell used RHD cars abroad. I am sure there would be enormous and unsaturated markets for Ł500 chod in countries East of Eden (like Ukraine, Belarus etc.), which would, in turn, push their prices up.

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9 minutes ago, Bitzer said:

Point taken. However, I still believe that the low prices of used cars in the UK are result of (virtual) impossibility to sell used RHD cars abroad. I am sure there would be enormous and unsaturated markets for Ł500 chod in countries East of Eden (like Ukraine, Belarus etc.), which would, in turn, push their prices up.

You see plenty of RHD cars in Russia that come in from Japan. For the right price, many won't be fussy. I can't recall seeing RHD cars in Belarus or Ukraine, I admit 

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On 1/19/2021 at 12:17 PM, cort1977 said:

  I have looked at a few sites about servicing the Mustang and it's kind of depressing the amount of horse shit people spout about oil and filter types.

You need to take a look at some of the Subaru sites out there,there's a whole new level of cockwomble in some of them

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Fortunately, RHD isn't illegal in the US. Otherwise the postal service would be in trouble! To be fair they are a government agency and can get away with a lot, but IIRC there are a lot of ex-postal service Jeeps in circulation. In the past, I've also know mail carriers with personally owned vehicles custom ordered in RHD(which was better than the alternative of them sitting in the center of the bench seat, which I've also seen done). It looks like they're going to be holding onto the LLVs for the forseeable future, even though those are getting up there in years.

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25 minutes ago, sutty2006 said:

Newer sprinters hold 11. 
 

471 engines in Actros trucks hold approx 38.. 

 

groovy 

Pontiac takes 11.5 litres of oil and a filter 13 litres of transmission fluid.

Yes, I but the cheapest 30W diesel oil I can find because it gets changed so regularly.

 

Phil

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16 minutes ago, 1970mgb said:

Fortunately, RHD isn't illegal in the US. Otherwise the postal service would be in trouble! To be fair they are a government agency and can get away with a lot, but IIRC there are a lot of ex-postal service Jeeps in circulation. In the past, I've also know mail carriers with personally owned vehicles custom ordered in RHD(which was better than the alternative of them sitting in the center of the bench seat, which I've also seen done). It looks like they're going to be holding onto the LLVs for the forseeable future, even though those are getting up there in years.

We just got a bunch of new Mercedes Benz vans down here, all liveried up for the post office.

Our local carrier would get an oil change a week and a transmission fluid change every 3 months...

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