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Americans and oil changes..


Barry Cade

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8 minutes ago, Sham said:

Just imagine having to faff around at pumps wondering what fuel to buy.

Normal or super unleaded is enough choice, thanks.

I probably made it more complicated than it need to be.

Many stations really just do have two options-regular and premium(87 and 91/93).

Some will add the 3rd "mid grade" or "plus" option, which doesn't come from its own tank but is mixed in the pump. Really, it's a grade of fuel that doesn't have a lot of reason to exist(I use to run it in the MG, but after I upped the compression I just figured I'd go premium and enjoy running more timing) since I don't know of any cars that specify it. I think that's why some stations have gotten rid of it, but it's also there since it costs 15¢ or so more and it makes some people feel better.

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30 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Brilliant! Thats the sort of info that helps me out. Thank you!  Now can you explain titles, and why not having a title is a huge deal in some states? And why Americans donate their cars when they're at the end of their lives for tax purposes?

Title is something akin to the deeds. Proof that it's yours. Such a thing simply doesn't exist for cars here. 

 

If the title isn't yours, the car isn't yours 

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13 minutes ago, Barry Cade said:

Brilliant! Thats the sort of info that helps me out. Thank you!  Now can you explain titles, and why not having a title is a huge deal in some states? And why Americans donate their cars when they're at the end of their lives for tax purposes?

The title is basically the "proof of ownership" for a vehicle.

Not having one can be looked at with suspicion both because of the possibility that it's stolen/no clear chain of ownership. A bigger concern, though, is that when a car is junked, the title basically goes away. There's a process for "rescuing" a car and getting what's called a "salvage" title, but there can be a big concern about bucking the process and getting a clear title on a salvage car.

Most of the time, on old stuff, we don't really care about clear vs. salvage title, especially since if you yank a car out of a field and get it on the road again it kind of is a salvage car. The laws are more there for newish cars(say 20 years old or newer-stuff people still expect to be reliable transportation and not necessarily a special interest/tinkerer/collector car) but can hinder dealing with new cars.

As for donating-there are some good reasons for it. One is let's say you have an old car that's pretty rough around the edges and if you sold it, might be lucky to get "low book" for it. If you call Goodwill, etc, they'll come and get it for you(so no pain trying to sell it) and take care of all the paperwork. More significantly, though, the IRS treats in-kind donations pretty favorably. On a car that you might struggle to sell for low book, the IRS wouldn't bat an eye if you claimed it at high book on your taxes. So, a car that might be a tough $1500 sell with a lot of work involved turns into a $3000 tax write-off that's zero headache. BTW, Goodwill at least sells anything here that's imminently driveable. I had a co-worker who got on a kick of going to Goodwill auctions and bought maybe 3 cars. None of them were great, but he had fun fixing them up and turned one into a father-son project for a good reliable car for his son. That particular one was a maybe about a 2008 Subaru that was "dead" from a faulty sensor in the transmission that ended up being a $200 fix. There was some superficial body damage and they also bought two new wheels thanks to some nasty curb rash, but it turned into a perfectly serviceable car with under $2K spent all said and done. I visited once and contemplated buying a 75 MGB that was sold as "bad transmission"(pretty sure I'd have been able to drive it home if I'd topped up the clutch master cylinder, since as best as I could tell the only thing wrong was no movement in the clutch hydraulics and it was dry) but my then-fiancé said no. Plus, it was a 75-universally recognized as the worst year of NA MGBs :) .

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On 1/22/2021 at 1:50 PM, Ian_Fearn said:

I spent my career* working at a well known aircraft engine manufacturer. About 15 years ago they opened an outdoor test facility in Mississippi. Engines would be shipped by sea to Charleston SC in a transportation stand on a trailer specially designed for it. These trailers were actually designed to transport engines between Derby and Hucknall near Nottingham.

Of course as soon as they got on the American highway they blew out every single tire and replacements had to be shipped in.

 

Very interesting.  I never knew there was such a difference in tyres between the UK and the US.

One thing I find curious.  Why ship replacement tyres from the UK?  Wouldn't they also fail in the same manner the originals had done?  Seems to me it would make more sense to fit US-sourced tyres which were designed for American road conditions.

 

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21 hours ago, Madman Of The People said:

 

Very interesting.  I never knew there was such a difference in tyres between the UK and the US.

One thing I find curious.  Why ship replacement tyres from the UK?  Wouldn't they also fail in the same manner the originals had done?  Seems to me it would make more sense to fit US-sourced tyres which were designed for American road conditions.

 

It didn't read to me that the replacement tyres came from the UK. Swap 'shipped in' for 'brought in'

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On 23/01/2021 at 2:21 PM, Sham said:

Just imagine having to faff around at pumps wondering what fuel to buy.

Normal or super unleaded is enough choice, thanks.

Even worse is that the green pump handles and pipes are diesel pumps with the black pipes+handles being unleaded! 😱

Thankfully, like the UK, it has a much fatter nozzle and didn't fit in the filler hole. 

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1 hour ago, SiC said:

Even worse is that the green pump handles and pipes are diesel pumps with the black pipes+handles being unleaded! 😱

Thankfully, like the UK, it has a much fatter nozzle and didn't fit in the filler hole. 

Australia does that too.  Ask my brand new van how we found out.

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On 1/27/2021 at 3:00 PM, Madman Of The People said:

 

Very interesting.  I never knew there was such a difference in tyres between the UK and the US.

One thing I find curious.  Why ship replacement tyres from the UK?  Wouldn't they also fail in the same manner the originals had done?  Seems to me it would make more sense to fit US-sourced tyres which were designed for American road conditions.

 

I honestly cant remember the source of the tyres but I remember the engine had to sit on the side of the road for nearly a week waiting for the tyres to arrive at one point. We had programme managers banging on tables in the morning meetings wanting to know why the engine wasn’t running on the test bed.

Then came the corporate slaughtering (root cause analysis) that typically took place followed by management demanding risk assessments for onward travel. Obviously  management needed impossible levels of risk mitigation and wanted aerospace engineers to put their neck on the line over a sodding trailer tyre!! 

It was typical of the sort of corporate BS that went on (and I imagine still does!).

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30 minutes ago, TheXUDfiles said:

I change my oil every 3-5k, if it's something I care about. 

Guess I must be American. 

Some cars have very low specified intervals.

My Mercedes 190 diesel.  Predominantly long journeys, 6,250 miles.  Predominantly shorter journeys, 3,750 miles.

 

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Just now, MJK 24 said:

Some cars have very low specified intervals.

My Mercedes 190 diesel.  Predominantly long journeys, 6,250 miles.  Predominantly shorter journeys, 3,750 miles.

 

You can go one better than that. One of my school friends bought an RX-7 in the '00s (and still has it). 2,000 mile interval. 

He buys a lot of oil. 

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29 minutes ago, TheXUDfiles said:

You can go one better than that. One of my school friends bought an RX-7 in the '00s (and still has it). 2,000 mile interval. 

He buys a lot of oil. 

Wow!

I think the diesel Shoguns of the late 80’s and early 90’s were 3,000 miles.

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21 hours ago, TheXUDfiles said:

You can go one better than that. One of my school friends bought an RX-7 in the '00s (and still has it). 2,000 mile interval. 

He buys a lot of oil. 

That's just to force people to replace the oil that's escaped through the exhaust pipe on one of those though.

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Looking at the oils available over in the US it is no wonder they need to change their oil every 3k.. 

Most of their conventional oils have very low Viscosity indexes and very little calcium the latter being a detergent which explains their need to change it more frequently

even their "premium synthetics" are abysmal, this below is the data sheet for an AMSOIL synthetic .

https://amsoilcontent.com/ams/lit/databulletins/g2212.pdf  

 

A VI of 156 from a synthetic is bad compared to oils you get over here, even the COMMA semi syn 10w40 I used in my P38 has a better additive package and it is £16 a gallon instead of Amsoil which is £20 a litre! 

 

Bad oil and shit fuel, must be a nightmare over there! ;)

 

Even their cars have heart disease.  

 

Don't do this BTW ;)

 

lol

 

 

 

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