04 honda pilot engine oil

(Gordon McGrew) wrote in

$30 million is $30 million. Doesn't matter what kind of business you're in,
$30 million OFF YOUR BOTTOM LINE is VERY significant.

Considering that in most businesses about 90% of your gross (or more) ends
up being bills to be paid, you protect the remaining 10% as best you can,
hence the existence of 5W-20 part-synthetic.

Who knows how close Honda is to that 27.5 limit?If they slip below, it's an
instant $30 million tax. Smart businessmen are careful not to let that sort
of thing happen. It may well be that CAFE is one reason Honda is not
currently heavily involved in light trucks, and not in V8s. North America,
primarily the US, is the world's foremost market for large engines with low
fuel mileage. And the US is the *only* country with any sort of CAFE
nonsense.

CAFE costs Ford tens of millions every year, again, right off the bottom
line. Honda does not want to be Ford; Ford loses money. Honda does not.

It may also be that Honda is planning for further expansion into larger
vehicles (think Ridgeline), and is banking CAFE credits in preparation for
that. Honda manufactures most of its large vehicles, like the Odyssey and
the Ridgeline, in North America, so it has a separate CAFE quota to meet
for those cars.

Since there is literally no way to predict or plan for the consequences of
any sort of governmental action, it makes sense for Honda to grab every
straw that waves its way, since you never know when it might be needed.
Hence the 5W-20 part-synthetic.

There's also the "green" factor. Honda already is run by safety nuts, and
they've been proponents of the "green" thing since CVCC days. I wouldn't be
surprised if Honda is trying for that last 0.1mpg on philosophical grounds.

 

And is probably not a good choice for a street engine, anyway, very
different criteria. Are F1 engines torn down after every race?

 

What I was getting at wasn't the technology, but that the final
product isn't going to be the same. The Ferrari team wasn't using
an off the shelf motor oil in their F1 engines, and its viscosity
was probably too thick for your average street car driven in sub-
desert temps. I wouldn't be surprised if the oil was somehow
preheated.

I doubt there's any technology going into these 5W-20 oils that
one can't find in current off the shelf 5W-30.

I was only thinking it's one of several factors. My understanding is
that all things being equal, a thicker (operating temp) oil will have
a higher thin film strength. Of course not all things are equal. The
API standard for 5W-20 allows for more zinc (compared to 5W-30/10W-30),
and several of the oils in this weight are reputed to contain rather
high levels of molybdenum anti-wear additives.

dude".

I wasn't thinking "thicker is better" under all circumstances. A good
many automakers do have additional recommendations for extreme
conditions such as towing or desert heat. My latest owner's manual
says to use straight weight (30 or 40), 20W-40, or 20W-50 in such
cases, when 5W-30 is the recommended year-round oil for normal driving
conditions. If I lived in Arizona, I'd probably just junk all that
and use Mobil 1 10W-30 year round, and throw in a yearly oil analysis
to make sure it was working OK. I just sent a sample to Blackstone
Labs this week.

 

oil analysis is a /very/ smart thing to do every now & then!

 

Nope.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they don't just throw $30 million away.
But, when your profit is about $5B, it is less than 1% - not VERY
significant in my judgement.

The system could be easily fixed but it would require the political
will to do so. The big car companies didn't want it to change so it
hasn't. But the big car companies (you know the two I mean) are
getting smaller and they may be overruled some day. Or maybe gas will
go to $6 a gallon and make CAFE irrelevant.

IMO, the reason Honda makes money is that Honda looks forward beyond
the next quarter. Saving $5 a car today is not worth pissing off even
1% of your customers. That's why I wouldn't be worried about running
5W-20 in a Honda that specified it. Higher price and limited
availability would piss me off a little though.

Ford loses money because they are greedy bastards. They will burn you
to death for $5 a car. Great in the short run but it tends to
discourage repeat purchases.

Don't be naive, its much more complex than that. Ody, Pilot,
Ridgeline are all trucks built in NA. As such they are separate from
cars. And they may even be separate from each other if some are
domestic and others are import. But, you say, they are all made in
North America. They could still be either domestic or import
depending on whether domestic content exceeds 75%. By manipulating
the sourcing of a few parts you can flip NA factory output from
domestic to import and back again to manipulate your numbers. Of
course the ultimate dodge would be a Honda Suburban which is not even
covered by CAFE.

But, 0.1 mpg is still only worth $5 per car.

Not sure I understand this. What is the part-syhnthetic? Does Honda
require that in 5W-20? Is that why someone was saying it was "only"
an extra $1 per quart? It sounds like Honda is just inefficiently
transferring costs to its customers. Wouldn't you prefer that Honda
just charge you $5 (or $15) dollars more for the car than get hit for
a $1 on every quart of oil? (You might recover a third of that $1 on
fuel savings but you won't notice that.)

Heh heh, I wonder if it was the safety nuts or the greens that set the
Accord Hybrid to be the fastest model in the Accord lineup.

I don't doubt that Honda has more of a soul than most car companies
but I don't think they are quite as zen as to want their tree to crash
in the forest if no one hears it. Honda has made great advances in
safety and environment but they usually don't hide their efforts.

 

This year they have to go two races. Unless they blow up in the first
one.

 

I believe engine rebuilds occurred in the past. I recall reading
and article in AutoWeek about Ferrari selling several of their
used F1 cars for a cool $2M each. Apparently each engine had a
service life of 300 miles, which could be doubled if the rev limiter
was dropped 1000 RPM. Most F1 races are under 200 miles I believe.

I seem to recall there are (or it was proposed) rules that an F1
engine must be able to last an entire race weekend, including
qualifying.

 

Two races this year.

 

Apparently most of the 5W-20 oil (even the ones sold as "conventional")
contain higher quality base oil. It may be PAO or a higher quality
hydrocracked petroleum oil (which is sometimes marketed as "synthetic"
these days). They might also boost certain other antiwear additives
to compensate for the thinness at operating temps. It might cost more
to make a properly formulated 5W-20, but I suppose it can be absorbed
across the entire lineup of oil weights.

Apparently yes, with the caveat that 5W-30 is OK as an emergency
backup. However - I don't recall that Honda is recommending 5W-20
except in North America for the exact same engines.

Most of the 5W-20 oil I've seen on store shelves recently doesn't
command a premium over the other offerings in the same "product
line". OTOH - it's hard to find the 5W-20 in many of the cheaper
brands.

I rented a Mazda 6 last Dec. They actually took it to a quickie
lube place and the sticker specifically said they used Mobil 5W-20.
Newer Mazdas come with a 5W-20 recommendation similar to Ford's.

 

I had a little trouble finding 5w-20 for my Mustang in 1996, but I did.
My 2003 Civic calls for 0w-20, and that's what I use.
That's even harder to find, but you only have to find the source once.

My '96 Mustang had 120,000 miles on 5w-20 oil when I sold it.
My '00 Durango had 91,000 miles on 5w-20 oil when I sold it.
My '03 Civic has 40,000 miles on 0w-20 oil.

I change oil at the factory recommended normal service intervals.

So longevity with 5w-20 doesn't seem to be the issue. I haven't noticed
the price, but the 5w-20 seemed to be the same as other weights.

 

First of all, your Mustang didn't come with a factory recommendation
for 5W-20 oil, although I understand that Ford has back-dated their
recommendation for 5W-20 to some cars as far back as the 1995 model
year.

Actually - 0W-20 is now near impossible to find. Mobil has
discontinued Mobil 1 0W-20. They may still be making it for Honda,
and you might be able to find it at a dealer. Sounds like you've
got the Civic Hybrid. The Honda labelled 0W-20 was selling for
$6/quart at one local dealer (I asked).

It was a problem at first. The first brands of 5W-20 I saw on store
shelves (Pennzoil and Motorcraft) were selling for slightly more than
their 5W-30 or 10W-30 equivalents.

 

Right. Mental slip. The Mustang was originally spec'd for 5w-30, which
was harder to find, but not more expensive. Later the spec was changed to
5w-20. I think I continued with 5w-30.

Still, you only have to find the source once. Mine was "Kragen". Not
exactly hard to locate.

 

The significance varies, of course, depending on the company's bottom
line. Big companies routinely report earnings of more than $1 billion /
quarter [*], so $30 mil/$4 billion = 0.0075, which is fairly small. I'm
not claiming, of course, that any company would take a sack of $30 mil
and toss it out the window or dump it into the ocean. IIRC some auto
manufacturers (Ford comes to mind) have accepted fines/legal judgments
greater than $30 mil because it was cheaper than correcting a problem
with millions of cars.

IMHO you're being a little disingenuous here - other countries tax
gasoline/petrol *much* heavier than the US does - enforcing a tougher
CAFE without the need to codify one.

An unfair characterization, IMHO.


[*] Microsoft's Net income for the fourth quarter was $2.69 billion
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY04/earn_rel_q4_04.mspx

GM's 2004 Net Income in (mil.) $2,805.0
http://www.hoovers.com/general-motors/--ID__10640--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

IBM ARMONK, N.Y., January 18, 2005 . . . IBM today announced ...

It was IBM's strongest fourth quarter ever, with earnings exceeding $3
billion for the first time.

http://www.ibm.com/investor/4q04/4q04earnings.phtml

 

Engines for other countries are never *exactly* the same as for the US
market. Hell, engines for the California market are different from the
ones offered in the other 49. It's no longer the case (as it was in the
early years of emission/noise/etc. standards) that the other markets are
unregulated.

 

I'll bet they aren't run 100,000 miles, plus, either.

 

There's always a loophole!

 

In many ways the engines are exactly the same. I think what's
different
are the emissions control systems. Sure - Honda isn't going to offer
exactly the same engines in all markets, but there are a lot of engines
that are made from the same materials from the same designs. Sure -
one engine might be cast and assembled in Ohio while another is done
in India, but it's still essentially the same engine.

What I'm getting at is that 5W-20 isn't necessarily something that is
hardwired into the engine's design. I really doubt that using 5W-30
is going to kill any brand new Honda engine because of oil problems.

 

Which means they are not exactly the same - my point entirely.

 

However - my point is that there's nothing special about the engine
design/materials/construction that makes 5W-20 more suitable than
5W-30. Mandating 5W-20 was a business decision.