this is the piece of psychology that always completely blows my mind - the bit where people can spend a bunch of dough, then completely disregard what they put it into. if they had a suitcase with $25,000 in hundreds, would they toss it out of a moving car with the lid open and watch the notes get blown away in the wind? of course not. but when those bills are all stuck together and shaped like a "car", psychology completely changes - owners manual? pshaw! this is contrasted with their behavior when getting on a plane. they pay money to sit compliantly and unquestioningly while they put their lives literally into the hands of other people who they have faith will proceed to follow the thousands and thousands of instructions in the plane's "owners manual", precisely and exactly, and thereby arrive at their destination safely. to summarize: * flying on a plane - they trust experts to know what they're doing. * driving a car - johnny shade tree is trusted and the experts are actively not. freakin' humans - they are so bizarrely perversely weird.
with respect, that opinion is underinformed. from http://www.swri.org/3pubs/IRD1999/03912699.htm we read: "Testing with partially stressed oil, which contained some wear debris, produced less wear than testing with clean oil." provided you're not using cheap garbage oil with a poor additive package or a poor base that's breaking down, there is no point changing your oil more frequently than factory spec. especially with a maintenance minder. better yet, get oil analysis done - with analysis and a quality full synthetic, i'm looking at 20k miles between changes, based on my driving pattern.
with respect, that opinion is underinformed. from http://www.swri.org/3pubs/IRD1999/03912699.htm we read: "Testing with partially stressed oil, which contained some wear debris, produced less wear than testing with clean oil." provided you're not using cheap garbage oil with a poor additive package or a poor base that's breaking down, there is no point changing your oil more frequently than factory spec. especially with a maintenance minder. better yet, get oil analysis done - with analysis and a quality full synthetic, i'm looking at 20k miles between changes, based on my driving pattern.
this is the piece of psychology that always completely blows my mind - the bit where people can spend a bunch of dough, then completely disregard what they put it into. if they had a suitcase with $25,000 in hundreds, would they toss it out of a moving car with the lid open and watch the notes get blown away in the wind? of course not.[/QUOTE] Some would, and then you'd see a blog entry on The Consumerist about how Samsonite bags suck and they wouldn't even take the owner's phone call about how Samsonite owes him $25,000 because his bag didn't prevent the bills from leaving the opened suitcase.
this is the piece of psychology that always completely blows my mind - the bit where people can spend a bunch of dough, then completely disregard what they put it into. if they had a suitcase with $25,000 in hundreds, would they toss it out of a moving car with the lid open and watch the notes get blown away in the wind? of course not.[/QUOTE] Some would, and then you'd see a blog entry on The Consumerist about how Samsonite bags suck and they wouldn't even take the owner's phone call about how Samsonite owes him $25,000 because his bag didn't prevent the bills from leaving the opened suitcase.
You just entrusted Honda with tens of thousands of your dollars in exchange for a complicated machine that might as well be a "black box" to you. The engineers that designed the vehicle and its systems have performed testing that consumed hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of hours of time. Some of that testing was done in order to determine the maintenance requirements.[/QUOTE] And I know one of those guys who did the testing. He's no dummy. He's paid well to flog the thing and know how it performs, and help the engineering effort to the end. Dismissing this guy, the guy I know, is ludicrous.
You just entrusted Honda with tens of thousands of your dollars in exchange for a complicated machine that might as well be a "black box" to you. The engineers that designed the vehicle and its systems have performed testing that consumed hundreds of millions of dollars and millions of hours of time. Some of that testing was done in order to determine the maintenance requirements.[/QUOTE] And I know one of those guys who did the testing. He's no dummy. He's paid well to flog the thing and know how it performs, and help the engineering effort to the end. Dismissing this guy, the guy I know, is ludicrous.
I agree. Oil is cheap, which makes it cheap insurance. If you change it twice as often as Honda dictates, you've spent an extra $300 over 100,000 miles. And if you got one of the engines that was put together on a bad day, that may make the difference between an engine swap and not.
I agree. Oil is cheap, which makes it cheap insurance. If you change it twice as often as Honda dictates, you've spent an extra $300 over 100,000 miles. And if you got one of the engines that was put together on a bad day, that may make the difference between an engine swap and not.
This is an extremely interesting document, so thanks for the link. However, it dates from 1999. The last paragraph is significant, in that the authors note their findings have not yet been fleshed-out or verified by additional testing, and are based on limited data. Quite a lot may have happened in the succeeding ten years since that doc was written, but there's nothing new on the SwRI site. And this: "...many oil chemistries require time and temperature to enhance their effectiveness". I'm really curious what real-world lessons those statements and test results have for us car owners. They have a contact page, I see. Next week I'll submit a few questions to them in the hopes of getting an answer. Stay tuned...
This is an extremely interesting document, so thanks for the link. However, it dates from 1999. The last paragraph is significant, in that the authors note their findings have not yet been fleshed-out or verified by additional testing, and are based on limited data. Quite a lot may have happened in the succeeding ten years since that doc was written, but there's nothing new on the SwRI site. And this: "...many oil chemistries require time and temperature to enhance their effectiveness". I'm really curious what real-world lessons those statements and test results have for us car owners. They have a contact page, I see. Next week I'll submit a few questions to them in the hopes of getting an answer. Stay tuned...
And for God's sake, people, don't think you know what you're doing--or that your father knew what he was doing--and continue to use the same crush washer on the drain plug. Use a new one every time. Even better if you follow the service manual and tighten the drain plug with a torque wrench to the specified torque. I'm happy to know that my DEALERSHIP mechanic, a true professional technician, does that every time. (Yeah, that's right--I request this guy for everything, even oil changes.) Going back to what jim and Tegger said, Honda says to use a new crush washer for a reason. Is that five cents REALLY going to break you? If so, you need to reconsider your car purchase.
And for God's sake, people, don't think you know what you're doing--or that your father knew what he was doing--and continue to use the same crush washer on the drain plug. Use a new one every time. Even better if you follow the service manual and tighten the drain plug with a torque wrench to the specified torque. I'm happy to know that my DEALERSHIP mechanic, a true professional technician, does that every time. (Yeah, that's right--I request this guy for everything, even oil changes.) Going back to what jim and Tegger said, Honda says to use a new crush washer for a reason. Is that five cents REALLY going to break you? If so, you need to reconsider your car purchase.
but hey, that oil deal at Big Lots was so incredible, I couldn't not buy ten cases. What does "SB" mean, anyway? ;-)
but hey, that oil deal at Big Lots was so incredible, I couldn't not buy ten cases. What does "SB" mean, anyway? ;-)
Yes, that's another cheap insurance way to do it. Blackstone Labs tested my 92 Civic Si at 120K miles, and they declared the engine so clean you could sip soup from it. They recommended increasing the interval dramatically. Of course, that was with a 3000 mile oil change interval I'd been doing over its life.
Yes, that's another cheap insurance way to do it. Blackstone Labs tested my 92 Civic Si at 120K miles, and they declared the engine so clean you could sip soup from it. They recommended increasing the interval dramatically. Of course, that was with a 3000 mile oil change interval I'd been doing over its life.
1999 or not, that doesn't change the physics. think of it like this: solid ice can rough you up pretty badly. water offers almost no lubrication worth worrying about. but ice slurry, where the smaller particles are free to slide among themselves, can be a fantastic remover of friction. that means you leave to oil /in/ for it to reach maximum effectiveness! to be clear though - i would not recommend it for cheap oil - that stuff breaks down, loses viscosity and sludges up your engine. but i wouldn't use cheap oil - period. breakdown, poor additive packages, lousy seal conditioning - just stay away. that would be great - thank you!
