[Insightful Trekker]

I'm sure this won't end the debate on oil change intervals but on point to Armin's posting is this:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 604491.htm

I have seen that manufacturers are under political pressure to decrease the waste stream due to vehicle maintenance. However, cars are inhearantly "dirty", very energy intensive to produce and maintain. Will we as Insight driver's _ever_ save the gasoline energy equivalent of the cost of the aluminum used in our Insight? If so I believe it will take many tens of thousands of miles.

The lowest cost in both dollars and to the environment is to produce an efficent auto and maintain it nearly forever. Simply recycling its maintenance waste products.

In the real world I have seen _many_ cases of 300,000+ miles on many different makes and models. The primary difference in these few cars vs. the rest is frequent maintenance. And the primary life extending maintenance for the engine is frequent oil change intervals. I have _never_ seen a 300,000+ auto that had been maintained by the minimum manufacturers maintenance interval. With the increased precision and quality of materials the benefits of frequent maintenance dosen't begin to show up til the upper 100,000 mile range. The benefits of changing the other fluids and lubrication have similarly long return on investment times.

The big kink in this "arguement" is "refined" vs. "100% synthetic" oils. The synthetics can _probably_ take the punishment of extremely long change intervals. But for my money I'll still err on the lower cost side (more frequency) and take my waste oil to be recycled.

John K. Bullock
aka. Insightful Trekker

 

[Insightful Trekker]

<snip>

There is a "green book" out that rates cars based on estimates of the total amount of pollution they put out while being driven and while being made. They have ranked the Insight CVT #1 overall for 2003:

http://www.greenercars.org/12green.html

I knew someone would have a good link, Thanks Tim In regard to my question it was total cost, to the person and planet.

Back in the late 70's when energy conservation was considered in the national interest I worked for a multinational in their Energy Engineering Division. Some of what was studied was the product life cycle energy costs. Many total energy cost savings were not intuitive.

John K. Bullock
aka. Insightful Trekker

 

[Insightful Trekker]

When I was a student, I had a VW rabbit with 230,000 miles on it,

<snip>

I changed the oil in that car every 30,000 miles (or only about 7 oil changes over the life of the car). When I graduated, I gave the car away, but it was still running strong.

Randy

There are always the difficult to understand exceptions.

Interesting you had a Rabbit. I had a '75 and kept it for 240,000+ miles with LOF's in the 5000-7500 mile range (7500 being the factory recomended max).

Couldn't keep valve guides from wearing out every 100,000 miles or so. And cracked one of their advanced nickle steel piston rings (strong yet flexible) at 180,000.

John K. Bullock
aka Insightful Trekker

 

[Insightful Trekker]

Little did I realize that this topic would spark such a debate.

5 k is the interval I have decided on, which I had before I asked the question. Just curious for opinions and I sure did get them

I'm with you. 5k is what I have also decided on using 100% synthetic & a filter.

John K. Bullock
aka. Insightful Trekker