Re: Synthetic Oil & Stuff

[jafo@tummy.com]

In article <32DE9028.52EF@buffnet.net> you write:
>cost, but he doesn't, and in his words, changing the oil at my schedule
>would cost him easily $ 1,000 over his ownership period. 
>Of course, I would never follow his example, since I want to get 200K
>out of my cars.  But this does have a bearing on the synthetic vs dino
>discussion; why switch to synthetic if you are not lengthening the
>service period to offset the cost?

There are certainly quite few selfish reasons why you would want to
change the oil often...  However, there are plenty of reasons that I
will continue to change the oil regularly (3K to 7500 depending on
conditions)...

Firstly, on new cars, if something happens to the engine and you haven't
been in for your oil changes, the warranty may not cover you.  If they
look at the oil and it looks like it's been in there 25K miles, they
probably won't...

I suspect that this person does more than just not change the oil regularly.
They probably also don't do a lot of other maintainance.  Poorly maintained
cars put a huge impact on the environment compared to well maintained
cars.  One study I read about estimated that getting 1% of the worst
polluting cars off the road would reduce pollution as much as getting rid
of 40% of the least polluting cars on the road.  Add to that the
environmental impact of producing replacement parts and new cars at a
faster rate to replace worn/damaged ones.  But what do I care, the Earth
just has to last until I die, right?

Is changing oil hard on the environment?  Well, I take my stuff to the
dump where they have a recycling center...

Why do I use synthetic?  The car starts and runs MUCH better in cold weather
when it has synthetic in it.  My last car had a turbo in it, and synthetic
is much better in turbos (doesn't coke, etc)...  I do use a longer change
period with synthetic -- slightly.  With dino juice, it's at most 3K
miles -- with synthetic I go at least 3K, but not a lot more usually...

Am I a tree-hugger?  Certainly not...  However, I think your friend is more
in "tree-burner" arena on this one.  :-)

Enjoy,
Sean
-- 
 Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
                 -- Eric Hoffer
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo@tummy.com>
URL: <http://www.tummy.com/xvscan> HP-UX/Linux/FreeBSD/BSDOS scanning software.