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04-14-2008, 07:39 AM
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#1
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Seasoned Camper
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Florissant
Posts: 72
M.O.C. #7838
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Price of oil and too much time on my hands
So I'm in ATL last night with my broken airplane waiting for parts to show up from STL when the Mrs. calls to inform me that the most recent oil analysis from the truck has showed up. She informed the oil was good to go till the next sample interval (15 thousand for me). I said thanks for calling and that got me to thinking. I ran some numbers for the roughly 250 million registerd passenger vehicles in the U.S, and here is what I came up with. I used an average or 20000 miles per vehicle with 3000 mile oil changes with 5 qts of oil. At 20000 miles per vehicle for 250 million vehicles equals 5,000,000,000,000 miles. At 3000 miles per oil change thats 1,666,666,666 oil changes. At 5 quarts per change thats 8,333,333,333 quarts or 2,083,333,333 gallons of oil. Convert that number to 55 gallon barrels and it comes to 37,878,787 barrels. Thats huge, and this is for only U.S. registered vehicles. Think of all the oil we could save if everyone here went to 1 year or so oil changes. Food for thought huh?
Well I'm done thinking for now. Guess I should stick to flying.
Mike
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04-14-2008, 08:29 AM
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#2
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Montana Master
Join Date: May 2003
Location: New Bern
Posts: 4,294
M.O.C. #311
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Mike,
Are you using synthetic oil? How often do you change your filters?
How do you do your oil analysis?
Thanks,
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04-14-2008, 09:28 AM
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#3
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Montana Master
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Sunshine
Posts: 1,445
M.O.C. #538
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Mike: Thanks for the reminder. I will pull my sample today, been putting it off for a week now.
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04-14-2008, 10:12 AM
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#4
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Montana Master
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Cooper
Posts: 1,230
M.O.C. #3029
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Refined oil is stored in 55 gallon drums, also called a barrel. The measurement for crude oil in shipping and refining is 42 gallons/barrel. Your number has now increased to 49,595,238 barrels.
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04-14-2008, 10:59 AM
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#5
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Montana Master
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Merlin
Posts: 668
M.O.C. #7368
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Very interesting discussion. I just did a search to see what GM recommends for oil changes and found this site
http://www.gmgoodwrench.com/_res/pdf/OLS1.pdf
I wanted to see if they were still recommending 7,000 mile changes where we could save half almost half the oil being used.
Checking the Ford site they recommend 5,000 unless heavy usage than 3,000 mile changes
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04-14-2008, 01:04 PM
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#6
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Montana Master
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Sunshine
Posts: 1,445
M.O.C. #538
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Once a year for several years now.
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04-14-2008, 01:59 PM
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#7
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Montana Master
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Kville
Posts: 2,865
M.O.C. #7871
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My truck has the Driver's Information System (DIC) which tells the driver when to change the oil based on the type of driving being done. Had I done the change when GM recommended (I did it a bit early, but did the numbers) my change would have been at 9,933 miles.
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04-15-2008, 01:57 AM
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#8
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Montana Master
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Clearwater
Posts: 10,917
M.O.C. #420
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My GMC oil change is recommended at 10,000 miles. I therefore change my oil at 10,000 miles.
I am by no means an expert on oil but feel that if the truck manufacturer says 10,000 than who am I to argue.
The following will ruffle some feathers and so be it but I am 65 years old and been driving since I was 14 so I feel I do have some experience in the matter. Now we and can sit here and discuss the high cost of fuel until we are blue in the face but think nothing about spending bucks every 3,000 to 4,000 miles for a 10 quart oil change. For me that's an additional 20 quarts of oil wasted not to mention the bucks wasted. If we all just go by the engine manufacturers recommendations think how many barrels could be saved.
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04-15-2008, 03:38 AM
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#9
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Montana Master
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: North Ridgeville
Posts: 20,229
M.O.C. #2839
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Had my oil changed in my shinny new Ford at 6K miles brcause of the "heavy use" requirement in the book.. The Ford guys said the oil was good and did not really require changing..but did anyhow.The filters were also all good..but we replaced them..(it was a freebee) We will change at 10K miles in the future. If folks can drive without any regard to the price of fuel..then why worry about what oil changes are costing.. Drive many miles ..buy lots of fuel, change oil as often as you want....don't worry about it..let the other guy worry..
Nice numbers msieger..very informative.
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04-15-2008, 07:15 AM
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#10
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Site Team
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Omaha
Posts: 6,750
M.O.C. #7560
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Check this out-- hopefully it will work! It's out gas and oil change money at work! If not let me know!
Dubai.pps
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04-17-2008, 07:11 AM
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#11
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Seasoned Camper
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Florissant
Posts: 72
M.O.C. #7838
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Sorry took so long to get back. I do use synthetic oil in everything from my weedeater to boat to vehicles. My gas vehicles get the oil changed once a year with a filter at 6 months. My duramax has right at 100,000 miles on oil. However I am running the bypass kit. It gets sampled at 15000 intervals. Heres
another thought. The military never changes the oil in anything until a sample comes back bad. And they run almost nothing but dino oil in there vehicles. (Turbine powered equipment not included. They use synthetic oil and do an analysis). I figure if it's good enough for the military it's good enough for me.
Peace out!!!!!!!
Mike
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