Call me silly, but I am NOT waiting on 5,000 miles

I guess we are talking evidence based maintenance? On one hand we have expert opinion on the other we have a retrospective study. So what we need is a randomized double blinded cross over study who wants to sign up?

BTW Sasha the Newf rides in a Prius but it is a bit tight.

 

Don't feel the OLD trolls.

 

QED Evidence based maintenance! I have always thought that Prius oil changes should be done on an hours of running basis.

 

does anyone remember when mobil 1 first came out it was advertised " you only have to change the oil every year or 25,000 miles" filter change was as per owners manual suggestion. am i showing my age?

 

:lol: LOL, you're right. I believe that, in Logic, that's referred to as post hoc, ergo propter hoc or after this, therefore, because of this. It's also known as an informal fallacy or an error in reasoning. That is, it's not logical and not a valid argument.

You may be, ross. :lol: LOL, that's funny. When did that little ad campaign debut?

 

I think Signboy and the rest of us are really talking past each other here. We're saying the extra oil changes are absolutely unnecessary. But he's saying that he can afford to throw away $40 a year on a couple of extra oil changes, and it makes him feel better. We're pointing out the environmental consequences of disposing of the extra oil, but (although he has not addressed the issue) I suspect he either does not care, or regards the extra oil as insignificant, compared with the gas burned. If we get angry with him for the incremental environmental impact of the extra oil changes, a bicycle rider could with much greater justification get angry at us for driving a car at all.

In the end, the $40 a year Signboy spends on unneeded oil changes makes him feel more comfortable. So it's worth it to him. I'd spend $40 on a new pillow in an eyeblink if it made me more comfortable. (And there's not that much difference between physical and emotional comfort.) Why do people buy lottery tickets? You're much more likely to be hit by a bus and killed on your way to buy the ticket than to win, but with a lottery ticket in your hand you can dream of what you'd do with all that money. In a very real way, the comfort that Signboy buys with his oil changes is more substantial than the dreams that lottery buyers buy.

So he gets something of value for his money. He fails to understand how engines work, how the Prius engine is different from conventional cars' engines, how modern engines and oils differ from those of 50 years ago, and the basis for setting change intervals for specific combinations of engine and oil. And because of this, he is able to derive peace of mind for a small investment in unnecessary maintainence which everyone agrees does no harm to his car.

And because we are talking past each other, we'll never reach agreement.

However, the thread is definitrly useful to drivers who wish to educate themselves on the issues.

 

Daniel - did you major in Philosophy? I agree with you - but I guess what gets most people wound up is the antagonistic feel of the original post.

I'm thinking that he just wrote that first post in that manner just to ruffle some feathers, similar to the famous "smoke & mirrors" thread.

I'm sticking to the hard data - with 5,000 intervals.

 

Yes, I think for myself all the time. It's my job.

Well, I hate to do this, as I know some PriusChat members get turned off when I do it, but I’m going to have to drag my career experience into this debate.

I have 25 years experience in the industrial process control field, as a Systems Analyst who writes the programs that run the embedded sensors (HART, Foundation FieldBus, AS-I Bus, ProfiBus, ControlNet, DeviceNet, Industrial Ethernet, etc) and the actual control rooms. I also write applications like CMMS (Computerized Maintenance Management System) and MES (Manufacturing Execution System).

In the industrial world (Chemicals, manufacturing, petrochemicals, etc) there are huge costs associated with maintenance not required or performed at the wrong time. Disposal and environmental levies are also becoming a huge cost.

In the CMMS infancy – about 15 years ago – the only way to perform maintenance was on “tried and true†methods. In hindsight, those methods were more like “guess and pray.â€

Example 1: a 500,000 USG storage tank for a slurry with medium viscosity. The slurry requires agitation at a certain rate: too fast and the particle size density gets all buggered up and the product no longer meets spec; too slow and the solids in the slurry will settle out. So you need a 30-50 hp 3-phase electric motor and a large agitator gearbox. The gearbox usually holds 15-30 gallons of oil.

Change the oil too often, it gets VERY expensive. Don’t change it often enough, the agitator seizes up and you’re quickly pooched. Manufacturer recommended seasonal or every 2000 hours (About every 3 months). Oh, an added complication: the tank farm will see winter temps down to -40 C and summer temps up to +34 C, so with a conventional lube you will have to change the oil every fall and every spring to a different viscosity.

My solution: in 1998 I wrote a subroutine that kept track of running hours, based on starter contactor DO run signal. I also recommended an expensive – but long life – synthetic gearbox lube from Esso. This synthetic gearbox oil was supposed to be good for 10,000 hours or indefinite based on condition analysis.

I also specified RTD’s on the shaft bearing housing to the electric motor, and an RTD in the spare sample port in the agitator housing. Most important though: I specified a desiccant filter on the gearbox vent to replace the metal cap from the factory.

The maintenance supervisor would get a screen pop every 2,000 hours to draw a 150 ml sample of the gearbox oil to send off for analysis. My maintenance subroutine would keep track of stop/start cycles and total runtime to recommend oil changes based on feedback from the oil manufacturer.

Overall, I reduced oil changes from every 2,000 hours to every 35,000 hours (About every 4 years vs every 3 months), on average for the tank farm. Multiplied by 6 tanks in the tank farm, the savings in oil alone, labor, etc, over 4 years was over $120,000. The agitators lasted 10 years instead of 2 years previously, and the synthetic lube saved about 2% in electricity, another $87,000 over 4 years.

It’s a lot easier to do this sort of thing now. CMMS programs are COTS and most control systems (In particular Emerson DeltaV PlantWeb) will directly interface with the networked MCC to get all the data from the DeviceNet solid state starter. Sadly, most companies don’t take advantage of solutions that are built in, and still do it the “old fashioned†way.

Example 2: a 6-stage centrifugal compressor driven by a 200 HP 3-phase electric motor, application is to draw flue gas from a lime kiln to use in a chemical process. The motor speed is 3,450 RPM, with a 3 inch shaft. The compressor has 12 inch bearings on the motor end and the stub end.

The bearings were supposed to be carefully greased with special grease. There are two threaded plugs on the bearing housing, one to drain the hot grease, and one to add fresh grease. Too little grease and naturally the bearings would go dry and howl, then fail early. Too MUCH grease and the bearing runs so hot it actually seizes and causes catastrophic failure. They were replacing those large expensive bearings every 6-8 months, the compressors every 3-4 years.

In 1994 when I was called in, there had been a catastrophic failure in the compressor room, which for some insane reason was DIRECTLY below the control room. The operator had been sitting in the can when he heard the explosion.

There was a gaping hole in the cement floor where his chair and console used to be, parts of the compressor landed on the roof of the plant. If he hadn’t already been in the can, he would have s*** himself.

I had studied FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis) and DMEA (Damage Mode Effect Analysis) in college, and after almost 6 years could finally apply it. I carefully analyzed the remaining functioning compressors with a clean sheet, ignoring the opinions of the “experts.â€

First of all, you could feel the vibration in the slab. The entire subframe (Compressor and motor) was rigidly mounted to the slab. That’s a no-no in current engineering practice, but at one time it was the “correct†thing to do. I specified elastomer vibration isolation, a careful laser alignment of the motor and compressor shafts, continuous 3-axis vibration analysis of the compressor, and RTD’s on the bearing housings.

Those were expensive recommendations on my part, but an employee was almost killed. In my opinion, the life of an employee comes first.

The laser alignment helped quite a bit, but there were still harmonics being recorded by the vibration analyzers. I had programmed an emergency shutdown handler in case the vibration exceeded a threshold, and after a couple of months I was called back when a compressor had tripped.

In the case of the emergency trip, the compressor was unbalanced internally, which is always a bad sign. Based on my recommendation, the compressor manufacturer was called. They sent a team to the plant to disassemble and determine a damage mode, which was the first time that plant had done so.

Upon disassembly, we discovered some scary things. The process flue gas was sent through a packing tower to be cooled before being drawn into the plant. There were chunks of polyethylene packing material stuck to the compressor blades, hence the internal imbalance.

Many of the blade tips had erosion and impact damage from those chunks of plastic. Upon further inspection, the entire 2km pipeline, which was 48 inch diameter, was filled with broken packing. A rebuild of the packing tower was needed, and that would have gone unnoticed if my anal-compulsive analysis routine hadn’t been performed.

The damage and failure would have continued too, if they had kept "guessing."

Upon discussion with the compressor engineer, a nice fellow who genuinely wanted to make sure there were no more failures, we decided to switch from grease to oil bath bearing housings. The oil bath system was very easy to monitor for contamination – chips – and was far easier to service. As of last year, the compressors were still running fine.

Although the DMEA and FMEA seems expensive to perform, rather than guessing you will determine probable cause(s). In the case of the compressor and the agitator, several solutions were required. Rather than just increased servicing of a lubricant, the lube change intervals were dramatically extended WITH much longer system life.

Within the past 5 years, I have come to recommend many DMEA/FMEA software packages from Reliability Excellence Software (Relex Software Co). Some of my clients have come to understand and appreciate the many cost savings, safety improvements, and equipment uptime from careful analysis of all operating parameters.

Or I could just guess and hope for the best.

 

As far as personal vehicles, I purchased new a 1984 Ford F-150 with 302 V8. After a 16,000km break-in, I switched to Mobil Delvac 1 5W-40, a synthetic HD diesel engine lubricant. I also put on a combination filter head with primary full-flow spinon and secondary bypass filter (10 micron).

I’d usually change the primary filter every 6 months or 10,000km, the bypass filter once a year or 20,000km. The oil I’d guess and change it whenever it got dark brown, usually every 2-3 years. I haven’t driven the truck much the past 7 years, it’s used to plow snow at my hobby farm, so I change the oil and filters once a year.

It currently has around 530,00km and the motor is still tight, with the lowest compression 135 lbs as of last summer. It never used more than 1/2 litre of oil every 10,000km.

 

Helix Ultra is a VERY good oil. Keep using it. No, it's not available in North America.

Yes, the oil thing IS a scandal. The API creates garbage oil specs, then perpetuates all these myths of the "every 3 month 3,000 mile" oil change. It used to be every 2,000 miles. But the API is sponsored by the oil companies, so it's naturally in their best interest to make money for their members.

Of course, if I had no choice but to use a minimum-spec API "Starburst" oil, I'd probably change it every 3 months or 3,000 miles too. That garbage is pretty weak, it doesn't even compare to ACEA oils.

Did I mention how the "fuel economy improvement" is met with API minimum spec oils?

The mineral-base oils are actually tested against a reference SYNTHETIC motor oil. They achieve the magical 1-2% improvement in normal running temp fuel economy by relying on high polymer chain treatments, which quickly shear down inside the motor.

So the 5W-30 will shear to something like a 5W-20 or thinner, hence the temporary magic improvement in fuel economy. As API spec oils are ALLOWED to burn off at high rates, you can also expect HC emissions from the oil consumption.

Once combustion products bugger up the polymer additives, the oil thickens and oil consumption usually decreases. Ironically, if you frequently change the motor oil, you will burn MORE oil and that will lead to MORE HC emissions!

I personally will stick with a proven synthetic that will stay in grade for the duration of the oil change interval. Due to my climate, I would run 0W-30 or 0W-20 synthetic in winter to ensure reliable low temp flow at -40.

I’ve also noticed running Mobil 1 0W-20 that my cold weather fuel economy hasn’t taken as big a hit as last winter. Yes, I will follow up with a used oil sample to see how the motor likes it.

If millions of Honda and Ford motors live a long life on semi-synthetic 5W-20, my Prius motor should run just fine in winter on a synthetic 0W-20.

 

I splurged and purchased 6 more oil sample kits from Toromont Caterpillar, so sign me up.

I'll even do the samples at half-normal intervals (4,000km instead of 8,000km). This way, if there IS an issue, I'll catch it in time.

I'm also curious to see how the Prius motor likes Mobil 1 0W-20 as a winter oil. SO far I've noticed definte fuel economy improvements in the colder weather (Lows of -16 C to -20 C, highs of -8 C to -2 C).

 

Doc:

You should mention Hobbs is the manufacturer of hourmeters, they're popular in aviation and commercial use.

I would guess, based on the GM Oil Life Monitor system, an interval of 80-200 hours for most automotive applications. It would depend on operation state, like highway or city.

Most commercial diesel equipment recommends 100-300 hour service intervals, longer if equipped with bypass filters and condition sampling.

jay

 

Thanks for all your info. I'm sure you have forgotten more about oil than anyone else on here will ever know. The others are correct, the OP has no knowledge just feeling. You can not convince anyone with strong feelings. Just like religion, with piles of fact and proof you can not convince someone who just believes.

If he got his oil tested at 3000 miles and brand new oil and it showed very similar results that is not enough to convince him of it. He must be old and stuck in his ways. We can only hope his grandchildren that let him use their computer will care for the envoirnment more than he does.

 

I've gotten concerned about the waste oil from cars too, so I'm
slowly burning my accumulation in the furnace. Mix about 10:1 with
#2, slide the gallon jug up around the pickup pipe, change over a
couple of valves, keep an eye on it so it doesn't run empty.
.
When I get tired of playing with this I'll probably just take it to
a garage that's got a real waste-oil heater.
.
_H*

 

Thanks, but I actually never wanted to learn about oil. I was forced to in my career, and in hindsight it challenged many of my mistaken beliefs and outright WRONG attitudes.

You have to admit though. It is neat how you can draw an insignificant amount of oil (Under 150 ml), send it off to a lab, and learn so much about it.

For very large commercial applications - paper machines and automated lube delivery systems for vibrating screens – you can even purchase automated lube analysis systems. These can’t do all of the tests a real lab can do, but can look for things like moisture contamination, chips (Metal particles in the oil), acid/alkaline, and very basic viscometer results.

In the case of a vibrating screen assembly, say 4-10 screens in parallel, the common oil system supplies oil to the units, and the return oil is sent back through a filter manifold and into the sump. With the automated lube analysis, you can very precisely track lube performance and machine wear, and determine change intervals.

With several hundred gallons of lube oil, that’s kind of important.

 

That's the American way :lol:

Fellow posters, notice how you can edit everything out except the point you want to make. I hate scrolling through long quotes just to see one minor point made or a DITTO!

 

about 30 years ago.