Calif says "not so fast" to oil changes

[IGot2P]

>

Did you just wake up from a 30 year sleep?

Don

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, That is for sure. Corn is not a good candidate for alternate fuel. It needs gal. of gas to produce 2 gals of corn ethanol vs. 9 gals of ethanol using sugar cane. Most of cars in Brazil runs on sugar cane ethanol as well she is finding oil off shore too.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, California is conquered Mexico!

[krw]

Doesn't look much like it was.

[Stormin Mormon]

I hope someone can find it on the net, and post a link. I suspect that the manufacture of ethanol takes more energy than it produces. so, ethanol in the gasoline both damages vehicles and also increases our use of petroleum.

such link.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

This is yet another example of a wasteful and useless Kalifornia program...sort of like the US government's ethanol fuel scam.

[Bob_Villa]

You MUST be old and set in your ways...WTF!

[Nate Nagel]

>

You do know that good synthetics offer the benefits of multi-viscosity oils without (or with a significantly reduced amount of) viscosity improvers, which I assume is the reason that you don't like multi-vis oils?

nate

[Nate Nagel]

>>

I disagree with his stance on multi-vis oils, but I do think that the oil change monitor on some newer cars is giving too much credit to the oils available. If I can hear and feel the difference in the engine after an oil change, that says to me that significant degradation of the oil has occurred, to the point where something is out of spec (the variable valve timing mechanism maybe?) And this in a car where I was so nervous about the OCIs recommended ('08 Impala) that I've been paying extra out of my pocket for synthetic oil. FWIW in that car it seems that the oil life monitor tends to recommend an oil change about every

7500 miles; less in winter where there may be more idling (warming up engine while scraping ice off windows etc.)

nate

[HeyBub]

One COULD say that many machines involved in home repair have oil-changing issues: lawnmowers, edgers, chainsaws, personal vibrators, and so on.

But you raise a good point, and I'm sorry. I started this thread. What happened was I thought this was of interest to many folks. I don't subscribe to alt.car.repair and this group seemed to be the closest, plus this group is filled with experts, experience, and elan.

With a couple of obvious exceptions.

[Ed Pawlowski]

It is. I see no reason to be sorry. Many of us have used oil in the garage too.

[clare]

Can't find the cite right now, but 5 years ago or so, when you took into account all the energy required to plant,cultivate, and harvest the corn, icluding the natural gas used to produce the nitrogen fertilizer, there was something like a 5% net energy deficit, not including transportation to end market. With the new hybrids that are currently being supplied by ADM they are now claiming up to something like 7% net energy gain, in real world numbers.

[clare]

Or mabee he's just smarter than the average newsnet user.

[Robert Green]

No apology necessary. I was trying a little dry humor to point out that you're coming perilously close to "I Hate America" HomeGuy in starting OT posts. Yours, of course, are a lot less inciteful (mostly ) and more insightful. Apparently it was interesting enough to enough people that it generated a fair number of responses although I don't think any agreement was reached on exactly when to change oil other than - "it depends."

FWIW, your OT posts are always more interesting than crap about bleeding speakers, Craftsmen penises and all the other drivel people feel compelled to respond to.

-- Bobby G.