Air vs nitrogen in tires: what colour are your valve caps?

[Dave Jenkins]

.......Its a habit for me that I check my oil, transmission, steering fluids, as well as tire pressure and lights on my vehicle every wash. ..........

......ya, but daily is a bit much.........so is the kiss and hug it gets every night!

[mmmfloorpie]

I think the bigger scam is places telling people to bring their cars in for an oil change every 5000kms. Modern cars can go double that now.

[Dave Brown]

I think the bigger scam is places telling people to bring their cars in for an oil change every 5000kms. Modern cars can go double that now.

Some can; some can't. Owners should always follow manufacturers' recommendations.

But long gone are the days when every owner needed to change their oil every 5000 kilometers because the guy at the quick lube place said so. Too frequent oil changes waste money, waste resources and harm the environment.

If the vehicle has an oil life monitor, they can trust the monitor. It will adjust oil change intervals based on mileage and environmental and mileage conditions, and allow owners to extend their oil change intervals. Blue Line Magazine has conducted extensive research on oil life monitors on certain makes, and compared reported oil life remaining readings with scientific oil analysis, and has found that oil life monitors can be generally trusted.

[FedCO]

I think the bigger scam is places telling people to bring their cars in for an oil change every 5000kms. Modern cars can go double that now.

Some can; some can't. Owners should always follow manufacturers' recommendations.

But long gone are the days when every owner needed to change their oil every 5000 kilometers because the guy at the quick lube place said so. Too frequent oil changes waste money, waste resources and harm the environment.

If the vehicle has an oil life monitor, they can trust the monitor. It will adjust oil change intervals based on mileage and environmental and mileage conditions, and allow owners to extend their oil change intervals. Blue Line Magazine has conducted extensive research on oil life monitors on certain makes, and compared reported oil life remaining readings with scientific oil analysis, and has found that oil life monitors can be generally trusted.

I have a 11 Silverado and OLM says at least 13,000km intervals. I am sorry but i think that is too long even for a semi synthetic blend oil. I do my oil change around 7500 to 8000. I know some mechanics who change oil at 13,000 and its dirty dirty.

[Dave Brown]

Your choice, but the colour of an oil is not an indicator of its remaining properties or additive package.

GM put a lot of money and research into their oil life monitor system. I have read a lot of independent oil analysis reports from Blackstone labs and have never seen a single instance where their oil life monitor could not be trusted.

I use full synthetic in both our trucks and follow the oil life monitor (which was designed to regular oil) so I tend to be pretty conservative anyway. (Mind you, our trucks also take 7.5 litres of oil, so intervals as long as 18,000 km are not inconceivable.)

But I would never leave oil in longer than one year regardless of the mileage.

[GoodWitness]

On the subject of oil changes, I read on a vintage Mustang forum years ago that European owner's manuals often had oil change intervals 5X longer than their American counterparts! Not sure if this is accurate, but I own two Hondas, one indicates oil changes every 4,000 km, and the one that gets lighter use goes over 16,000 km before it wanted a change. I asked the dealer about it, they said don't worry, the car knows what it needs. Both are 2007 model year vehicles.

With air in the tires.

[devilwoman]

......ya, but daily is a bit much.........so is the kiss and hug it gets every night!

Hahaha...yeah, no. I love it, but NOT that much!

My Challenger gets 3 to 4 oil changes a season, depending on how much I travel. It uses full synthetic oil and I usually get 7000 kms out of it before the "change oil" light comes on.

As for my truck, depending again on the kilometers, it usually gets 5 or so a year. I don't use synthetic as I never have and to do so now is a waste. I do ensure I use a good quality filter and oil and swear by Lucas Oil Treatment. Truck has 240 000kms on it and still doesn't burn a drop of oil.

[mark y]

Your choice, but the colour of an oil is not an indicator of its remaining properties or additive package.

GM put a lot of money and research into their oil life monitor system. I have read a lot of independent oil analysis reports from Blackstone labs and have never seen a single instance where their oil life monitor could not be trusted.

I use full synthetic in both our trucks and follow the oil life monitor (which was designed to regular oil) so I tend to be pretty conservative anyway. (Mind you, our trucks also take 7.5 litres of oil, so intervals as long as 18,000 km are not inconceivable.)

But I would never leave oil in longer than one year regardless of the mileage.

I've spoken with GM engineers about this (not a dealership tech, an actual GM factory engineer) and they firmly state that you can trust the OLM in their vehicles. Note that generally it'll save you a bunch of oil changes, but in harsh environments like police use, it can actually increase your oil changes.

Keeping in mind that 1 hr of idling = 50 km driving equivilant in terms of engine wear, most police agencies drastically under estimate the actual engine 'mileage' on a car. Most fleets change it at 5000km, but if it's had 100 hours of idling during that time, that's equivalent to another 5000km, so you're really changing the oil at 10K. That's where OLM comes in - it takes actual road mileage, idle time, and a bunch of other factors into account. I have 2 GM vehicles and I change my oil based on the OLM system.

I see the OLM as a huge benefit for fleet managers, if they'd just trust it.

[HwyBear]

Keeping in mind that 1 hr of idling = 50 km driving equivilant in terms of engine wear, most police agencies drastically under estimate the actual engine 'mileage' on a car. Most fleets change it at 5000km, but if it's had 100 hours of idling during that time, that's equivalent to another 5000km, so you're really changing the oil at 10K.

all our cruisers get changed at 12,000km (odometer reading), never seemed to be a problem. Started doing 12k changes on my own vehicle too. Traded that vehicle after 8 years without any engine problems and now my vehicle has the OLM and now I am around 18k between changes

[Molson]

We ran nitrogen in our stock car tires where temps often get up over 200 degrees. Even after a couple seasons we decided it was too much of a pain in the ass to carry around the bottles so we switched back to air, just had to adjust them more.

[mark y]

Keeping in mind that 1 hr of idling = 50 km driving equivilant in terms of engine wear, most police agencies drastically under estimate the actual engine 'mileage' on a car. Most fleets change it at 5000km, but if it's had 100 hours of idling during that time, that's equivalent to another 5000km, so you're really changing the oil at 10K.

all our cruisers get changed at 12,000km (odometer reading), never seemed to be a problem. ...

How many hours do your cruisers idle during that 12K period?

At the end of the day, though, police fleet engines only have to last 150,000-180,000km then the car is disposed of anyway. It's not like our personal vehicles where we try to make them last hundreds of thousands of km (my truck has just over 200K km on it and still running perfectly).

[Whistler]

+1 to the manufacturer's recommendations and systems.

Honda calls theirs the "Maintenance Minder" and I find I'm somewhere in the area of 10-12k between changes.. I do 95% hwy driving, so I could probably stretch it out even further, but I don't mind every 12k.

And in my experience Honda dealers don't even want you to bring the car in early... They will talk you out of it until the maintenance light actually comes on lol...

I just run it down to 0, if the car explodes that what warranties are for haha.

[Skiddy]

Great article! I have never believed in the nitrogen "fad".

As for oil changes, I run a full synthetic and change every 12-15,000 kms. I love how "quick lube" spots recommend 3k for regular and 5k for synthetic - what a load of garbage.

[Tommy]

Great article! I have never believed in the nitrogen "fad".

As for oil changes, I run a full synthetic and change every 12-15,000 kms. I love how "quick lube" spots recommend 3k for regular and 5k for synthetic - what a load of garbage.

and $30 for a #@$ing Air filter..... Sheesh..... I cant believe there are idiots out there who pay that.....