theholycow |
03-26-2014 03:16 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Draigflag
(Post 175043)
The same reason most Americans change thier oil way too often when the same cars in Europe can do 1000% more miles on one oil change (30,000 miles) is because they use poor quality oil as well.
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Actually, Americans change their oil way too often because they trust oil salesmen more than car salesmen. Oil propaganda tells them that they need to change it to often and the culture eats it up. Car manufacturers tell them that they can extend their oil change intervals and they assume the manufacturer wants the car to die prematurely so they'll buy another one.
Guess what? Junkyards are full of cars that never suffered a failure that could have been prevented with more frequent oil changes or better oil, even those that were owned by careless people who never change their oil at all.
Even so, I can think of one very good reason why Americans would legitimately need to change their oil more often than Europeans, though still nowhere near as often as is actually done. As I understand, Europeans are largely subject to requirements and taxes that make it extremely expensive and pointless to keep a car through its useful service life, encouraging them to drive newer vehicles. In much of the US we can keep a car for a whole lot longer, so we need our engines to last longer.
Quote:
Sorry im not a scientist, I do know that most motoring journalists refer to the fuel in the US as "tar" compared to what we use. A tad tongue in cheek, its not that bad, but if you run an American car on European fuel, you will see the emissions drop and the performance increase.
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I've found that a strong dose of skepticism helps me extract the truth from the hyperbole and sensationalism that journalists sell. I think that if you look at actual conditions and standards you may find that the gap is not as large as your journalists tell you.
Earlier today, on reading your post saying that US diesel has 300% of the sulfur content that Euro diesel has, I looked it up. I knew that in the past few years, some diesel owners have been griping about the new requirement for ultra low sulfur diesel and it made me question that statement. It looks like there was a game of leapfrog going on, with Euro diesel having lower sulfur than US, then US having lower, and now Euro again. (The whole time, however, there have been specific European countries with stiffer requirements.)
I imagine that other environmentally undesirable components may have seen similar changes to their requirements.
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