v6akord02

I'm not terribly old but I have been given some advice over the duration of my driving years that some of you may be able to confirm or deny. Here are a few and if you have your own, please feel free to add them.

1. Never change brands of oil.
Reason: This helps build viscosity. You can change weight but don't change brands.

2. Change brands of gas as often as possible.
Reason: All manufacturers use different detergents and all are good to keep your engine clean.

3. Turn off A/C and Radio and any other accessories before getting out of the car .
Reason: So as to no put a strain on the car during it's next start up.

4. In cold weather, it's best to start the car, drive it immediately, but not to take it above 2500 RPM's if possible until the engine is warm.
Reason: Will help car to warm up quickly but will not place to much stress on an under optimized engine.

That's all I can think of for now. Again, add your own if you have any.

Thanks,
V6

rescueswimmer

[QUOTE=v6akord02]I'm not terribly old but I have been given some advice over the duration of my driving years that some of you may be able to confirm or deny. Here are a few and if you have your own, please feel free to add them.

1. Never change brands of oil.
Reason: This helps build viscosity. You can change weight but don't change brands.

I have never heard of that one in all my years working in on cars. Road Rage is the expert on oil though.

2. Change brands of gas as often as possible.
Reason: All manufacturers use different detergents and all are good to keep your engine clean.

Never heard that one either. Im sure it wouldnt hurt. Considering most companies end up buying gas from the big 3 in the U.S

3. Turn off A/C and Radio and any other accessories before getting out of the car .
Reason: So as to no put a strain on the car during it's next start up.

Not true, When you turn on your ignition you are disabling all of those and only sending power ot the starter. Next time you start your car put the car in accessory first listen for the a/c blower and radio. They will cut off while your cranking.

4. In cold weather, it's best to start the car, drive it immediately, but not to take it above 2500 RPM's if possible until the engine is warm.
Reason: Will help car to warm up quickly but will not place to much stress on an under optimized engine.

This is kind of true but not completely. Yes you should start your car and let it warm up before you go motoring down the road. This gives the engine time to warm up the parts free up and oil flows better. but driving it under 2500 rpm's would be pretty difficult considering you would bearly break 10-20mph. Remember though everything else will be cold once you start driving ie. transmission, rack and pinion, wheel bearings.

That's all I can think of for now. Again, add your own if you have any.

Hope this helps.

Dr.Murdock

Its not at all difficult to keep it under 2500rpm. Just shift to higher gears.

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

Cloudsplitter

On Number 3, cars have had for years a vacuum shut off to the a/c so that the engine is not loaded with the compressor at start off, so there is no strain on either system in that case. Moreover, your compressor usually has a clutch (either magnetic or hydraulic) that cycles the system on an off as required.

midas69

#1 on your list is very strange. One of the problems is that it's very hard to prove. So I can only give you my own experience.

I was driving a livery car for a few years that was owned by a guy that believed in this very strongly. I was the only person that drove this car and I can verify that in the year I drove it, it never burned a drop of oil between changes. Well, I bought the car from him at the end of it's life.

First oil change I ignored his advice and used a different brand of oil. Almost immediately it started going through a quart of oil every 500 miles. Why did it start leaking or burning? I don't know. Did it start because I changed brands? I don't know. But that's all I have to go on.

caball88

as far as the climate control what i notice is that the car adjusts to the engine warmup. i have my temp set at 76 degrees when i first start the car the vents blow a very small amount of air. i don't wait too long before i start driving(30-60 seconds), but after a couple of mins when the thermostat reading has increased the vent speed kicks into high gear and air starts to blast out of it. as for having the radio off i don't see why you need to as when you turn the key there seems to be some sort of cut off(electronics go off briefly) and come back on when the car is started.

Acuraluvr

iTrader: (2)

no 3 i think is correct... in my 13 yrs of existance, ive heard that shutting of the a/c and or radio/s. system is good because when u ture the key 2 shut it off, the ac will keep going until the 'off' level. also, when u start the car, the engine dosnt hav an extra burden on it..

Road Rage

There is something to the oil "stick to it" idea. I think it was more an issue of the past, when formulations and quality varied more than today. Mfr's demands on the oil companies to "make it good or else" have pressed the large oil companies to develop better and better products, of higher quality. There is still variance between brands, and a surprisingly wide quality variance.

The additive packages vary from mfr to mfr. But it is arguable that certain additives, which actually form a bond with the ring/cylinder interface, and introduce properties relevant to even such weak forces as VanderWaal's at the nano-tribologic level. So these "sacrificial" addtives, usually metals like boron, magnesium, molybdenum, etc. fill the asperities (hills and lands), reducing wear by reducing friction, and causing the metal to "hone" rather than break off. Temperatures at this micro-level can actually exceed the melting points of the metals thermselves!

Introducing a different chemistry will cause a few things. First, the residual metals will eventually migrate or be mechanically removed from the cams lobes and ring/cylinder interface, and enter the general population of the oil. Whether they are viewed by the oil as "dirt" and then deplete the anti-dirt addtives is an interesting question, that would vary from product to product. Eventually, the new brand of oil's AW/AF additives will supercede the other's. Whether this exposes an engine to increase wear is logically possible, but likely to be relatively small. Doing this frequently raises the impact level significantly IMO.

I tend to stick with quality oils of known performance and compatibility - some oils, like Red Line, seems to do well in some engines, not so well in others. In Honda's, we have seen somewhat alarming copper residues in UOA's - there are many theories about why that might be so, but I personally find little comfort in them.
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Regarding the "I changed brands and suddenly my oil consumption wet through the roof". I have actually seen that myself in older engines which have a fair amount of sludge deposits. Changing to a highly detergent oil, especially a synthetic, can actually break up the deposits of sludge which have formed; in many cases, these sludge deposits have formed in areas of leakage - either oxidizing (which is what sludge is - oxidized oil) at an external seal, or possibly the valve guides, or both. A sudden spike in oil consumption can result. So the old adage that you "go home with what you brung to the dance" has some practical application in the fun world of tribology.
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That is one reason I like smaller, professional-oriented companies like Lubrication Engineers. Their products have always spec'd and measured well in the field. I know that each quart is consistently excellent, using the best possible components. For some of my exotic cars over the years, that sort of confidence, whether placebo or not, has proven comforting. And I have never suffered a lubrication related failiure - ever. I've taken some of the lab scopes and looked into the bores of engines with excess of 50k hard useage, including track use, and often still seen the original honing marks on the cylinder wells, indicative of near zero wear. Other high wear areas, like the cam lobes, similarly display no wear, just a mirror smooth surface. Hint: you can learn a lot about an engine by looking into the oil filler, or pulling a valve cover. Highly recommended.

midas69

Yes, I shoudl have been more specific in my post about my oil experience. First, this was a long long time ago. The car itself was a 1972 Mercury Marquis. The car was bought new and put into service immediately as a livery car. The oil was changed religiously every 3000 miles and it always was Valvoline. They took it out of service after 2 years with 175,000 miles on it. That's when I bought it. The first oil change I did was with Quaker State.

One more bit of anecdotal story telling though tends to discount slightly the theory of quality oil. I drove for a taxi company for 8 years. The guy I worked for owned 6 cabs. All 6 of his cabs averaged over 4 years of usage and every one of them logged over 400,000 miles before they were retired. In those 8 years I was familiar with about a dozen different cars.

We used the crappiest oil you can imagine. It was recycled garbage. We nicknamed it blue steel because you could actually feel pieces of metal in it. The oil was changed every 2500-3000 miles and we never had to spend a single dollar on engine work in that entire time.

Now, before you start going out and buying recycled oil for you TL, keep this very important point in mind. These cabs almost never operated cold. There were always night and day shifts operating on these cars. They never sat for more than an hour or two betwen shifts. Many times there was no time between the shifts. Cold engine starts are where the real wear and tear on an engine occurs.