How Often to change the Oil

None of these are actually due to insufficient servicing AFAIK. The CVH was just a shit engine. Early OHC Fords were often filled with heavier oil than they should have had and tended to run their camshafts dry after a cold start. Another design fault. You can find design faults and weak points on almost any car you care to name. I have run VW engines to high mileages with only valve stem seals needing replacement. The six cylinder diesels VW as used in Volvo cars and the LT which was a development of the old four cylinder 1600 diesel was notorious for camshafts snapping at anything around 100,000 miles, sometimes as low as

Yet more examples of bad design. Of course a very small number of belt failures are to be expected because it is a design prone to failure. A cheap solution to allow cheap car purchase prices. My Toyota diesel has a belt driving all 24 valves but only a short one from the injector pump to the head with a 100,000 mile/five year replacement time. I changed mine at six years and 85,000 miles. The next and probably last change will be at 160,000 miles unless the head or water pump need to be removed before then.

Huw Huw

Heh. Though that may actually not be as daft as it sounds. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to program a system to make certain assumptions about the condition of the oil just based on facts and figures i.e. throttle positions with relation to oil temperature (i.e. has it been thrashed from cold?), no of short journeys from cold, average journey length, etc etc. Could potentially be more reliable than being put at the mercy of a sensor.

That would be the case on a FWD with small wheels. But a Minor had neither. And things like grip didn't matter much in those days. ;-)

Six Cylinder diesels from VW, used in Volvo cars and LT vans? You sure you don't mean 5-cylinders? And I've never heard of them snapping camshafts.

It'd be helpful if they published the actual pressures in the handbook! In the one for my Citroen Relay van, it mentions how important it is to the run the tyres at the correct recommended pressures several times, but not once does it mention exactly what those recommended pressures are.

Yeah, and when the garage ask, it'll be like "oh, that - yeah, that's been on for ages - still seems to run ok - engine's a bit noisier though".

Heh - one main thing that put me off leasing vans is the term in the contract that said that the "owner" (i.e. the leasing company) may not be funding the vehicle with their own money, but with the funds of the "head lessor", who then rents it to the "owner", and that if the "head lessor" decided to put up their rental rates to the "owner", then the "owner" would be entitled to increase the monthly lease cost to maintain their rate of return on investment. Now I'm no financial expert, but to me that's as bent as f*ck.

BMW and Mercedes, if not the others also, do indeed do this in addition to measuring the condition of the oil as a back-up.

Huw

No I mean six cylinders and you may be too young ;-)

Huw

In my student days, around '76, I worked at a place that ran a small fleet of the damned things and they were fairly new but hopelessly outdated by then. No grip around corners. Hopeless brakes. Some gearboxes that jumped out of third and needed a kee to hold them in gear. Pedals that exitted through holes in the floor. Yuk! By this time the Maxi, Marina and Allegro were well established and highlighted starkly the minor as being passed its sell-by date.

Hooray for modern transport!

Huw

Yet another discovery that a great idea I've come up with has already been thought of! D'oh!

Oh they're quite good at it :-(

And besides, since when has Mitsu built EvoVIII engines in Europe?

Huw

Ah! how do *you* know it isn't?

Service intervals are set by the manufacturer for only one reason - to make the car appear cheaper to service when a customer buys it. It's more to do with fleet buyers than anything, if you can show that a car has less services during a normal contract period, then you're more likely to sell to them.

As long as a car can make it through that period, then that's all that matters.

I've seen fleet run cars expire at 120k, yet privately owned examples with reduced intervals of servicing have made double that.

That was a design fault for sure, but I never mentioned the OHC engine, it's the OHV engine I'm talking about. Worn out pistons and bores by

I've seen CVH engines make 240k with 6000 mile servicing.

Again, are you sure about that? I've been observing the nature of engine wear over 25 years across different brands.

I have compared, first hand, the condition of identical engines that have been subject to both 6000 miles and 10000 mile intervals (a change in service intervals set by the manufacturer at a given date). The difference is astounding when you compare the condition of those engines after, say, 50k.

At that time we were using Castrol TXT - supposedly tested for 18000 miles of use.

No it's not, it's down to bad choice of specification to meet cost criteria.

Not on all cars. I can honestly say that I've not seen a premature belt failure on a Honda.

A well designed engine.

Yes, it was used in the LT vans and Volvo 700 and 900 series cars. It was a s**te lump too.

Have you looked inside the door jam?

I'm talking about '52. ;-) When similar Fords had side valve engines and rod brakes. And 6 volt electrics. No heater either.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

I think Andy probably meant 3000 miles. I can think of one right away - the Renault 1000, 1100 engines had intervals of 3K. Not surprising really; some models didn't actually have an oil filter at all.

No, I did mean 300 miles. I read it in a classic car book, but at this time I can't remember what car it was.

Yup, since discovered them in there! But it's a bit disconcerting that they're not printed on any of the entire ranges of pages listed next to "tyre pressures" in the index of the handbook.....

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Well I'm sure I've just read a post from Andy Hewitt (who I believe has been in the car servicing business all his life) saying that he's seen privately owned, over serviced cars last twice as long as the same car owned by a fleet operator and serviced at the recommended interval.

I've also read a report recently that Fords own 5W-30 oil is marginal on protection as it approaches its 12.5k mile drain interval. Now you might say "use a better quality oil" but I prefer to change it a 6k miles.