There is always pressure to reduce costs but reduced costs cannot be at the expense of long term reliability otherwise sales will suffer. The technology used to achieve reduced lifetime cost actually increases manufacturing costs. The customer looks at liftime cost among other things when buying a car, otherwise only the cheapest purchase price would dominate their decision making.
It's
Fleets look at lifetime costs. You assume that fleets change cars at relitively low mileage when in actuality many business fleets run to minimise costs which means keeping their vehicles to the maximum economic life. The longer they last with the minimum of cost, which includes servicing AND repair the better. Todays cars are generally kept for far longer than thirty or forty years ago. I know fleets that, back then, changed every forty thousand but which today expect a minimum of 120,000 miles from their cars and vans, and some are kept almost indeffinately.
I had several of those in Ford Escort and Cortina's and the early ones didn't last much more than 80,000 miles but a 1600 CortinaMk3 I bought used from an antique dealer was mercilessly thrashed by me for another 50,000 before I smashed into a Christmas tree and it ran like a watch. It was serviced at the then official 6000 miles. The early escorts were serviced at
4500 or 5000 miles IIRC.
Absolutely. Stress fracture of camshaft unrelated to servicing.
I cannot agree. Engines last longer than ever before and it is very unusual for an engine serviced as recommended to wear out before something else fails or it dies of old age. They fail for all kinds or reasons like stress or ancilliary failure but not generally lubricant related.
In what? The oil may be good for much longer but if the engine contaminates the oil to saturation or dumps massive condensation into it before 18000 then that's no use to man nor beast. Not just the oil life is used to determine service intervals.
It seems you will argue that black is white. What you say there is bad design!
Nor a Land Cruiser because they are better designed which rather proves what I said above. They are still a cheap design alternative though but of course all such mechanisms, even gear trains, are ultimately prone to failure.
It is quite possible the printers left a nought out. I can remember 3000 mile intervals and I can also remember all the who-ha when intervals doubled to 6000 miles. All hot air even then. Not much fuss when Austin doubled again to 12000 miles that I can remember. This was around 1980. Of course proper servicing also has a time limit and most Austin cars would have been serviced yearly and before 12000 were up.
I take it with a pinch of salt. I have contact with several fleet cars with between 150,000 and 220,000 miles which are loosely serviced according to the book. No engine lube or wear problems. How much longer would they last if services were doubled, bearing in mind that of these most are taken out of service due to other wear factors, primarily gearbox, suspension or bodywork wear issues?
Yes you could use a better oil but I doubt that that oil is anything more than due a change. Which is why it is recommended to change it.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (Andy Hewitt) saying something like:
That may be because manufacturers change their mind. Ford upped the recommended rear tyre pressure on the Ka (all Kas) in 2002 or 2003, thus rendering all handbooks obselete.
Of course, most owners don't even know what a tyre pressure is so it's academic for many people. :)
LOL! Mine whines and asks me why. But now Charlie reads it, under duress of course. What helps is that she didn't bother reading the instructions for a food blender and it had an untoward accident resulting in a trip to A & E. Now she admits reading instructions is useful.
I caught her reading the iPod manual the other evening... :-)
Erm, exactly how closely do you look at how well a car is made?
Yes, it would, if it's actually what they did.
Indeed, or at least to some extent. I'm still amazed at how few people buy new car without checking the cost of a) servicing, and b) the expected cost of ownership (by looking at existing experience of other owners).
Indeed, although I'm only working within the last 20 years. A fleet car now is kept for a similar mileage/time to a car 10, or 20 years ago.
It depends, on normal contract hire that isn't true, most still change them at about 80k. Companies that buy in their own vehicles indeed do keep them longer.
However, the contract companies will also take into account residual value.
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You don't really need to go that far back to see 5000 or 6000 mile intervals. Most manufacturers didn't extend until the early 90's, and some were still using it into the very late 90's.
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Can you prove that though? And please note that I'm not talking absolutes here, only making suggestions. Isn't it possible that extended service intervals increase the stress on internal engine components. As the oil deteriorates between services the qualities reduce, components become less protected and more contaminated. Over a long period this could have an adverse affect on many components in the engine, certainly affecting the life expectancy.
Why do you think I used the word 'supposedly'.
No I didn't. There are many instances where a component design specification has been changed to meet cost criteria, regardless of the consequences. I actually do know a chap that was an independent consultant for Rover, and saw this happening. They designed a part to a specification, then set about trying to buy it for a given cost. If they couldn't get it at the price they wanted to pay, then they changed the specification until they could.
Indeed, every manufacturer will design in a finite life expectancy into their vehicles.
And that includes designing components to meet services specifications. That is the point I'm trying to make. There are very few manufacturers that honestly set their services schedules to meet the needs of the components they have used.
Certainly with Honda and Toyota they design in a different way, Honda were one of the last manufacturers to change from 6000 mile services intervals (in 1998). Yet Honda remain one of, and more recently *the* most reliable make of car on the road.
OTOH manufacturers such as, say, Peugeot, have 20000 mile/2 year intervals, and are currently one of the least reliable cars on the road.
The design of a vehicle is more than just it's component parts, and I still say that most cars now have NOT been designed to fully work with extended service intervals.
Very closely. I look at the fit and finnish of interior, exterior panels through to the run of pipes and cables and how well they are attached. I note the component makers for acilliaries such as alternators, how they are mounted and where and how easy it is to adjust, repair and replace them. I also have an almost intimate contact with a mixed fleet of cars, vans, plant and equipment and am responsible for servicing a good proportion of them and indeed actually service some of them myself. I poke and I probe and I take notice of these things and especially patterns of wear and component failure. Now if you were to ask me of one manufacturer that has gone against the trend of improving quality and reliability I would say there is only one in my experience. Mercedes.
Do you really think that all that moitoring kit, improved materials, better fitration etc does not cost real money?
I can assure you that fleets certainly do and so do businessmen.
Not so in most cases. They are kept for far longer on average. Not many companies in the UK, certainly in manufacturing or retail, make money that can be wasted on cars any more.
Some maufacturers were indeed but VW, Rover etc had gone to 10k or over in the early eighties. That not every manufacturer followed like sheep rather contradicts your implied assertion that they do it purely to provide a false impression of lower cost of ownership. If that was the case they would follow one another quickly. In fact there are very many manufacturers who still insist on services every 10,000 miles or so while others have forged ahead with 'new' technology and have service intervals of up to 30,000 miles. I would like to see any evidence that following these extended schedules caused a significant loss of engine life. As yet, and having run quite a few and seen some others exceed 200,000 miles with no apparent ill effects I have concluded that they are a win/win regime except for dealers who hardly see the cars any more so have less opportunity to sell value added products.
The oil certainly appears dirtier. If you know how lubrication works you will know that this in itself is of no consequence. If the oil continues to lubricate efficiently over an extended period, and these oils do, then there is no increase in stress over running with new oil. Stress is caused by mechanical loads which are hopefully designed for at the outset. If the designer does his work properly then under a given use pattern the conrod will exit through the block on the same day as the camshaft snaps, the valves all drop, the fuel pump fails and the water pump leaks. Commonly light duty engines are built to last a finite operating period. There is no point installing an expensive engine which lasts 15,000 hours between overhauls in a car that is otherwise unlikely to last 10,000 hours. In that type of car they design and build an engine which will last about 10,000 hours without overhaul [because an overhaul would be uneconomic]. In fact I firmly believe that car engines from most manufacturers only have a design life of some 6000 to 7000 hours. They will not last much longer even if you changed the oil every week because their actual components are lightly built and are designed using finite element analysis to last that long. Individual components may last shorter or longer, depending on the accuracy and skill of the designers and the cost restrictions imposed by the manufacturer.
I have recently bought a new Fiat Panda Multijet and know that Fiat are 'boasting' that this engine should last at least 150,000 miles. This tells you what their engineering aim was. This rather unambitious goal is what the average owner should expect without serious failure. It could be that the whole thing just blows up as it passes 150,000 but we all know that a high annual mileage car driven moderately will likely exceed that. FYI 150k is equal to between 5500 hours and 8300 hours of use, by which time the poor car will likely be fairly worn from front to back, seeing as it is one of the cheapest cars on the road.
Over
Either they wear excessively due to inadequate lubrication or they don't. Stress is irrelevant
The oil was probably tested and came out OK, although you do not indicate one way or another. The oil is only component one of a complete system which allows a manufacturer to set a service schedule. The oil might not be the determining factor or it might be.
So now you *are* saying it is bad design. make your mind up.
I actually do know a chap that was an independent
Bad design. Say no more.
See way above.
Of course they do, otherwise the roads would be littered with failures. In fact cars, and by implication their components, are more reliable than ever before and are on the cusp of becoming consumer durables like kettles of washing machines.
Certainly NOT linked to oil change intervals but to good components, well designed and easily assembled with consistency. It is called quality. You cannot say that Honda cars ultimately last much, if any longer than any other car such as an Audi with twenty or thirty thousand mile oil change intervals.
Not due in any way to their engines wearing out though is it. They are just a bit sloppy in detail design and cost cutting when specifying ancilliaries and components. Their diesel engines certainly have a well deserved good reputation for performance and long life. They are well liked as Taxis
I say they are and these intervals are now very well proven by several manufacturers. Don't try 30,000 mile oil changes on a Honda though for you will surely kill it at an early age because it has not been designed for long drain intervals. And that nicely proves my point.
Mind you, I have a bit of black tape hiding a warning light on the dash of an Isuzu. Rather more elegant than drilling a hole in my opinion :-) It has been there for a few years now and I really should find out if the bulb has fused by now.
I would add to that, VW group, Fiat and Alfa, Peugeot and Renault.
Indeed it does, but you can cut corners elsewhere to save costs.
Indeed they do, I often make lists of costs for our fleet sales department. Private buyers, OTOH, do not.
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I would say that 90% of the fleet vehicles we service here are about to go off contract when they come in for their first MOT.
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Well, Rover group is hardly a good comparison there, they were so s**te, that they had to do something to make people buy them. They still recommended a 6000 mile check, and very few actually made 12000 miles without extra visits to the dealer.
Certainly with VW we did, during the 80's they certainly started suffering with more piston ring failures, and more recently that problem is even worse for them.
Although the VW Golf has had its interior slightly cheapened I would not agree otherwise.
It has always been true that manufacturers seek to save costs but as Ford found out to its ultimate cost, you can only go so far. It remains the case that vehicles last much longer and more reliably today than used to be the case. Looked at over a [say] five year period it is difficult to see a trend but looking back over many years one can see a steady improvement on average. Certainly engines last very much longer than they used to. That is not to say that accidents don't happen with designs, they do. Mercedes have cut costs to such an extent that not only is it visible to the driver but they do actually break down more often than was historically the case. My experience is that even their otherwise good diesel engines are prone to early failure. Not because of the extended oil changes or lube related wear but, I believe, because of the amount of exhaust gas recirculation involved sending shitty exhaust gas back into the inlet manifold. This is a feature of all road diesel engines these days and quite why Mercedes engines have their pistons hit the valves as a result I can only speculate about, but I believe that it causes the inlet valves to stick.
They are very aware of long term service costs in my experience. It is their money that pays for it. An increasing number prefer to buy premium brands which have lower lifetime service costs as a result.
These are presumably from a very limited range of companies. Even the post office keep their vans on the road until high mileages hereabouts. I have a franchise for a large multinational manufacturing company and even the management cars are kept until they have rounded the clock.
Their engines were actually very good at that time and even to the end apart from head gasket trouble with some petrol fours. I found them to be average to good notwithstanding their 12000 mile service intervals through from 1980 odd.
They
I did not experience that apart from an early Montego which was a dog. No problem whatsoever with the 2.0 injection engine or gearbox. Later examples were good for extremely high use in adverse conditions and I had a turbo diesel Monty that exceeded 200,000 with hardly any failure apart from a mouse eating the wiring under the dash.
Not so. Absolutely not the case. High mileage problems with VW petrol engines were almost always valve guide seals. Later problems are almost exclusively due to better quality engines made of harder materials which have been run-in too gently, sometimes combined with an early oil change by well meaning owners, resulting in glazed bores. They need to be run-in relitively hard, almost like modern commercial diesels where full power use in the first 100 hours is almost universally recommended by the manufacturers these days. This is well known.
I'm tempted to do so on my Audi. Some days it spends ages flashing the "dead bulb" symbol at me from the mini display. Lying bloody thing - I've walked round it while the lamp is lit and everything's ticketyboo.
Trouble is, it uses the same display for brake checks, fuel warning, washer fluid, overspeed and many things besides, so covering it with tape isn't ideal.
I don't think it's very cunning, it just measures the current, you can fool it temporarily with a resistor to tell you which sides giving you the problem.
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