The damage to a vehicle or a business is much worth than damage to mother earth by leaving 3000 miles oil change habit
The damage to the planet earth posed by the drained used engine oil is calculated as massive, as stated that an average driver if changes oil every month on 3000 miles but it was due on minimum 10000 miles. The particular driver has used three times extra oil than his actual requirement. This way he has drained the two-third amount of oil as the spoilt oil which was actually not spoilt. Similarly, if an average vehicle uses 6.6 litre oil, the driver has lost 13.2 litres on the actual interval. The average car in The UK drives around 10000 miles every year and there are around 28 million cars in the UK. This way more than 370 million litre good engine oil is thrown away every year in the UK only.
Did you know where this oil go?
Majority of the companies buy back this used oil from dealers and send for recycling of this used oil for reuse in different applications. In third world countries like India, same oil repacked after recycling and sent to the market under logos of big brands. The recycled engine oil industry is very large, running on those driver’s money who actually believe in 3000 miles amendments rather than believing in the recommendations of the manufacturers.
What giant car manufacturers say?
Upon contacting the product education specialist at Toyota, he agreed that the oil manufacturing companies must add advancements in their products to protect the environment on large scale. But if drivers will keep changing the oil on every 3000 miles without any reason, it means 28 million vehicles times 5 quarts oil every year and that’s a massive amount of waste oil every year. That’s not being dispersed in the environment.
The waste management board director in California USA says that the engine oil waste is a massive problem and impaired by the frequent oil changes, they have campaigned against the doctrine of 3000 miles oil change. He also stated that more than 153 million gallons of used oil only collected from California, rest of the 49 states have their own story to tell. He shocked the press by saying that more than 40 percent oil out of total 153 million gallons go in waste and damage the environment. Hardly 60 percent recycled every year.
How oil change service snatch the drivers
It was practically tested with an oil change service on a Honda Fit vehicle. This car has an active system of oil life monitoring installed on it and it also records the history of the oil changes and miles run on every oil change as well. One of the engine experts took the vehicle to the oil change service and asked for an oil change and recommended oil grades.
The service advisor recommended to use synthetic oil and he also said that the oil will run around 5000 miles to 5500 miles. The previous history of the vehicle was showing that the vehicle has traveled 7500 miles on last oil change. Upon lab testing of that oil, it was still able to safely do another 3000 miles of service on it.
At this meeting with the oil change service, the driver told the advisor that he was looking to use Castrol as he heard it could extend the life if the engine and extends the oil change intervals. The advisor said that the synthetic oils usually do 4000 to 5000 miles on each oil change cycle before oil starts burning in the engine. He also tried to outsell a local brand of oil which was a third-grade oil, maybe a recycled one. He also tried to upsell cabin filters so the total visit charges were well over £150.
When the car returned to the driver, there was written on the recommendations sheet that the next oil change will be on 3000 miles from the day of an oil change. The promised 4000 or 5000 miles were not there. The driver then drove 9500 miles before the oil life monitoring light turned on.
If the driver had been foolish enough to follow the recommendations of the oil change service center, to keep changing the oil at 3000 miles the vehicle would have minimum four oil changes in the same time it traveled on one.
What is the dent?
The dent is very obvious in this case if the drivers would keep practicing the 3000 miles schedule issued by the oil changing service. This way customers would repeatedly buy new oil for their vehicles. For example, if a driver has 20,000 miles average drive range per year and his car is designed to change oil every 10,000 miles, he would have to change his engine oil two times a year. The oil change price if you consider £120 every time on average, it would be £240 per year. At the same time, if the same driver would follow the 3000 miles oil change revision, he would change the engine oil more than 6 times during the year. This will cost him £720 for the same year. This way by not practicing the automaker’s recommended practice, the driver has lost £480 out of his pocket along with more than 40 liters of oil drained out for no reason at all.
Wasting £500 on average every year and 40 liters of good oil drained and practicing the same technique for the next five years, the driver would drive 100,000 miles and he would definitely waste just under £3000 and more than 200 liters of oil in waste. It doesn’t include any other repairs and filters changes.
Defending the 3,000-Mile Interval
Majority of the oil change services and garages defend their 3000 miles doctrine by saying that their customers drove under seriously severe conditions, one case already mentioned above. How they reinforce the drivers to change the oil on 3000 miles. Upon asking the service center they said that the recommendation of changing oil meant to be just a recommendation.
One of the managers at another service centers repeatedly called the 3000 miles oil change as a good fall-back position means that it is just a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule.
He further added that the oil change technicians must initiate a dialogue with the customers and guide them about the oil change facts and the best times to do rather than just writing down 3000 as a recommendation.
