LDB

All companies have a mix of high and low performing individuals. The question is, are there enough of the former to counteract the latter. If you think that answer is no, then maybe the manuals are crap, but more importantly, their products would also be crap. So why would you buy from that company?

As far as the OLM being perfect, of course it isn’t, and the more unusual your driving habits, the more likely it is to give questionable results. It also has some safety factor built in, so if you don’t have high risk driving habits, you could routinely exceed it without serious risk. But for the majority of people with reasonably normal driving habits, it gives a good, safe result.

The main caveat I’d see for those trying to stretch to long life with low mileage cars applies only to those where the reason for the low mileage is frequent short trips. I agree that low mileage due to infrequent, but normal length trips is low risk. The specific thing I’d be worried about is depletion of pH stabilizers (some call them buffers). If the stabilizers are depleted, oil pH could be on a yoyo, low some of the time when you haven’t gotten things hot for a while, and ok right after a longer trip has broken down the acids. I don’t imagine many oil analyses test for the stabilizers, they probably just look at pH itself, so an individual spot sample may not give a good idea of the average pH your oil is running. If you are in that situation, it’s the one place I might go for long life oil, since the biggest change in formulating those oils is more pH stabilizer and antioxidant (because oxides can be precursors to acids).

As long as you are just driving infrequently, but when you drive, you get things hot, the above does not apply. The thing that stresses the pH stabilizers and anti-oxidants is liquid water in the oil via condensation of water vapor in piston blowby. Once the oil gets hot, that water is driven off. But if the oil never gets hot due to short trips, you are in potential trouble.

Foosh

Agree again . . . a lot of low-mileage, warm weather, sunny day, weekend-only, Corvettes are subjected to the frequent short trip scenario, where the oil never gets above 200º, and condensation never gets boiled off. I think that's the main reason for the 1 year requirement.

The other big mistake folks make when, for example, putting a car away for the winter is starting it for awhile, letting it idle in the driveway. That is a terrible practice. If you're not going to drive it long enough to get the oil above 175º, you're much better off not starting it at all.

LT1 Z51

So many answers.

No there are not enough good engineers to combat the latter. Detroit (GM, Ford, and the US arm of FCA) have difficulty attracting top talent as the Metro Detroit area is undesirable to many people from the East, South, and West parts of this country. We also don't get the foreign engineers like we used to, they mostly go into tech now.

Why would I buy a Corvette if this is true, because sadly this is true on some level across the entire industry and as stated above specifically for the US OEMs. I do however work in the industry and support my industry as a matter of personal interests. I bought a C7 specifically because I worked for the supplier who designed and manufactured the Steering System (was ZFLS now Bosch) and I was on the project. The design work of the mechanicals was done locally, but all the SW and electronics was designed (and programmed) in Germany. Now I work for Ford so I buy Fords (and they don't make a Corvette competitor either).

If I had to say who has the best environment and attracts the most talent it would be Ford. But that's because Ford does the most in house engineering versus GM and Chrysler (Chrysler does the least). The real talent, and this is true outside of powertrain specifically, is in the supply base. The big German and Japanese suppliers have on many levels the best engineers. The Japanese and German OEMs are better at leveraging these suppliers than the US OEMs are. But the US OEMs are getting better, while the Japanese and Germans are now entering into "cost down" mode like the US industry was in the 80's. The days of engineering for the sake of engineering in Automotive are gone, you are put in a box.

Jmcdude

Long story short, her car got totaled and no longer needs an oil change.

Foosh

True, the but value of threads/forums like this is more about educating the rest of the community than just answering OP questions.

iclick

The key point in the above is "warranty." I would not violate the recommendations in the manual at least until it has expired.

LDB

I certainly won’t deny that the balance between excellence and cost reduction has gone in the direction of cost reduction in recent decades, but you pretty obviously believe that trend has gone much further than I do. You also seem to believe it has gone much further in the US than in other parts of the world, while I see it pretty much the same everywhere. I don’t sense much chance that either of us will cause a major shift in the other’s opinion, so let’s just agree to disagree.