I recently came across this Youtube channel. He is basically a mythbuster for motor oil. For example, he makes the case that letting your car warmup before driving is actually doing more harm vs. driving off immediately. Also, he has videos that inexpensive synthetic oil is just as good as higher price oils (Amsoil, Purple, etc). Be aware that most of his videos contain a lot of data and terms you might not be aware of. So, it can be little dry and just go to the conclusion.
https://www.youtube.com/@themotoroilgeek
Also, for Toyota owners this is also a very good YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCarCareNut
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Yes, I think in general it's best to follow the guidelines that are given in the owner's manual. Some of these ideas are probably old holdovers from engines a long time ago that had issues that do not exist in modern engines due to improvement in design.
For example, the good old "Italian tune-up", the idea that driving a car fast at high revs, possibly in a lower gear, will burn out carbon deposits probably used to be true in Ferraris from the 70s, but is not the case anymore with the detergent additives in gasoline.
The idea of the 3,000 mile oil change was invented as a scam by quick-change oil places and has been debunked many times. The people who actually built the car know best how often the oil needs to be changed, and they put it in the owner's manual, and it is usually 8-10k for most modern cars, or sometimes as low as 5k, but it's best to just follow whatever it says.
The long warm-up when starting a cold engine is actually bad for the engine because it prolongs the amount of time it takes for the engine to warm up, and most engine wear occurs when the engine is cold. I used to have a car that had an oil pressure gauge, and I noticed that it took about five seconds for the oil pressure to reach the proper level, so when I start the car cold I give it about 5-10 seconds for the oil to reach the right pressure and then I start driving. I do avoid revving the engine high when it's cold, though; that's probably reasonable.
Cars nowadays are vastly more sturdy from a mechanical point of view than cars from the 20th century, and will last longer than most people are able to drive them with just basic maintenance. I think about 20 years ago cars became so reliable that they just last forever.
I have a theory, and I can't prove it, but I think before the turn of the century the majority of cars reached the end of their life due to mechanical failure, but that now the majority of cars reach the end of life due to an accident. I think the engines and other important systems last so much longer since then that the odds of getting into an accident finally became higher than the odds of mechanical failure. What I mean is, with every mile that a car is driven, there is a tiny chance of being totaled in an accident. So, for example, it would be unlikely to be able to drive a car a million miles without being in an accident, even if the car doesn't have a mechanical failure. So many cars over the last 20-30 years are naturally able to go 2-300k or more fairly easily, but the odds of cars doing that without being wrecked is rather low.
Topic: Engine Maintenance Tips: Additives & Oil (Read 97314 times)