Forgive me if this has been posted many times, I'm a newbie and searched. I'm wondering if anyone is finding drivetrain longevity from doing a break in, 1.5k miles, oil change? Also, the manufacturer's recommendations for CVT and differential fluid changes (inspect) don't lend themselves to longevity. Does 30-60k drivetrain fluid changes and 30k brake fluid change seem about right? tia
Break in oil change and fluids.
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Kinda' impressive, though, how "those engineers" can design a maintenance schedule such that the vehicle will fail as soon as it is out of warranty.
Sounds like you already had your mind made up when you started this thread. Your car, your wallet, your choice. Choice is good.
Planned obsolescence. As an engineer who has done design work I can give you every confidence that it was not our idea to do that. That comes straight from corporate who want you to run out and buy a replacement vehicle one mile more, or one day after.. the warranty expires.
Engineers are geeks, we like elegant solutions that you can squeeze a little bit more out of each part of something. Sure, it will do 0-60 in 5.7 seconds but we know that we actually designed it for 5.1 seconds but we can't tell you that. To get it by the bean counters we need to cloak it in phrases like "manufacturing tolerances". Right now where I work we have a radio that is advertised as a 5 watt transmitter output, but we personally know that it is capable of up to 20 watts... but that's not what is sold to the customer. Marketing decides what is sold.
As engineers we design the very best we can, to last as long as possible and to exceed specifications. I remember some of my first product designs and how I was called for a meeting with the division manager to be verbally reprimanded for over-designing and putting too stringent of acceptance criteria on manufacturing. Another time I had to retrofit a design to eliminate some high frequency noise from the DC power bus. I used a (PI) filter and had two additional poles added to the design (an inductor (coil of wire) and a capacitor). It made for a really nice filter and the interference level dropped way off. In a design review they fought me on those two additional components that would of added about 25 cents to the build cost on a product we were selling for about $7000. If you push back too many times and insist on doing things out of a moral imperative then you usually find yourself transferred in to some dead-end part of the business or Reduction-In-Force'd (RIF).
At the end of the day, do whatever makes you happy. If you subscribe to the tin foil hat theory, act accordingly by all means. As far as I'm concerned, this argument doesn't pass the sniff test. The most reliable cars end up being the best selling, look at Toyota and Honda's reliability numbers. They're a lot better than the bit players like Subaru. Maybe Subaru is designing things to fail, but that's clearly not a winning business model.
Oddly enough, I work for a company that encourages everyone to design to the utmost of their abilities (given the constraint that you actually need to have a working product at some point...) Maybe you just need to find a better place to work.
Oddly enough, I work for a company that encourages everyone to design to the utmost of their abilities (given the constraint that you actually need to have a working product at some point...) Maybe you just need to find a better place to work.
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Maybe you are onto something. I suggest you be the forum's guinea pig. Go with 60k mile oil changes and let us know how that works out for you.
Heck, my 34 year old Corvette wouldn't be do for it's first oil change for another 25 years.
I recently posted my initial oil change analysis in the Oil & Fuel Discussion section. I changed it at 5k miles and none of the metals/contaminants were anywhere near critical levels. My opinion is and always has been...if you're going to keep this car for 150k-200k miles, then just maintain it by the book. All that extra effort isn't going to make a big difference.
I have a very large fleet of vehicles for my business that are kept to at least 150k miles. They're maintained by the book and rarely have any problems. If you're planning to keep your OB until it rusts away, then maybe it makes sense to invest more heavily in maintenance. Reliability and average age of cars on the road has consistently gone up over the years, as have maintenance intervals. Doesn't really sound like a conspiracy by the manufacturers to me.
As an engineer myself, my solution was to start up my own company, which I managed/mismanaged for the next ~40 years. One of our guiding principles was to keep the decision process very simple:
1) Do we need it? Does it add value? Is it the right thing to do?
2) Can we afford it?
3) Does it support the long-term goals of the company?
Along the years we adopted several slogans, from whimsical to profound, among them:2) Can we afford it?
3) Does it support the long-term goals of the company?
- "In technology, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- "'Zero defects' is barely good enough."
- "You can't take nine women and produce a baby in one month."
- "Simple incompetence is a far more sinister force in the world than evil intent."
- "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."
- "If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done."
- "If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude."
Subaru touts that 97% of their vehicles made in last 10 year are still on the road... that definitely is not caused by a planned obsolescence.
Now since Subaru has small market share it is easier to gain it by going after makers with weak longevity, rather than to do planned obsolescence of the existing customer base.
Now since Subaru has small market share it is easier to gain it by going after makers with weak longevity, rather than to do planned obsolescence of the existing customer base.
Here’s an interesting addendum to that statistic, though I don’t have numbers: what percentage of that 3% not on the road were totaled in accidents, with (presumably) the majority of the passengers surviving.
If any auto manufacturer claimed 100% (perhaps even 99%) of cars at 10 years old are atill on the road, I’d wonder about how much they”re really driven, because bad things happen, given enough time and miles. My Dad had an 83 Dodge D150 that kept attracting other cars into it, even when it wasn’t in traffic. Then, consider how many cars get destroyed by natural disasters, the most common issue being they get caught in floods (just saw a Seattle news segment on those being sold to unsuspecting people again).
So, while Subaru doesn’t make and sell cars so perfect they’ll last forever, there also doesn’t appear to be evidence they design and make them to self-destruct in planned obsolescence, either.
Let's think about rumors about longevity. You hear a rumor and really have absolutely no idea how the person treated their car. They could say they changed engine oil every 3k miles, but they could be complete liars. They could have let 20k miles pass by between two oil changes. You just don't know. So, another person might think, "Hey, I need to change oil every 2k miles because that guy's car broke down and he changed every 3k miles." And the disinformation continues.
Personally, I have just followed the maintenance schedule provided by the manufacturer of any car I had. All my cars have made it to 200k miles without major maintenance, and were sold to happy buyers. I am talking about a Jeep Cherokee 1989, a Honda Civic 2000, a Mitsubishi Galant 2000, and a Ford Escape 2002.
Like the second post in this thread says, trust what the engineers of your car said before trusting an anonymous person on an Internet forum. But trust me. 0
Personally, I have just followed the maintenance schedule provided by the manufacturer of any car I had. All my cars have made it to 200k miles without major maintenance, and were sold to happy buyers. I am talking about a Jeep Cherokee 1989, a Honda Civic 2000, a Mitsubishi Galant 2000, and a Ford Escape 2002.
Like the second post in this thread says, trust what the engineers of your car said before trusting an anonymous person on an Internet forum. But trust me. 0
They used to say of Harleys that 95% of all Harleys ever made were still on the road. The rest of them made it home OK.
Or were sitting in a garage somewhere, not having been ridden in the previous 18 months.
As a Suzuki rider I hope you won't mind if I steal this line to use on my smug Harley riding buddies. Thanks
It's in the public domain now.
'14 Suzuki VStrom DL650 here. Most Hardleys around here are garage queens and '15 minute rides' on the weekends to some local show-off destination.
I meant the CVT and differentials. Maybe you wait 25 years to change the oil in your corvette (which explains a lot) and let us know how that works out for you.
2015 Outback Limited, 2018 Lexus LX570, 1998 Toyota LC 100, 1987 Toyota FJ60
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I follow the manufacturers recommendations exactly and have never had a single major component wear out. Engine, transmission, etc. Over 35 years worth of driving. So I would not sweat it. Drive the car. Get the oil changed. Don't worry about arm chair engineering the CVT oil change interval. Life's too short. You'll sell the car before anything wears out.
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