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Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

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Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#91

Post by fc417fc802 »

ndiddy wrote: post #69
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #24

Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that…

> There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. There is no "government national defense floor". As far as I can tell, this originates from someone misreading the SPR drawdown laws and then a bunch of people parroting it. The ~250M "floor" (really 252.4M) only applies for SPR drawdowns that aren't required by a severe energy supply interruption or to meet US obligations…

Either way it seems the US has somewhere from 1 to 8 months before accounting for reductions due to national considerations. That's concerning no matter how you frame it.

What's the outlook for the other major economies?

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#92

Post by ffsm8 »

what-the-grump wrote: post #25
sschueller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?

It does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years. I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?

Bought a old Nissan juke in 2021 - built in 2011.

Haven't had to change or refill oil once.

Ymmv

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#93

Post by doodlebugging »

bijowo1676 wrote: post #10
pjdesno wrote: post #2

What kind of vehicle takes 10 quarts of oil for a single oil change?

most of V8 engines need 10+ quarts

I've owned and driven V8 engine powered vehicles since the 1970's and have never owned one that used more than 7 qts of oil for an oil change. Most use 5 qts plus a filter. That is why oil is sold in 5 qt jugs. That's all that most vehicles need. Of course my vehicles are all model year 2015 or earlier.

I checked specs with different manufacturers and find that the V8 engines that need 10 qts of motor oil are the heavier duty trucks typically with a diesel engine. Checking specs shows that most gasoline V8s require 6 qts, some require 7-8 quarts, and the larger diesel trucks require 10 qts, sometimes up to 11 qts depending on the engine.

10 qts of motor oil takes up a lot of space and that is at a premium in most engine compartments. The oil pan would need to be deep and trucks are the only vehicles that have that much room between the engine block and the crossmembers/differentials.

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#94

Post by shoobiedoo »

spicypixel wrote: post #41
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #24

Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that…

It’s doubly bad now China is back buying oil.

[dead]

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#95

Post by dietr1ch »

diydsp wrote: post #82
dietr1ch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's 11.3L for the civilised audience. For reference, my 3.6L 6-cyl boxer needs about 6.5L according to my service notes.

Liters are not SI units. Metric isn't magic. It's not ergnomic nor designed around the human body or everyday experiences. It started arbitrary. Then was defined as in terms of the wavelength of radiation from krypton-86. (the meter was 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of that particular transition to match the original arbitrary metal bar) Then they based it on the distance light travels in an arbitrary amount of time (1/29…

I didn't say it was SI units, but it's easily convertible to them. Metric isn't magic, but it's a cohesive set of legos that can be transformed easily without requiring messy arithmetic and hard to memorise scale constants.

Are you not pretending people use the modern, most-precise definitions in the day-to-day just to give yourself a stab at claiming that Metric is awful? Non-metric would face the same dilemma when trying to establish units in a way that can be scientifically replicated. The counter point is that non-metric is so bad that people don't even bother using it in this endeavor ;)

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#96

Post by bluedino »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #53

My son bought 144 bottles of Castrol 10w40 on closeout for $110. This was 2 or 3 years ago. We drive old iron and have been steadily using them up. What felt like a wall in our garage now feels like a security blanket.

Kind of an odd viscosity unless you have classic cars or live in a hot climate

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#97

Post by toasty228 »

icantevenhold wrote: post #83
LeBit wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize the shortages you enumerated have different reasons , but a highly respectable French engineer, Jean-Marc Jancovici , has been repeating for years that we are heading into an inevitable age of "degrowth". It is not an "if". It is now inevitable. He is very pro alternative sources of energy but he clearly explains nothing can replace petroleum right now. Petroleum is used to build everything. Gas for your ca…

You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it. You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance. It’s just that a lot of companies (and people) get very rich from it and they invest A LOT into making sure that petroleum alternatives are not viable. Of course there are some things were petroleum cant be easily substitute…

> You can definitely replace petroleum for many of the things you listed - or find alternative technologies that don’t require it. You can live without plastic bags or plastic clothes for instance.

Not really, not at this scale, or this price and convenience.

Most things you enjoy today are affordable because we have fossil fuels. The entire supply chain of every single product you can imagine is very dependent on fossil fuels. We're not even capable of making proper roads or tires without petroleum derivates, without these two alone nothing gets to you. Investigate a bit, you'll find petroleum and petroleum derivates a prerequisite of virtually everything.

Renewable energies look like a solved problem today with wind and solar, but it seems like everybody forgets that the entire supply chain to make them is 100% petrol dependant from mining raw materials to the final delivery. In a world without petrol these would be orders of magnitude more expensive, if even possible at all.

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#99

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

ndiddy wrote: post #69
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #24

Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that…

> There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. There is no "government national defense floor". As far as I can tell, this originates from someone misreading the SPR drawdown laws and then a bunch of people parroting it. The ~250M "floor" (really 252.4M) only applies for SPR drawdowns that aren't required by a severe energy supply interruption or to meet US obligations…

The problem with drawdowns is they can and have compromised the structural integrity of the caverns used in the SPR. Like oil, they're a finite resource and should be used judiciously.

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2585591

Re: Global shortage has led to motor oil rationing at Costco

#100

Post by AngryData »

adocomplete wrote: post #31
sschueller wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?

Nope. I've had a Model 3 since 2018 and besides swapping out tires and window washer fluid, no maintenance. There was suggested battery fluid maintenance when I first got the car every 3 years or so, but they removed that recommendation. It's one of the reasons I just can't go back to a regular gas car.

And idea like this is why EVs will still have poor depreciated values even if the battery holds up. Yes it is common for people to ignore all the non-powertrain maintenance items on cars before EVs, but at least in ICE half of them regularly dripped oil down its body and lines and still semi-regularly had somebody kicking the tires and shit when the oil was changed to try and sell you a repair before it fails.

Body, wheels, and suspension components all require maintenance. Just because those components have a less predictable maintenance schedule doesn't mean they don't crap out if problems aren't identified and taken care of. And unless you are driving a short range smart car, EVs weight more than most ICEs, which accelerates the wear and shortens the lifespan of many components.

Don't get me wrong, EVs should be more reliable than ICE still, but in my experiences motor and engine problems are rarely the death knell of a vehicle, body damage and rust are. There are always enough people crashing or junking their cars so that even less reliable motors can be easily had on the used market for cheap, if you don't just swap to something better to start with, but once you get significant body rust 95% of mechanics won't/can't deal with it and repairing metal body shell is a level of skill and tooling that most DIYs aren't going to even attempt.

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