Any design parameter involves some decisions that have to be made, compromises and so forth, before a final design value can be settled on. Each of those decisions/compromises involved a level of judgement based on the designer's overarching philosophy, or which aspect of the design they want to maximize at the expense of some other aspects that suffer as a result. That's the compromise.
Most auto owners have to invest quite a lot of money into their vehicles, and naturally many like us here on Ram Forum are highly motivated on maximizing vehicle longevity at the expense of added maintenance, sometimes over and beyond what was decided on by the vehicle manufacturer, who had some other motivation in mind when they stipulated their maintenance (like minimizing advertised maintenance cost, minimizing fluid processing, etc.).
But I sometimes notice there is a certain subset of the population that almost seems to get angry when people question the manufacturers maintenance intervals. They scoff at the idea of wanting to maximize longevity. And for the life of me I can't figure out why. Deference to the "experts" I suppose, or lack of faith in regular people's right to choose a little differently.
I found
this video the other day that PERFECTLY shows this attitude, and it was so striking I thought I'd link it here. The thing is, he's not wrong in his reasons for longer service interval. Engines and lubricants are indeed better these days, and change intervals have gone up, but he shows his cards when he trashes the overarching motivation anyone who considers maximizing life over maintenance cost has: "You aren't going to keep your car for a long time. You think you want to, but you're not going to, and it's because you're incapable of being content with the same old thing for a long long time, and even if you are, it's then a danger to others and yourself. You're gonna want the new better thing soon, just like the rest of us." I know I'm paraphrasing, and perhaps a bit unfairly, but that's the attitude I see in those statements. It's the "the experts know better than you and how dare you assume you might know more about your own motivations than t
Any design parameter involves some decisions that have to be made, compromises and so forth, before a final design value can be settled on. Each of those decisions/compromises involved a level of judgement based on the designer's overarching philosophy, or which aspect of the design they want to maximize at the expense of some other aspects that suffer as a result. That's the compromise.
Most auto owners have to invest quite a lot of money into their vehicles, and naturally many like us here on Ram Forum are highly motivated on maximizing vehicle longevity at the expense of added maintenance, sometimes over and beyond what was decided on by the vehicle manufacturer, who had some other motivation in mind when they stipulated their maintenance (like minimizing advertised maintenance cost, minimizing fluid processing, etc.).
But I sometimes notice there is a certain subset of the population that almost seems to get angry when people question the manufacturers maintenance intervals. They scoff at the idea of wanting to maximize longevity. And for the life of me I can't figure out why. Deference to the "experts" I suppose, or lack of faith in regular people's right to choose a little differently.
I found
this video the other day that PERFECTLY shows this attitude, and it was so striking I thought I'd link it here. The thing is, he's not wrong in his reasons for longer service interval. Engines and lubricants are indeed better these days, and change intervals have gone up, but he shows his cards when he trashes the overarching motivation anyone who considers maximizing life over maintenance cost has: "You aren't going to keep your car for a long time. You think you want to, but you're not going to, and it's because you're incapable of being content with the same old thing for a long long time, and even if you are, it's then a danger to others and yourself. You're gonna want the new better thing soon, just like the rest of us." I know I'm paraphrasing, and perhaps a bit unfairly, but that's the attitude I see in those statements. It's the "the experts know better than you and how dare you assume you might know more about your own motivations than the experts" attitude.
Rant over.
There's a lot of ignorance out there, not just about things they don't know about, but about people that do. Forums aren't for them.
