On Fri, 2 Sep 2011 14:46:41 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson
wrote:

On Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:14:55 -0700, SMS wrote:
You have to wonder why, in Europe, the average oil change interval is
10,000 miles while it's 5000 miles in the U.S.

Hmm, most of Europe uses km, not mi - are you sure you're not mixing up
units? I used to do oil changes around 6000mi in England (on my modern
vehicles - I still did my vintage ones at 3000mi) - which isn't too
different from 10,000km.

That's still higher than the US, of course, but only twice as much :-)

Historically, I think the US was reluctant to change tried-and-tested
engine designs, at a time where much of the rest of the world was aiming
for better efficiency and power to weight ratios.

In the US, for better or worse, pollution controls have trumped efficiency.

That gap seems to have
closed these days, but perhaps there's a lot of inertia left in the
system - 3000mi changes used to be the norm in the US, so that's what's
still advised even though modern engines don't need it.

So you know better than the engineers who designed the engine?

(My brother in law's a GM mechanic, incidentally, and I know he quotes
3000mi - I'll try and remember to ask him why next time I see him :-)

Your brother is a mechanic, yet you know better than he. What, exactly, are
your qualifications?