aronpye

LA is turning into District 9

Which UK cities? A London year travel pass costs £2,568, so public transport is hardly cheaper either, plus it’s a whole lot less convenient. Unless you enjoy spending all of your time in an urban group think bubble with the only option is to use public transport to travel to more of the same.

An annual London travel card is £2,568, and that only lets you travel around London. So why should be instead force people to buy something more expensive and less useful than a car?

> free (paid by taxes)

Free != paid by taxes

I also think tax funded services are quite regressive as you have to pay for them whether you use them or not, and there are no market forces driving them to be cost competitive.

Is any unsupervised access to the internet for children ever really safe? At the risk of sounding crass, why can’t they meet in real life like human beings are supposed to?

> … many US employment contracts also insanely long …

Most US employees are employed “at will” and don’t have contracts …

Most manuals tell you to inspect the oil monthly or before a long car journey.

Waiting two years before realizing your engine is drinking oil is probably reckless which wouldn’t be covered under any warranty.

Fuel and oil quality is a lot more variable in the US as it’s set at the state level, plus it’s just generally worse, so are the environmental conditions, so you have to set the guidelines according to the minimum / worst case likely to be encountered.

Fuel and oil quality is a lot more variable in the US, so are the environmental conditions, so you have to set the guidelines according to the minimum likely to be encountered.

I used to help develop Diesel Engines before I moved into Software Engineering.

If they followed anything like what we did, they would just run load cycles on the engine in a test cell to simulate approximately however many miles of ‘normal’ use they want to validate the engine up to. During the testing the engine would be maintained, fueled, and oiled according to the maintenance schedule and customer guidelines the engine will be sold with.

After the testing, the engine would be completely broken down and analyzed. If there weren’t any signs of abnormal wear then the engine would be considered validated __under those conditions__.

The problem is when real-world use deviates from the testing conditions. Which is pretty much always. Then the manufacturer guidelines no longer apply.

If you run your engine harder than the test cycle load factor, you will need to replace the engine oil more regularly. If your fuel quality is crap, i.e. has any ethanol in it, you will need to replace your oil more regularly as fuel eventually gets into the oil, and ethanol results in high water content in fuels, and hence oil, which will break down seals as well as reduce overall lubrication.

If your engine breaks down due to poor oil quality from lack of regular inspection and replacement, then as a manufacturer I’d be very resistant to paying out on any warranty claim. Even if you followed the “guidelines” for oil changes, you still have a duty to inspect the oil regularly, both as a responsible driver and under the car manual guidelines. Using bad oil and / or fuel is very easy to test for.

Long story short, the oil change intervals guidelines are just that, guidelines, and real-world use dictates the maintenance schedule. Frequent oil changes, before the oil breaks down / becomes crap, is just a quick, cheap way to prolong the life of your engine or any mechanical device with bearings or sliding surfaces for that matter.

Environmentally probably a good idea. From a consumer rights point of view this is going to be bad.

The cynical side of me thinks this is just a way to control the after-market and eliminate third party repair shops and mechanics.

A better way would be to design their cars with right to repair in mind, that way the environment and the consumer benefits.

I think you need more specialist equipment and training if you want to mess with high voltage electrical systems on BEVs.

An oil change is cheap. It’s also far better to preventatively change the oil, that way the engine is running with optimum lubrication most of the time. If you wait to change the oil when it’s black sludge, it’s likely damage will slowly build up from allowing the engine to run with poor oil.