Rant Oh come ON!

Mazda RX-7, for one. Although the car, as a whole, has issues with keeping the engine temperature down, the rule of thumb for this car in particular is to leave the car idle for 5 to 10 minutes after driving. It probably uses an old OEM turbine design from KKK instead of Garrett, but the oil would bake in the turbo if not circulated to cool it off before shutting the engine off. This is the reasoning behind "turbo timer" aftermarket devices for effectively any car with a turbine.


**edit: what I mean to say is, some turbochargers share engine's motor oil to lubricate the impeller shaft instead of water.

 

Rotary engines are special and in such a minority it barely counts! but i'll let you off

Now, average yearly mileage in the USA, anyone got any idea?

In the uk the national average is 12'000 miles a year.

 

According the the United States government, it's 13,476 miles per year. That data is eight years old, but I doubt it's changed much.

Though personally, I'm driving about 5% of the average for my age group. I'd also prefer a small, hard-working engine in a nimble, lightweight car to a lumbering V8 muscle car or SUV, so perhaps I'm not typical.

 

In Canada "24,000 km is the industry standard for yearly mileage on a vehicle" (source) That's about 15,000 miles. In Alberta anything less than that allows you to insure the vehicle as "occasional use" . Things tend to be a little farther apart here (especially in the North & West portions) so it's natural for us to have to travel farther. For instance I'm traveling about 500Km (that's the next closest city) to visit a (very special ) friend - just for the weekend.

 

The coker is the last stage of the refining process where the very long chain (C20 and up) hydrocarbons are extracted and the remaining pure carbon (coke) is condensed and removed. One of the refineries out here then puts it through a calciner to purify the coke and sells it as anode grade for the Aluminum industry. The long chain hydrocarbons go back into the hydrocracker and can be made into whatever sells.

All of the refineries around here (we have three within 50 miles) have upgraded their diesel units in the last couple of years for the new ultra-low sulfur standard, and because oil heat has never been that popular on the west coast I don't think they produce any here.

Lack of fuel supply is not a factor in the uptake of diesel powered cars, and more and more gas stations are carrying diesel. Diesel is lightly more expensive than gas, usually around $.50 anymore.

The recommendation is 3 months / 3000 miles for oil changes. As for average miles per year, usually 10,000-20,000.

 

Point is that US refineries are geared up to produce much more gasoline than diesel, the required units cost millions of dollars and take years to install, they have much bigger cokers than fcc they also have large reformers to combine low quality gasoline with hydrogen to make the octane spec. This is an over view of Port Arthur (Valero),l ooking at the flow diagram for that, the only diesel/kero they produce is straight run its desluphurised at the hds and piped out. Almost every other unit is producing petrol.

 

Interesting that is, so our national average is only 3000 yet our country is smaller than florida! Which tells me one thing...nothing is within walking distance

 

Diesel-electric is the answer, smooth (almost 100%) torque all the way through the speed range, no clutch, gearbox or torque converter to break down, and it works for the trains .

 

ah yes i've heard of this, basically a diesel engine that acts as a generator for the battery packs right? didn't they prototype something like on the mitsubishi i?

 

GM will make them.... the opel flextream and the chevrolet volt.... irc....

 

I wish that the insurance companies in australia would see it like that.
The insurance on my 1.5 litre 68kW hyundai accent is larger than the insurance on a ford xr8 with an aftermarket turbocharger simply because it's the "sports" model (2 doors ) (for some reason they still consider the xr8 a family sedan with 20k worth of modifications on it)

stop stealing my ideas
once i get back into a normal hours job i want to spend some time modding a car to work like that

 

we do oil changes on our cars in spring and fall i think. if we go on a trip we do it right before too.

diesel is cheaper than gas where i am. gas is about $1.10/Liter. 20 minutes drive across the border has gas $0.25/Liter cheaper. and we just started have ethanol put in our gas.

the chevy volt is neet but looks FUGLY so far.

any maintenance on our cars is because they are old (our newest is 1991) and the stuff that get fixed isnt expensive and all our cars are reliable and run good. no oil burning.

im getting a motorcycle so that will be good mpg, but not too good as it got 100hp and i will use it often