Milage Or Running Hours?

[Duncan]

Hi everyone

Here is something to ponder over.

World over an ever increasing problem is motor vehicle traffic on our roads.

More and more vehicles are spending more and more time idling in one spot than actually running. So here is the question........when looking around for a used vehicle, what will be more important......milage run by the car or the actual number of hours the engine has run?

Cheers

[Overdrive]

  Duncan said:

Hi everyone

Here is something to ponder over.

World over an ever increasing problem is motor vehicle traffic on our roads.

More and more vehicles are spending more and more time idling in one spot than actually running. So here is the question........when looking around for a used vehicle, what will be more important......milage run by the car or the actual number of hours the engine has run?

Cheers

Well to start off with one would never know how long or how much an engine has been idling for. So there is no point pondering over that. Lost cause..I dont know if you could gather that data from the ECU but thats not for everyone..With the meters we can ascertain the Milage, at least we think..at this day and age people do turn the clock back?? So in my opinion there is othing much we can do..

[isurujosh]

  Duncan said:

Hi everyone

Here is something to ponder over.

World over an ever increasing problem is motor vehicle traffic on our roads.

More and more vehicles are spending more and more time idling in one spot than actually running. So here is the question........when looking around for a used vehicle, what will be more important......milage run by the car or the actual number of hours the engine has run?

Cheers

which brings me to the oint that one stafford mechanic suggested that the timing belt of ek3 parallel Honda engines has to be replaced in 60,000 km. not 100000km. mainly due to traffic idling? any truth to this.

[thushara_g]

  Duncan said:

Hi everyone

Here is something to ponder over.

World over an ever increasing problem is motor vehicle traffic on our roads.

More and more vehicles are spending more and more time idling in one spot than actually running. So here is the question........when looking around for a used vehicle, what will be more important......milage run by the car or the actual number of hours the engine has run?

Cheers

This defineately is a concern in colder countries and vehicles running in heavy traffic. When the weather is cold people always keep engines running while they wait in a car. Still this is during low temperatures and will have less stress on engine. But odometer reading becomes far apart from real engine hours.

Driving in heavy traffic must be doing the most damage to the engine and drivetrain with continuous low gear movement. In addition slow movement does not blow enough air through the radiator and it lets the engine heat up beyond normal levels. (If you have two electrical radiator fans, you can clearly hear second one kicking in in such situations.)

It will be a great idea to have a hour counter like the heavy machinery (backhoe, bulldozers etc.) so you can figure out real situation between actual milage and unseen engine wear.

[Nozozo]

read some time back, someboby's article which says his worries about having only an 'hour meter for his rented leisure boat, but not an odometer. But his car had only an odometer.

For both cases he needed to have help of both meters (odo and hour) for cost/maintenance decisions.

[fuzzo]

  isurujosh said:

which brings me to the oint that one stafford mechanic suggested that the timing belt of ek3 parallel Honda engines has to be replaced in 60,000 km. not 100000km. mainly due to traffic idling? any truth to this.

i suppose what they are trying to say is that 60k in local conditions is equal to 100k in "normal" conditions.. so it probably is true.

having an timing meter in the cars would definitely be nice just to know how much the car has been used. but like all meters, they too will be turned back in good ol SL

[unknown]

  fuzzo said:

i suppose what they are trying to say is that 60k in local conditions is equal to 100k in "normal" conditions.. so it probably is true.

having an timing meter in the cars would definitely be nice just to know how much the car has been used. but like all meters, they too will be turned back in good ol SL

true machan ape aiyala ta monada koranna bari

[isurujosh]

  fuzzo said:

i suppose what they are trying to say is that 60k in local conditions is equal to 100k in "normal" conditions.. so it probably is true.

having an timing meter in the cars would definitely be nice just to know how much the car has been used. but like all meters, they too will be turned back in good ol SL

hey fusso, tnx for the tip, i guess the timing belt thing is not all that expensive, my friend replaced his corolla 110 thing for just 15,000/=

[Thusha]

  isurujosh said:

which brings me to the oint that one stafford mechanic suggested that the timing belt of ek3 parallel Honda engines has to be replaced in 60,000 km. not 100000km. mainly due to traffic idling? any truth to this.

yeh dat can be true, also i have seen that 60,000 km thing is in eg8 workshop manual

  isurujosh said:

hey fusso, tnx for the tip, i guess the timing belt thing is not all that expensive, my friend replaced his corolla 110 thing for just 15,000/=

work done by company? pretty expensive than stafford...

[Hola]

The most expensive compnay to get stuff done is ########, they once took 80k just change some plugs in my bro-in-law's Pajero IO.

Stafford i prety much better i guess, we did a A/C repairing for 4k

So do we have to change the timing belt in 60k? Becuase today i just realised i reached 59,900kms in my car

[Elvis_Pil]

  Hola said:

The most expensive compnay to get stuff done is ########, they once took 80k just change some plugs in my bro-in-law's Pajero IO.

Stafford i prety much better i guess, we did a A/C repairing for 4k

So do we have to change the timing belt in 60k? Becuase today i just realised i reached 59,900kms in my car

BullS you can use the factory TB upto 75-80 easily.. But just to be on the safe side I changed mine at 59000 while doing some other stuff on the car. When it comes to TB's just consider how old they are in terms on years as well.. I guess you cant trust five year old rubber on an factory Ek3 timing belt even though the car may have low milage. Just my Rs 0.02/-

[Hola]

  Pilawoos said:

BullS you can use the factory TB upto 75-80 easily.. But just to be on the safe side I changed mine at 59000 while doing some other stuff on the car. When it comes to TB's just consider how old they are in terms on years as well.. I guess you cant trust five year old rubber on an factory Ek3 timing belt even though the car may have low milage. Just my Rs 0.02/-

So I should go to change my timing belt fast right? My next service is due on 61000. Shall i wait til then? How much wil it cost at Staford?

[Elvis_Pil]

  Hola said:

So I should go to change my timing belt fast right? My next service is due on 61000. Shall i wait til then? How much wil it cost at Staford?

It's just the small amount of Rs 3900 (from staff) plus about Rs 1800 for the racers (from teck).. Dont know about the labour. You dont have to be in hurry to change it though -specially on an automatic car which does not see too much high revs..

[Hola]

Thanks, thats a relief. I thought it would go up to 10000.

Duncan, i rember you adviced me once on engine tune up. I did my 1st tuneup in 40000kms. Should i do another tuneup with TB change?

[Duncan]

Hi Hola

Yes it is a good idea to get a tune up done with the belt change. Infact they should actually do it as part of the belt change.

[Elvis_Pil]

  Duncan said:

Hi Hola

Yes it is a good idea to get a tune up done with the belt change. Infact they should actually do it as part of the belt change.

Yep you will anyway have to recheck the timing!!

Hey Duncan! where have you been man?? Nice to see you back and post'n! Whats the latest news on your collection?

[isurujosh]

  Pilawoos said:

It's just the small amount of Rs 3900 (from staff) plus about Rs 1800 for the racers (from teck).. Dont know about the labour. You dont have to be in hurry to change it though -specially on an automatic car which does not see too much high revs..

Yes please try say that to me!

---

so anway i have done 66k in my car now, next service i go ahead with my t-belt thingy.

  Duncan said:

Hi Hola

Yes it is a good idea to get a tune up done with the belt change. Infact they should actually do it as part of the belt change.

Yeah Duncan, been missing your company ofr a while, I saw that u came out of the blue to comment on the South African British Car

[Duncan]

  isurujosh said:

Yes please try say that to me!

---

so anway i have done 66k in my car now, next service i go ahead with my t-belt thingy.

Yeah Duncan, been missing your company ofr a while, I saw that u came out of the blue to comment on the South African British Car

Hi guys

Been quite busy lately with work. Wish it was time to retire

However, I will be spending more time back on the site again from next month. I have to come here to Autolanka to get some sanity back

As for any additions to my collection, you might have seen the thread on the off-road camping trailer I bought. It is a real pleasure for safaries. Just got back from a trip last week.

Being the 4x4 junkie I am, bought another Pajero a few days ago. Its the former generation V6 3000cc LWB. The wife has the SWB of the samething.

So whats new on your front? I see the drags are coming back on again. I am quite pleased to hear this.

Cheers guys!

[Watchman]

woohoo!! my 1000th post... and a good topic tooo...

if you ask me i think milage is the best scale.. cos if you think of going into detail and think of the time the engine is running, there's another important counter-argument.. whe stuck in traffic though the engine is running time-wise its at low revs... lets say 800rmp for this example... now say when moving you normally drive at around 3200rpm.. thats means the engine turns 4 times as much... so in a way, driving for one hour is equivilant to idling for 4.... these are all good factors that can be taken into consideration, but DOES it really matter?

plus a car driven 10,000km for 500 hours by a lady doctor is bound to be better than an car of the identical model with the exact usage figures driven by a drag-loving youngster in his 20s....

there ARE various factors that can be used to judge a car's condition....but if you ask me i'd say the milage is still the best scale to measure engine usage on.... cos it'll tell you 85% of what you need to know about the car's usage.. 10-11% will tell you about the usage by looking at the driver.. and the remainign percentage will probably be on the various external conditions...

so comes the end of my 1000th post.....

[Pericles]

Yeah, but what when u idle at 1k and drive between 1.5k and 2k? Not a wild statement, coz thats how I drive maybe 70% of the time.

[Watchman]

  Pericles said:

Yeah, but what when u idle at 1k and drive between 1.5k and 2k? Not a wild statement, coz thats how I drive maybe 70% of the time.

ok i may hav gone a bit tot he far end with the rpm figures machan.. but think of it.. can you seriously say your engine is being stressed at the same rate throughout the day? or throughout the years...

its a very gray topic indeed huh?

[Pericles]

  Dilesh said:

ok i may hav gone a bit tot he far end with the rpm figures machan.. but think of it.. can you seriously say your engine is being stressed at the same rate throughout the day? or throughout the years...

its a very gray topic indeed huh?

Yeah. Ever been to a garage where they keep the thing running for a long time yanking the gas cable the whole time? That sorta thing never makes it to the clock. I'm sure there are ppl out there that get more RPM in the garage in that style than they have ever hit on the road...

[Overdrive]

  Dilesh said:

ok i may hav gone a bit tot he far end with the rpm figures machan.. but think of it.. can you seriously say your engine is being stressed at the same rate throughout the day? or throughout the years...

its a very gray topic indeed huh?

machan this topic is going no where. Come on the engine wear in idle is negligible. We should be more worried about fuel consumption in idle rather than wear and tear on the engine!!

[Watchman]

  Overdrive said:

machan this topic is going no where. Come on the engine wear in idle is negligible. We should be more worried about fuel consumption in idle rather than wear and tear on the engine!!

true.. but this idle doesnt concern the fuel consumption... its more regarding parts like heads and belts and filters... these things are normally suposed to last a particular duration ... a duration whihc is based on the milage of a car.. so when the milage, engine-runtime and duration in time dont coincide, there's a chance that a manufacturer gives a 100,000km lifetime will die in around 85,000km (sri lanka running)... plus in sri lanka, intense heat of the environment in addition to the engine means rubber parts are bound to get roasted faster....but i'm not taking over-night kinda 'faster'.....

[Elvis_Pil]

  Overdrive said:

machan this topic is going no where. Come on the engine wear in idle is negligible. We should be more worried about fuel consumption in idle rather than wear and tear on the engine!!

Hold on.. Engine wear is at it’s least when an engine is running at it’s peak efficiency in terms of power generation & fuel consumption. A car consumes the most amount of fuel in traffic conditions .. and consumes the least while doing long distance runs. At the same time the number of km’s a motor can run in it’s lifetime is limited..

Conclusion??