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1. Check the health of the battery in your key-fob first. Also check the health of the 12-volt lead-acid battery in the back of the car. These both must be good for the car to start.
2. The main reason I have not purchased luxury cars is that I prefer sportier cars and I prefer cars with manual transmissions. Also great gas mileage is a priority for me; not just for the cost savings, but because as an engineer, efficiency is rewarding.
3. Just post questions whenever you wish!Have a great Holiday season!
1. Every car manufacturer’s quality has greatly improved (steadily) since the ’60’s, but the Japanese companies improved much more rapidly during the 60’s and ’70’s. The US manufacturers finally caught up during the ’90’s, some did better than others and you can see the statistics in the JD-Powers ratings. So American cars really were significantly worse quality, but today there is little difference between all the OEM’s. You can see the data on this at the JD Powers website. The worst quality companies today are very much better than the best in the ’70’s.
2. I am happy that I pursued Mechanical Engineering and got to specialize in internal combustion engines. Today the big opportunities are clearly in electronics, electrical engineering, chemistry, and computer programming. I also recommend following your interests and talents because you have to enjoy your work!In general, besides the salaries of all of the employees; the biggest costs are the tooling costs for new parts manufacturing
If you do a lot of short trips, yes a 5000 mile oil change interval is a good idea. this would be considered “severe” service. Check you owner’s manual for their recommendation of oil change interval for severe service. If you do a lot of short trips and follow this by a long trip, the long trip will get the oil hot enough for enough time to drive off most of the water (as long as your PCV system is in good shape.
I chose the Mazda 3 because it is a fun-to-drive car (great suspension and handling, 6-speed manual, responsive engine) with great fuel mileage. I chose the Ioniq for similar reasons, though it is a larger car with an extremely efficient Hybrid system (50-60 mpg in real-world driving) and a fantastic warranty.
Dave
I usually use Pennzoil full synthetic, but really any major brand of full synthetic is fine. the possibility that you have extra undrained oil in your oil pan is not a good reason to do an extra oil ad filter change with cheap oil. You will never have to be concerned with the quality of oil in you engine if you just stick to a reasonable oil and filter change interval with a top quality oil. You should stop doing the extra flushing oil changes. Remember that most folks in Europe only change their oil and filter every 10k miles, and they rarely have any any wear issues. I recommend Pure-1, Bosch, and Fram filters because they publish their filter efficiency test results and they all have better than 95% efficiency at trapping 20 micron particles.
I would only do this if the old-oil was really old and way overdue for changing. You would also want to change the oil filter each time; and leave the new cheap oil in for at least 500-1000 miles to give the detergents in the new oil some time to do the job of cleaning. Another thing to look for is evidence of sludge (remove the oil fill cap and look in). Other wise, you are better off just doing a single oil change with Mobil1, because there you can’t get all of the old oil out of the engine when you change the oil and filter and therefore you will be diluting your good Mobil-1 with about 1/2 quart of cheap oil. Probably the best approach would be to just do a oil change with Mobil 1 and only leave it in for 5000 miles. Why do you think the inside of your engine needs extra cleaning?
The reason why GM, Ford, and Stellantis have abandoned sedans in favor of SUV’s, CUV’s and trucks is that they are the most popular segments, and the sales of sedans and coupes has been falling for a while. The reasons seem to be primarily that trucks and SUV’s are trendy (no real logic to this trend) and that the public generally has little appreciation for the better driving characteristics of sedans and coupes over SUV’s and Trucks. Sedans and coupes handle better than big and heavy vehicles. The other reason is that the US automakers have not been competing very well with the foreign automakers (especially Toyota and Honda) in sedans and coupes. For GM, Ford and Stellantis, the SUV’s and trucks have been the most profitable vehicles.
Fuel economy is already mandated by law in most of the world. In the US is is called Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and will probably get more stringent in the next few years. By limiting the average (weighted by sales) fuel economy of every car manufacturer, they preserve freedom of choice to the public, while still forcing better fuel economy. In other countries the law is written in terms of CO2 emissions, which are directly proportional to fuel consumption. You can convert directly from MPG to grams of CO2/mile.
Heavier vehicles (like SUV’s) do not tend to have more bearing issues than lighter cars because the engineers specify bigger and higher capacity bearings.
A lot of folks feel that OEM oil filters are the best quality, but the “premium” oil filters from puroator, Bisch, and Fram are actually usually better quality and filtering efficiency. OEM filters are certainly good-enough, but the specs on the premium filters are better.
For most of the other service items you might buy, major brand aftermarket is usually good quality. This includes brakes and suspension parts like ball-joints. I don’t tend to trust aftermarket gaskets though.
Hybrids cars have regenerative braking systems. When you first press on the brake pedal (up to a moderate level of braking force), you are actually not using the brakes at all, you are slowing the car down by forcing the electric motor in the hybrid system to provide braking force by acting as a generator that adds charge to the batteries. So you don’t need to coast, just try to brake early so you don’t have to use the friction part of the braking system. Most hybrids have a dash display feature to let you see when you reach the friction point. Whether the braking is done by regen or the actual brakes makes no difference to the wheel bearings. Wheel bearing life has nothing to do with the type of powertrain, just the design and quality of the bearings. the only things that increases the loads on the bearings are vehicle weight and how hard you brake or corner.
Of course heavier cars dissipate more heat into the environment, but that heat energy comes from the fuel that was burned to get the vehicle up to speed. We can just think of this of the effect of vehicle weight on fuel economy. Heavier cars generally use more fuel. Fuel economy (also measured as CO2 emissions) is already regulated throughout the world.
Dave
1) Electrical engineering is growing in importance because the trends towards hybrid and full-electric powertrains require a great depth of Electrical Engineering. Just look at the job openings at any OEM website and you will see a tremendous number of EE positions. The same holds true for computer science because every modern car has multiple computers running things. At a minimum, there is a powertrain ECU and a body ECU. Infotainment is another in many cars.
2) I am and have been an engineer. Started as a design and development engineer and finished as a technical specialist in R&D. I am still doing technical consulting.3) It is difficult to tell you how I used math in my profession. All I can really say is is that you need math, trig, and calculus as tools in engineering and science and computer programming.
Dave
1: This is a difficult question! I would guess that marketing is always going to be a major need in the automotive industry because it is and always will be very competitive. The other big need in the auto industry are the technical areas of electrical engineering and computer science.
2: The simple answer is no, you can’t build a runnable engine from scratch. All of the major components (block, head, crankshaft, rods, pistons) require very sophisticated engineering analysis to support design, and the materials and process requirements are very specific. Cranks and rods have to be forged or cast, blocks and heads have to be made from castings of very specific materials. Theoretically, you could make many of these components with 3-d printing (if you had good designs), but you would never get the strength of materials correct with 3-d printing.
3: Regarding the app: I have to assume this is an app that is meant to be used with an OBD2 reader, so there is no need to get the OEM involved. You also need to be sure there is no competition already on the market. I know there are battery condition apps already on the market for hybrid cars. As for implementing these function into electric vehicles, first check to see that these functions are not already available and in production. I think they are. Also realize that it is very difficult to get an audience with OEM engineering departments if you are not already a supplier. They are constantly bombarded with inquires from inventors, but you would start with the OEM website and look for the appropriate contact link.Best of luck with your studies!
Dave
