Friday, July 27, 2012

Oil. Why does it matter?

When it comes to routine maintenance, changing your oil is one of the more inexpensive services. Despite its relatively low cost, oil plays a vital, multifaceted role in your engine, and spending a little money on routine oil changes can help prevent you from forking over large sums of cash down the road.

Engine oil provides key functions in a modern internal combustion engine. It helps keep engine components working smoothly together.

It's typically a lubricant to keep the moving parts separated by an oil film.

The inside of an engine — a place where there are thousands of controlled detonations happening every minute — can be a hot place, and oil helps draw heat away from the combustion chamber. Lastly, it helps prevent carbon and varnishes from accumulating in the engine.

What if I Don't Change My Oil?
If you're reading this article, you're probably not one to skip a few oil changes, but you might be wondering what might happen to your car's engine if you did. In short, it's not pretty.

One of the problems is that there will begin to be build-up in the cooler parts of the engine, like the crankcase and around the camshafts and valves.

You would get the carbon deposits, the sludge as you would call it, coming out of the old oil. To clean the engine would be relatively expensive because it would require taking parts off.

It can get to the point where it's so thick that it can't be pumped. You can start to wear out your piston rings. Once those begin to wear it's not easy and not inexpensive to fix that problem.

It can get worse. The pistons could eventually seize or the camshafts could be damaged. Getting a bill for either one of these repairs would make even a few high-quality oil changes look like pocket change. Regular oil changes are like "really cheap insurance" for your engine.

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