Lube It or Lose It? Not So Much With the Chevrolet Volt
By Scott Doggett November 9, 2010
By Danny King, Contributor
Hey, Jiffy Lube employees trying to upsell us on that new air filter - you've now been warned.
In addition to pitching potential customers on the savings of hundreds', if not thousands of dollars', worth of gas per year, General Motors now says its Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle will also save folks on oil changes.
That's what the GMVolt.com blog reported and was confirmed by GM spokesman Robert Peterson. The Volt will be equipped with GM's so-called "oil life monitor," which measures oil conditions and lets the driver know when a change is needed.
For the Volt, the maximum amount of time the monitor will allow between oil change warnings is two years, although Peterson said that cap may be increased as the company learns more about the car's performance.
The oil-life monitor is all part of the Volt's computer systems designed to keep everything in working order. For instance, GM factored in the scenario of gasoline sitting in the tank for weeks, if not months on end, and included a warning for drivers to start burning off the "stale" fuel if it's in the tank for a certain amount of time.
If the driver doesn't do this manually, the car will eventually do it automatically to burn off the bad fuel and get the oil circulated within the engine.
The Volt's fuel economy has been a point of debate because the time it takes to go through the on-board generator's 300-mile range once the car's initial charging juice is used up will depend completely on individual driving and recharging habits.
Because of that, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hasn't yet given the Volt a fuel-economy figure.
Regardless, such annual savings on oil and gas may seem small in light of the car's $41,000 price tag, but at least one can take a fairly accurate stab at oil savings.
Factoring a $30 oil change and the old "three months/3,000 miles" suggested frequency, a driver who puts on 12,000 miles a year would spend $120 a year on a conventional car's oil changes, compared to about $15 (i.e., half an oil change), giving an annual savings of about $105.
Or about $200 if you're the gullible type who always goes for the air filters.
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I doubt there will be any real savings. Most cars don't need oil change for at least 6 months/5000 miles and owners of the Volt will probably do their oil change at the dealers, which will probably charge more than $30. You need to look at the total operating costs, including fuel, frequency and costs of scheduled maintenance to determine if there is any actual savings.
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