Aug 30, 2022
Time for the puzzler. I have several puzzlers which I've been tempted to use. We have had a rash of non-automotive puzzles and I thought it'd be nice to have an automotive puzzler.
So I thought that I would use an automotive puzzle this week. And the dilemma is coming up with a good one.
But I got it. Here you go.
A fellow came into the shop. He was complaining about his car. I don't remember what kind of car it was. It could be any kind of car that burns gasoline. And he was complaining that all of a sudden, the car began to burn oil. The car had about 75,000 miles and until this moment had been perfect. He was changing the oil every 3 or 4 thousand miles, as we had suggested. He'd been doing this faithfully and all of a sudden, he's driving along one day and the oil light comes on.
He said, "Oh my god, I've run out of oil. I must have a leak of some kind." He pulls up the dipstick and... half his oil is gone. Out of the four quarts he had, only two were left. So he put two quarts of oil in. He immediately drove it to the shop and asked them to check for a leak, being sure that he had one.
They assured him that there was no leak. Two weeks later, the oil light comes on again. He is down two more quarts of oil and now, he's convinced that he's burning oil and he wants to know why. What's happened? Why did this happened?
Well, you might say, "Well, some catastrophic thing occurred." But nothing catastrophic occurred. This thing didn't overheat. It wasn't abused. But what is the chain of events that occurred here that caused the car to go from no oil consumption to rapid oil consumption?
My brother had the very same thing happened to him with his wonderful '67 GMC Suburban. But the reason for it was he broke a ring. He went from burning no oil to burning all of it. However, nothing of that nature happen in this case.
So, what is going on here?
Answer time! Okay, to recap. Because I can never remember these things.
Fellow came into the shop. Can't remember what kind of a car it was, because I often can't remember what kind of a car it was, but it doesn't matter! It is a car that burns gasoline. Not one of those new cars that burns cream of wheat or something like that. Burns gasoline. That's all that matters. And this fellow was complaining that all of sudden, he is burning oil at 75,000 miles. He was down two quarts out of four. But there was no leak. He refilled the oil, oil light goes off. He drives off. Two weeks later, the oil light comes on again! He is down two more quarts. So, what is happening here? What was wrong? What is the chain of events here that caused him to go from no oil consumption to rapid oil consumption?
So, what happened is, he burned the first quart of oil. So everything goes from being perfect, at some point, to being not perfect, right? He burned that first quart of oil and of course it went unnoticed because he was unaccustomed to checking the oil, because he had never had to check it or add oil between oil changes. When he burned that first quart of oil, that wasn't so bad. But after he burned that first quart of oil, what happened is the remaining oil was now trying to do the work of four quarts of oil. And it was getting hotter and doing less of a job of lubricating because the oil was getting thinner. And he was scuffing up the cylinder walls and as you might suspect, the diminished amount of oil having to do the work of four quarts now burned off even faster. So the next quart burns off much quicker.
So now, he's two quarts down and he is ruining his engine even though he didn't do anything other than not check his oil levels. So the lesson is, don't let this happen to you. Check your oil, especially when you hit 75,000 miles, because this means your new car isn't new anymore, and you'll need to check the oil more often.
