Bought my 2018 Explorer July 29, 2021 with 33,570 miles on it. Friday, I took it in for its first service since then at 37,207 miles. The truck's system started telling me a couple of weeks ago that I needed to get the oil changed soon - I imagine because I do mostly short trips of 2-3 miles. The computers to my vehicles used to let me go 5-7k miles when I was commuting 60-100 miles per day. The main point is that I drove 3,637 miles in 10 months. I used to drive a minimum of 3,600 miles every two months (that is only to/from work).
This WFH thing has really worked out well for me.
Posted this this on a forum. Did someone just mansplain what I thought was self-evident?
"Your gas savings is another advantage when working from home"
Yeah thanks, I never figured out that I since was filling up the gas tank every 3-4 weeks instead of every 3-4 days, somehow that is saving me a ton of money.
Posted by: bogie | June 27, 2022 at 03:54 AM
I don't understand how the demand for gasoline can be so high, these days, with so many people (at least, in our family) working from home. It's a mystery. Happy that you are saving money and avoiding the angst of working in an office.
Posted by: Cop Car | June 27, 2022 at 07:55 AM
I don't think that it is so much the demand being high (although much higher than when places were closed), but the supply being low for various reasons.
Air travel is near record numbers again after being at record lows. Even driving vacations are being taken further away (hey, who can afford to quarantine for 7-14 days because they went to the next state over?). Everyone is hiring again (and has been for the last 6 months), so people that were home because of the pandemic are out there in the work force.
I'm pretty sure that WFH is not nearly as prevalent as you might believe by looking at our family. A lot of people don't want to WFH as their family life or other circumstances aren't favorable (no high speed internet, small living quarters, disruptions at home etc). Many other positions CAN'T be WFH.
Posted by: bogie | June 29, 2022 at 03:54 AM
And BTW, before the pandemic, I was lobbying to WFH 1 day/week. My boss was supportive and actually would have let me go to half and half.
My boss' boss liked to see butts in seats and wouldn't even sign off on the 1x/week.
Posted by: bogie | June 29, 2022 at 03:57 AM
It takes a while for some supervisors to develop a trust in WFH, I guess. They experimented with flex time during my last few years before retirement. I didn't really care for it as I found that the engineers who worked the "normal" 40-hour, 10/80 week ended up taking on extra work supporting the production line that wasn't being fulfilled by those working 9/80 schedules. That was a lot different from WFH, though. WFH shouldn't cause extra work for others, in general.
Posted by: Cop Car | June 30, 2022 at 07:09 AM
I failed to mention about your car's having notified you of the need for an oil change. Unless otherwise indicated (I don't know what it "told" you), I would take it to mean that the oil had been changed by the previous owner 5-7K miles previously. When I have my oil changed, I tell "them" to set notification "forever" in the future so that it doesn't bug me. (I remain smart enough to know when I need an oil change, I think.) They, of course, cannot do that but they do set it for the maximum interval allowed, they tell me - whatever that is.
Posted by: Cop Car | July 03, 2022 at 09:22 AM
Since I bought the vehicle from a dealer, they had changed the oil (along with the battery and some other maintenance) and set the reminder. There is not "max" setting, the computer figures out by your driving style how many miles to go between oil changes. My last Explorer and the Focus both had that feature.
Computed oil change intervals depend on if they are "easy" or "hard" miles. Easy miles are few stops (including highways) and longer duration. Hard miles are lots of stops (or just idling) and short duration trips. Previously my vehicles have told me to change the oil between 7k and 8k miles (when you have like 3 stops in 30-50 miles commute, that is easy). But now most of my trips are 2 miles (with stops) to and from.
I appreciate the reminders, especially when I was driving mucho miles, as I have a horrible sense of time passage and if left to my own devices may go years between services.
Posted by: bogie | July 04, 2022 at 06:31 AM
"They" may have been humoring me by telling me they had done what I asked. I do know that I can reset my system, myself, to show a remaining oil life of 100%, but I don't know for a fact that there are optional settings to control how the computer calculates remaining oil life. (But...since it isn't something that I often need to do, I have to look up how each time.) I do know that I've never again been bugged with "change oil now" reminders that override my being able to see other information in my displays. That may be more a function of my reduced driving, per COVID, than any setting "they" may/may not be making.
Yes, I'm sure that not everyone finds the reminders annoying - lol.
Posted by: Cop Car | July 04, 2022 at 08:49 AM