10:55 I will not go through all the details of my adventures at the doctor today or how many accidents i avoided on the road. But i figured something. Some of the staff members there are actors from the movie Billions, now free on Paramount.

But i figured something i need to share with everybody here. For years  now i knew the car starts to loose oil when getting closer to the change interval. Not much before that. I had some leaks that i fixed and is still doing it. Part of it, yes could be the wearing of the rings and cylinder walls. My car has steel sleeves for cylinder walls and i would think most advanced steel for rings. But at 180 k one would expect that.

But then i watched a video a few days ago that enlightened me. I could put a link to the video but the video is long and you have to be really into mechanics to understand what the guys means to say.

And then yes, why is the car loosing oil before oil change and not after that?

The key is carbonization. Oil splashes from the pan when the crankshaft moves and washers the cylinder walls when the pistons are up and the innermost ring. Some of the thin layer that remains and lubricates the movement of rings burns and turns into soot (carbon) that accumulates in the oil and accounts for the black color towards the end of change interval.

Also some of the oil components like detergents degrade in time due to hellish conditions inside the engine.

So this is what happens. More carbon sticks on the rings and with today's tighter clearances, it feels the space and makes the ring stick in its groove on the side of pistons and not expand all the way to seal the combustion chamber which results in more blowby, loss of power, more oil getting through PCV valve into the intake and making the valves stick, name it.

Most oils i see today and i prefer the cheaper mineral (impossible to find) ones and mixes, which have less paraffin (wax) in them which makes the valves stick even more, are advertised for 10k or more. Oil change intervals in newer cars are also above 5k miles. However, as the car accumulates more and more carbon deposits on cylinder walls, heads, rings, it goes into a spiral which results in oil consumption.

One easy fix which is also prevention of the problem is to change oil when it starts turning black ignoring the manufacturer's intervals and stuff.

For some cars it may be too late, for some cars oil will turn black within days which means it accumulated sludge (mostly made of soot) in all the corners of the oil pan etc. and you will need 2 or 3 changes before you see oil stays clear longer etc..

There are detergents that you could add in oil and run in the engine for 5 minutes or one hour like in the video, etc. before changing the oil but that seems too harsh to me. Just change oil applying the rule above (when it turns black) a couple of times which brings fresh detergent from fresh oil and gently cleanses the engine a the "natural way" also with no other effort than maybe an extra oil change a year in most cases.

It can be done i guess without even changing the filter because filter does not blocks the soot. Or it does? Maybe clogging of the filter with soot makes the bypass valve open most of the time and yes, you go in that spiral. Ok next time i got to Walmart i buy the oil and than across the street at Autozone, the filter and will try to do it maybe in the next couple of days when temperature will be above 60.

11:20 It smells like an open bag in the bin. I went to take our garbage and saw the blue bag most likely from E4, open on the bottom of the almost empty bin. Which means i would need my fishing pole with a hook at the end (and expose my wound to cold one more time) to fish that bag and knot it, but i tried something else which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, depending. I put my garbage sack on top of it. Smell still lingers, don't know if it will go away or if i will have to go and knot that bag.