200,000 Mile Oil Change Intervals

Since Chrysler doesn't provide oiling cups for the alternator bearings, the
only oil they're going to get in 200,000 miles is the factory pack. Ditto
for the CV joints, tie rods, suspension pivots, starter motor, air
conditioning compressor, water pump, power steering pump, wheel bearings,
and what not.

Your car would be very grateful if you service it with fresh, wholesome oil
paste bi-annually or every six months, whichever comes first.

I'm from the old school. "If it moves, lubricate it". And lubrication
needs renewal. Anybody whose ever repacked a ball bearing knows good
grease goes bad. It gets dark, gritty, and like sludge after being in
service a few months. No one will confuse pure Pep Boys grease from the
stuff you find in old CV joints. The question is which way would you want
to regrease the CV joints: In 15 seconds with a grease-gun to a Zerk, or
half-a-day with a teardown thanks to Chrysler Corporation aka
Daimler-Chrysler?

Let's bring back the Grease Monkey. If there were about 50 Alemite
fittings on your Chrysler car, you simply go twice a year and pay a grease
monkey a a buck-a-shot to shoot pure, fresh Pep Boys grease in all those
Zerks. And he could oil all those oil cups at 50 cents per squirt.

Who wants to be surprised in the middle of the Mojave desert when your
dried-out air-con clutch ball bearings start singing the blues?

 

It's called planned obsolescence. Why should manufacturers allow you to
service these things for pennies when they can sell you new ones for
megabucks?

 

I don't buy that. My experience is that modern permanently sealed
components far outlast the old one's that had to be greased all of the
time. My 96 minivan had all of the original suspension parts at 178,000
miles and ten years of age, other than one lower ball joint that I
replaced at about the 150,000 mile mark.

Most people who have parts with grease fittings don't bother to grease
them, or worse yet, they overfill them and blow out the seals which lets
water and dirt work its way in. Most folks don't know that about half a
pump on most grease guns is plenty for 20,000 miles or so.

I think on average, the sealed parts last much longer than greasable
parts. Sure, a person who was very fastidious about maintenance might
make parts last longer by greasing them, but I don't think the average
car owner would be well served by returning to the old style parts.


Matt

 

It depends on the use.

The grease in sealed ball bearings can only go bad due to heat, a seal
failure and entrance of water, or internal wear. If the bearing is high
quality and is lightly loaded such as an alternator bearing, the seal isn't
going to fail and it is not going to develop the
amount of wear needed to contaminate the grease, nor the amount of
heat needed to make the grease fail. Sealed bearings work fine for
these uses.

I dislike sealed bearings in axle bearings, so I would agree with you
there, but that is about it.

And as for suspension parts and CV joints that is rediculous. Those parts
have rubber seals that are absolutely going to fail after enough flexing
and due to aging of the rubber. No amount of regular lubrication is going
to keep a CV boot from splitting after enough time and wear on the rubber
boot. Same goes for tie rods. sealed ends are going to fail at the same
rate as non sealed ends.

Ted

 

I somewhat agree. I think the manufacturers know that a lot of people
simply won't adhere to the scheduled maintenance and parts will fail.
Because of that, they've made better, non-maintainable parts. The other
side of that coin is that when the part does fail, it's more expensive to
replace.

I fully agree with this. But it goes both ways - manufacturers will make
money when those parts fail. It's all going towards passenger vehicles
becoming more and more of a "disposable" commodity.

 

Heck, I once owned a vehicle with over 40 lube points. (1956 190SL) and
would not want to go back there ever again.

Richard.

 

The sealed ball bearings in the compressor clutch only rotate when the
compressor isn't running, in the "middle of the Mojave" it's unlikely that
they would fail because the compressor would be engaged.

 

Making a tie rod end or ball joint sealed maks it no harder to replace.

My minivan would have easily made 200K with almost all of the major
parts still in service. Cars my parents had in the 60s and 70s didn't
even come close. My dad bought a brand new Ford Falcon in 69, I
believe, maybe 70, and it required new ball joints before it made 50,000
miles. If 200,000 miles is the disposable point for new cars ... I'll
take it!


Matt

 

My 1940 Royal Coupe has 25 just on the front end.

 

The part is more expensive, not harder to replace.

The key to longevity is proper maintenance. Sure, some of those parts
were simply not designed for longevity. But with proper maintenance
almost any car could run upwards of 150k miles.

 

True, because they're the same. I would say "making a tie rod end or a
ball joint *TRULY* sealed is impossible." Having taken apart both
zerkless and zerk-equipped tie rods and ball joints on cars made over
the past 50 years, I can tell you one thing: the seals are no different
on the "sealed" ones at all. They do an OK job, but they're far from
perfect. Ball joints and tie-rod ends, IMO, should always be
zerk-equipped simply so that a conscientious owner CAN force new grease
in and drive the contaminated grease out. For the owner that "doesn't
want to be bothered," they'll last just as long either way.

 

Some did...

I just converted my 1966 Dodge to disk brakes in December 2005. It still
had the original upper and lower ball joints, and Pitman arm at 268,000
miles. The lowers were still tight, so guess what? They're still in
there with the new disk brakes and still racking up the miles, as are
the tie-rod ends! The uppers had to be changed for the new spindle that
the disk brakes required, and I upgraded the steering box as well and
replaced the Pitman arm as part of that. Its had upper and lower
bushings replaced once or twice, due more to age than mileage.

Your parents' car's problem wasn't that it had greasable ball joints,
the problem was that it was a '69 Ford. I know whereof I speak. My first
car was a '68 Ford, and the front end was a horrible design. It was
impossible to keep ball joints tight in that car. And shocks- the goofy
"fake McPherson Strut" setup always kept a slight side-load on the
shocks (which shocks aren't designed for) and wore them out.

 

I kinda like the sealed for life parts. You get a better seal which means
that no dirt will get in the joint. With no dirt mixed in with the grease,
the part will last a really, really, really long time. The old joints with
zerk fittings were sealed as well because they had to allow a way for the old
grease to get out when you pumped in fresh grease. If the seal on the modern
parts fail, they are a pain to replace.

 

Well, the sealed parts don't cost any more than the one's with zerks and
often just the other way around. So, if the part doesn't cost more and
it isn't harder to install, whye how can it be more expensive to replace?

My dad maintained his cars very well as his father owned a car
dealership and garage and he was well versed in car maintenance and
repair. The cars of the late sixties and early seventies were simply
not built nearly as well as the cars of today. We had a 1971 Maverick
that had holes rusted through the front fenders by 1974!! I'm not
talking surface rust, I'm talking holes you could stick your finger
through. I learned how to use body filler and paint on that lemon (yes,
it was even bright yellow!).


Matt

 

Where does the "contaminated" grease exit from? How does it get
contaminated if it is sealed? The fastest way to ruin the seal and let
contamination in is from overzealous greasing.


Matt

 

If you grease conservatively, the "boot" just slowly fills with used
grease and the joint itself always contains the freshest grease. The
used grease in the boot doesn't go anywhere, and you can grease it many
times before it fills. But if you do get carried away, its just
basically an elastic seal between the stretchy boot and the two halves
of the joint so the grease pushes out between the boot and its mating
groove in the joint casting/housing.

Exactly. None of those type joints are truly sealed... even the
zerkless ones on modern cars. Been there, looked at those after 100k
miles of service- they're made EXACTLY the way they were 30 years ago.
The boot has to rotate on one part or the other, so the seal isn't 100%.
Its GOOD, but not like a precision grease seal in a rotor casting or
axle housing. But even if you ASSume that the boot is perfect, the joint
contaminates its own grease with metal as it wears.

Nah. They just lift and vent themselves as I described above, then seal
back into their grooves.

 

I remember my 71 Dart Swinger with disk brakes. A moron blew so much grease
in it blew thru the seal and contaminated my brake pads.

 

The trouble is, many folks don't do that as I said earlier. And a car
that lasts 200K will likely be greased at least 10 times and probably
20. Even at one pump, that is a lot of grease. I don't think many
boots will contain that much.

But that contamination is much less abrasive than dirt getting in and
less corrosive than water getting in.

But they don't seal all that well and dirt and water will begin to work
they way in the first time you burp the seal.

I currently have vehicles with both "permanent" and greaseable
components and the permanent ones have outlasted the greaseable ones
almost across the board. Grease away if you like, but I'll take the
permanent parts any day.


Matt

 

Like I said- I've had "permanently lubricated" ball joints sitting right
next to old greasable ones, and the seals are *exactly* the same. NONE
of them are really and truly "sealed".

And in my fleet of cars, the record-holders are the greasable balljoints
on the '66- still good at 270,000 miles. The "sealed" tie rod ends and
ball joints on my wife's 93 LH car were replaced at a little short of
200k miles. Good, but not the record-holder. And those lower balljoints
were *LOOSE* at that point! Amazingly the car still drove great and
didn't wear the tires strangely, but with the balljoints removed for
replacemtn there was a HUGE amount of obvious slop in them.

 

There is a big difference. The permanently lubricated ball joint seals
have never been compromised by having grease forced out of them. The
greaseable joints in all likelihood will at some point will have their
seals compromised.

And how much time have you invested in greasing those joints on your 66?

Matt