GM ditches the 3,000 mile oil change…

… something that IntelliStick did two years ago.

This American car maker may be in trouble, but GM does have at least one thing right. As part of their corporate responsibility “environmental commitment” GM posted this story on their web site about how 3,000 miles isn’t always the best time to change your oil. GM recommends condition-based maintenance — that they happen to provide in their vehicles.Non-GM owners can get the same knowledge from IntelliStick, which lets you know the condition of your oil.

condition-based maintenance at UPS

UPS Freight has joined the growing list of companies that are focusing on condition-based maintenance. According to a recent Transportation Topics article, UPS Freight’s telematics systems “will be upgraded with proprietary firmware and an internally developed algorithm” that will help them better manage their trucks and analyze potential problems.

UPS made the move to cut costs. They know the problems of interval-based maintenace — sometimes you don’t find the problem until it’s already too late. A UPS spokeswoman said that the company is aiming for an effective condition-based maintenace system that can reduce the amount of time that critical equipment is out of service for repairs.

the “real world” of maintenance

We got a chuckle from this list of 34 Signs You’re Living in the Real World of Maintenance from Reliable Plant.

Among our favorites …

We have a couple of machines that vacationed in Hawaii on frequent flier miles built up on parts air-shipped in for them.

We discussed whether it was possible that a machine could need so much ongoing maintenance, that it was theoretically never available for production.

There was a role clarification meeting between operations and maintenance management, and it seems like the outcome was quite clear. It’s definitely their job to break the machines, and our job to fix them.

squeezing every last drop

We’re excited by all developments in hybrid/electric/alternative fuel vehicles. What’s good for the planet is good for all of us. Hopefully the time will soon come when these cars are a viable, economic alternative. We got one step closer this week as the Ford Fusion was driven 1,445 miles on a single tank! We were pleased to read that this was the standard model with no special alterations for the test. We hate it when they get some suped-up version for these tests that’s nothing like the one a consumer can actually buy.

Is that a typo?

Our faithful blog readers know that IntelliStick is on the 3,000 Mile myth bandwagon. With the data we get back from our IntelliStick we can see that it isn’t necessary to change your oil every 3,000 miles. We know it, the state of California knows it, and more and more drivers are catching on, too.

But we thought it was a Monday morning typo when we saw a 30,000 mile oil change headline. 30,000? Even to us, that seems a little out in left field. You’d better be sure that if we put one of those filters in our car and attempted a 30,000 mile oil change that we’d have our IntelliStick telling us what was really going on with our oil. Actually, that might be an interesting experiment for the IntelliStick engineers …