Maintaining a 6 Cylinder Engine
Compared to a Turbo 4 Cylinder Engine
Day dreaming about upgrading to a bigger car and it got me thinking about the cost to own a car with a bigger engine versus one with a smaller one. Talking with fellow Joe's, most of us tend to want certain types of cars at different stages of our lives. The natural progression would be the older we got, the more money we would make, the more car we could afford. This post briefly the cost to own a 6 cylinder engine vs a 4 cylinder by analyzing oil changes.
4 Cylinder Engines
Average displacement: 2.2L
About 3.5 US quarts of oil per oil change
6 Cylinder Engines
Average displacement: 3.4L
About 8.5 US quarts of oil per oil change
8.5 - 3.5 = About a 5 US quarts difference. Say for high performance vehicles you use synthetic and buy motor oil from Walmart.
Mobil 1 High Mileage 10W-40 5qt. Full Synthetic Motor oil would be about $26 rounded down.
Change oil every 3.5k miles, say vehicle lasts 225k miles, that would be about 65 oil changes over the lifetime of the car.
Without Tax: 65 x $26 = $1690 additional to a 6 cylinder.
Again this is when you change the oil by yourself, rounded down & without tax. The true cost to own of any particular vehicle would be different and this is a very general overview of one factor in the difference in pricing of ownership. The reason why I would mention turbo 4 is because they closely match horsepower to a 6 cylinder. Nevertheless great food for thought.
Interesting analysis. I think the biggest difference in cost between owning a 6cyl vs 4cyl would just be in fuel costs. Take an average of around 28 mpg for a typical 4cyl sedan, and around 22 mpg for a v6 sedan, 15k miles per year, $4/gal. Fuel costs for one year would be $2100 for the 4, and $2700 for the 6.
ReplyDeleteI agree that oil changes will be more expensive, but I don't know that a V6 would use that much more oil. I've done changes on several import V6's and usually I use around 6 quarts. On a 4cyl, usually 4-5 quarts. I use an entire 5 qt jug for my 2.4L I4 accord. I've noticed that European motors tend to have larger oil reservoirs though, I have seen up to 8 on a V6 Benz.
You got me, I was referencing an MB V6. The fuel prices would definitely be a bigger factor.
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