Car Maintenance - Your Guide by MESC of IESL

[gayanath]

Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee (MESC) of Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) has compiled and published a guide book for Car Maintenance named “Car Maintenance – Your Guide”.  

This booklet intends to provide the basic knowledge of preventive and scheduled maintenance, environmental aspects and safety requirements of personal cars in Sri Lankan context. As the first edition of this booklet, it has focused mainly on new and common car models on which most people lack the knowledge of technology advancements adopted as well as the latest maintenance aspects.

Dear,

1. Beginners – Please read this and improve your knowledge. Further, comment for any other things which needed to add.

2. Experts – Please comment regarding the content and your concerns. Those will be highly considered for next edition.

Link:

Car Maintenance - Your Guide

Edit: Please note that, this is still not an official publication of IESL. To be an official publication, it has to go through long evaluation process. It's only a publication by MESC for comments and further improvements expecting to publish as a official IESL publication later-on.  

Edited October 14, 2016 by gayanath
Add clarification.

[Crosswind]

I went through the first few pages. The only reaction I have for this is:

[asrock]

They failed in organizing the Techno 2016 properly and now this? Double facepalm back to back!

[iRage]

Conceptually good...execution wise...well a bit heart breaking if this is what a body of engineers put out.

Being engineers I would have expected them to have a better understanding of how local conditions effect operation and performance of these machines and put maintenance in a more localized context.

They talk about manufacturer recommendations but it feels like numbers have been taken off of websites and the local agents have not been even consulted (which is really bad research in the first place). Local maintenance recommendations/practices are bound (limited) to what service stations dictate.

They have taken figures off of the Toyota website's maintenance section for oil changes but seem to have conveniently over looked the three bullet points underneath which states

- intervals for change are dependent on vehicle ,consult local dealer (in Japan...which for us would be TL),

- it is recommended to change oil in smaller intervals and what is given are maximum "operable" mileages. 

- rate of degradation will change based on application (which would go back to point that we really need to consult the local dealer) 

Also, some items are just blatantly wrong....they call changing coolant 40,000km a myth, when even Toyota says it needs to be changed 4 years after the car has reached a certain age. They change the coolant at every other shaken inspection (in fact my Corolla wagon which has only 27000km has had quite a few coolant changes).

...well I stopped reading it from that point...maybe when i am bored i will see what else is in there.....

Also, you should know that even in Japan, maintenance items that are not in the routine schedule takes place during shaken inspection...for example, 

Knowing Gayanath..I am sure he will start his oil change debate again....

Conceptually had potential...execution wise...well...perhaps better luck next time.

Suggestions:

If you are going to give recommendations or rationalize maintenance methodologies or local practices...

- Consult the actual LOCAL AGENT !!! Most of the popular models are designed for the Japanese market, thus service recommendations in Japan may not be valid....talk to the agents as to what happens to these vehicles when brought to Sri Lanka (reliability and maintenance wise) and do a proper assessment as to how the recommended service intervals, etc...for Japan changes when brought down here. 

again..knowing gayanath I am sure the argument of how clueless the agents are and how they are out to rob us will be brought up....well..unfortunately...that is who we are stuck with as the manufacturers' local representatives. If proper research is done with proper data gathering and analysis; I would expect a proper body of independent professionals (i.e. engineers) to reveal which of these recommendations by local agents are valid and which ones are a complete rip off (but having seen the last document I don't have much faith in them doing something unbiased and objective)

- Validate/verify ALL the information !!!! Don't just take numbers and stick it up in the document even if you get it from a formal website.

- Also, the first graph leaves too much to the imagination...I guess the simple assumption for preventive costs is just oil changes ?

 

Edited October 13, 2016 by iRage

[Twin Turbo]

Quite contradicts the drive till it fails system taken by our car users.

On the subject of coolant (pg 25)the different colors are added to coolant to identify them and not mix with each other. Eg, regular , long life etc,.and active ingredients.

And there's no  such thing calld a "tune-up" in modern vehicles.while All maintenance and Preventive maintenance inspections are recommended for climates/driving conditions like ours by manufacturers are not taken in to account

Looks like the typical maintenance intervals have been taken straighe out from brochures for ideal driving conditions with the ambient temp @21'c no dust, no pot hole and definitely no traffic!

 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Twin Turbo

[iRage]

One more thing....in the total cost equation..and the subsequent graph...don't you think preventive maintenance should be two components...routine maintenance (regular oil changes, etc...) + pre-emptive maintenance (recommended periodic checks, replacements, etc...) ? In which case the graph's preventive maintenance line would be, in reality, routine maintenance ? Again..I am pressuming the linear incline just shows the cumulative costs as you do more and more maintenance visits...

[NPP]

Content aside, the words used and formatting of the document itself seems to be from a early stage student and not from a professional body. Further, instead of compiling data from websites, why not do some actual research/lab experiments for some of the points and come to a localized conclusion?

Remember Mr Sylvi? His rants aside, the gent did some experiments (as far as I remember) on certain things - why not a professional body do something like that?

[The Stig]

So basically it's a yanne koheda malle pol journal. All I saw was some service stations reccomend this but some manufacturers recommend this and other manufacturers recommend that, no definitive answer. No relevance to local conditons and everything is basically taken off the Internet. No evidence to backup their claims and no proper references, only listed a set of references at the end and no where in the article has anything been properly referenced and backup with manufacturer statements. 

Don't bother wasting time with this,  just read your user manual. After all this round and round the mulberry bush talk they are basically saying the same thing.

[Crosswind]

My worry is that people will actually start believing the content on this thing is true, because it is endorsed by IESL. That's a real worry.

To be honest Gayanath, I would like to help you guys come up with a proper maintenance handbook for Sri Lankan car owners. But it can't be a handbook on quasi-economics and patriotism. It's got to focus on maintenance, maintenance and nothing but maintenance, from an ENGINEER's point of view, not an economist's or politician's.

If you are willing to get off your high horse and listen to others, then I am willing to help. I am sure there are highly knowledgeable people in this forum who will do so.

[Rumesh88]

Just now, Crosswind said:

My worry is that people will actually start believing the content on this thing is true, because it is endorsed by IESL. That's a real worry.

To be honest Gayanath, I would like to help you guys come up with a proper maintenance handbook for Sri Lankan car owners. But it can't be a handbook on quasi-economics and patriotism. It's got to focus on maintenance, maintenance and nothing but maintenance, from an ENGINEER's point of view, not an economist's or politician's.

If you are willing to get off your high horse and listen to others, then I am willing to help. I am sure there are highly knowledgeable people in this forum who will do so.

...and an environmentalist's :D. 

Well nothing is perfect in this world. Manufacturers first makes us believe that they are selling us the best in the respective category and go on selling their cars but then after a while announce recalling of their product. Same goes for the contents of the book. 

However, I wish if there had been some research on the local conditions than simply relying on the information from OEM websites.

[matroska]

Thanks for sharing, but isn't it a bit too generalized expected more.... 

[gayanath]

Dear All,

First of all I have to clarify one matter since my above statement could misinterpret this as a publication of IESL. 

This document is still not an official publication of IESL. To be an official publication (council approval) it should have to go through long process. Still this is only a publication from MESC (Mechanical Engineering Sectional Committee) for comments and further improvements.  

Highly appreciate your extremely valuable comments (honorable thanks to @iRage for his time as well as valuable evaluation and inputs) for this CSR project.

I will discuss each and every comment with you to get further inputs from you next week.

[Dushyantha]

@gayanath.  U could either personaly contact or go and meet the service advisors of companies.  Im sure they would have loads of information on vehicle maintenance in srilanka which would be useful for you.  

[Twin Turbo]

Embarrassing, Engineers on the highest echelons advising worse than the avg garage grease-monkey.No wonder we don't have a car-industry.

 

We don'ty even know how to maintain the cars designed and built by others.

To the moron who dickd about coolant

 

Edited October 30, 2016 by Twin Turbo

[NadunH]

Anyone got the downloaded PDF of this document?

[AVANTE]

10 hours ago, NadunH said:

Anyone got the downloaded PDF of this document?

Do you want to read it to learn about how to maintain your car or...? 

[NadunH]

Hi Avante,

No, I just wanna have a look... Do you have it? If so can you e-mail it to [email protected]?

Cheers...!

[vag2]

Service intervals depend on many factors IMO. Driving conditions, fuel quality and air quality etc. The last two are less ideal in Sri Lanka compared to manufacturing countries, therefore the filters could get clogged sooner here.

[NadunH]

On 3/15/2020 at 12:39 AM, vag2 said:

Service intervals depend on many factors IMO. Driving conditions, fuel quality and air quality etc. The last two are less ideal in Sri Lanka compared to manufacturing countries, therefore the filters could get clogged sooner here.

What does it say on the guide?