Hey.... My x-girlfriend was a pharm-d and drove a saturn!!!!
Your Saturn isn't dark blue is it?
Isn't the goal of this forum for people to enable/encourage other like minded people to embark on missions of futility with unnecessary and needlessly overengineered stuff? The saturn does not qualify!!!!
I appreciate MD's thorough write-up. I used to test my used brad penn to see how the 911 was doing after changing the oil. It always came back good. It was nice to know. I can geek out for hours on that type of stuff. OTOH- while that info might be good for long term improvements/ benefit in industry/ fleet vehicles, or humanity at large, to me it is largely academic.
I can test my oil to see if it is okay. Perhaps it is. If I test it a year later, and it is not, then for a period of time damage was occurring, and the transmission was taking somewhat of a beating. At some time- the oil will become contaminated. To a certain extent, the transmission would be the sacrifical lamb.
I was in a local shop recently looking at a volvo transmission the owner had courageously tried to rebuild himself (unsuccessfully). It was more complex than C3PO. In the middle was an unserviceable oil filter that was 2/3'rds clogged with crap.
If I change the oil preventatively, especially if the oil was still good, the oil itself is the sacrificial lamb- which is better than the transmission itself.
The oil change itself is always stressful- the prospect of introducing contaminants, loosening debri, incorrect refilling, etc...., but it's done.
Now I'm on to stress out about other stuff!
