Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Motor oil madness

I drove by a gas station last evening and saw that a gallon of premium 91 octane was over the $7 mark. A gallon of diesel was nearly $9! That is quite high, even for California. No wonder my coworker has stopped driving to work and instead is taking public transit. That extra half hour of commute time is worth the trade-off at the gas pump.

Meanwhile, my 10 minute walk of a commute remains unchanged.

Nevertheless, petroleum isn’t just purely at gas stations. It permeates and affects many things we buy and consume. The ongoing war with Iran is putting a self-inflicted squeeze on the petrol supply chain, and we haven’t yet seen the full brunt of it. Gas prices finally cresting $7 per gallon here in California might be the proverbial canary.

Word on the street is motor oil is suffering through a shortage, and consequently pricers are increasing. I’ve got two cars, both of which are gas burners. Every calendar year, they will need a flush and replenishment of oil. Much like the great toilet paper stock-up of early 2020 pandemic, the supposed smart wisdom amongst the car enthusiasts discussion is to stock up on engine oil before the prices inflate any higher.

Sadly for me, I don’t have the space to store copious amounts of oil containers. The inflation hammer will just have to hit me whenever it may fall. My Golf GTI is due for an oil change next month, so I bought six liters of the good German stuff at a little over $13 per liter. According to what I can find, that price has remained stable from the start of the year. In before the lock? Seems like it.

My Miata isn’t due for a change until next July. Out of curiosity, I checked the pricing for five quarts of Castrol on Amazon. A jug is $32, which honestly seems reasonable given the surround news. According to records, the last time I bought the same oil back in 2018, it was $31! That is super surprising. Either Castrol has done the consumer a favor and kept the pricing friendly throughout, or the company has cut corners to the same product. Shrinkflation is a heck of a drug.

It seems, at least for the two particular cars that I own, the great motor oil inflation has yet to reach the shore. Of course I am fully expecting things to change sooner or later, given the lack of end in sight for the Iran war. I’ll simply enjoy the mulligan that I’ve got this time round. Happy motoring!

We're all going to feel it

This morning I woke up from a dream that I'd bought a Mercedes G Wagon, the preferred wealthy housewife car of choice. I knew it was a dream even when I was in the dream because there’s no way I would drop six-figures on a singular automobile. Did that once, enjoyed it, not YOLO-ing like that again. To comfortably afford a car priced in the six-figures, you really should be earning well past the quarter-million mark. Unfortunately, my salary is closer to zero than it is closer to $250,000.

I am happy and grateful for what I already have: the perfect two car solution. A MK7 Volkswagen Golf GTI for the utility factor, and a Mazda MX-5 Miata for pure driving fun. Both combined cost less than what I paid for a brand new BMW M2 back in 2019, which is saying something given the abject inflation that’s gone on since then. Is this German and Japanese duo the ones to ride into the proverbial sunset? Difficult to predict, the future is (Yoda). I’m just really satisfied right now.

And thank god neither of my cars run on diesel. Thanks to the ongoing war with Iran that was supposedly going to end quickly, the oil shock stemming from the Strait of Hormuz closure is finally materializing fully. Here in California, it’s over $8 for a gallon of diesel! Even if you don’t have a personal diesel vehicle (thanks, Volkswagen diesel-gate), the repercussions of such high pump pricing will directly affect your wallet. Commercial transportation is hugely reliant on diesel. Cost of goods sold will continue to trend higher because the cost of shipping is increasing.

Never mind that petroleum is an ingredient in so many products that you wouldn’t think of. As if the AI build-out inflation isn’t already bad enough…

So you EV owners can’t sit there too smugly about your cars not using gas. Though they can be slightly smug at the news of Costco rationing the sale of motor oil and raising prices due to shortages. (The upcoming annual oil change on the GTI is going to cost nearly $100 in materials alone!) But, the downstream negatives of the oil shock will affect us all. This collective hurt is quite the revenge on the individualistic streak so prevalent in American culture.

Klarna pay-in-four at the gas pump, when?

Here we have the GTI in its natural habitat.

Under pressure

Mustn’t forget to check your tire pressures periodically! Even the most sealed up wheel and tire combination will lose air overtime. Especially those us driving around in internal combustion cars. In these troubled times of exorbitant gasoline prices, every bit of conservation helps. You are figuratively throwing money away if the car is running lower than optimal tire pressures. Friendly reminder the prescription is on the front driver door jam.

I wonder how many people who can otherwise install chargers at home are kicking themselves right now for not having an electric vehicle. Notorious PG&E shenanigans aside, the likelihood of electricity rates going up 25% over a span of weeks is practically impossible. Not so, as we are seeing with gas prices. Fully electric vehicle owners are sure to be pretty smug right about now.

If this war with Iran goes on for long enough, the paradigm of how the United States view EVs might permanently switch to the positive. The federal EV tax credit expiration was a setback for growth. Those that want an EV probably already bought one. However, consistently elevated gas prices can be incentive enough for those outside the fence to consider opening the gate. Especially those with considerable commutes.

Ride-share and delivery drivers, too. There’s no way the apps are benevolent enough to raise the prices - and therefore the commission for the drivers - to accommodate the sudden spike in gasoline. Nor would customers be cognizant enough to tip more. So the workers will just have to eat the additional, not unsubstantial, variable cost. When the margins are already purported to be minimum wage levels, who’s going to deliver DoorDash to make zero dollars?

Those food delivery drivers already on those zippy electric scooters must also be pretty smug right now. President Trump got rid of the EV tax credit, but his war with Iran just might re-reverse the tide of adoption. The longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the more of an accelerant it is for Americans switching to electric motivation.

Oil shock

Owners of electric vehicles must be feeling pretty smug right about now. With the Strait of Hormuz closed thanks to the American President irrationally ordering an attack on Iran, petrol prices have climbed significantly in the past month. And it’s only going to get worse until there’s truce.

I’m so glad I do not have a car commute. Though if I did, I would have purchased a fully electric vehicle a long time ago. EVs are the perfect commuting appliance. The lack of combustion engine means a super quiet cabin. The torque innate to electric motors makes zipping in between traffic gaps a cinch. There’s far less maintenance items for an EV compared to an internal combustion car. The only negative is that, for those who can’t charge at home, you’ve got to wait a bit long to “refuel”.

But you’d rather have that, wouldn’t you, than paying for stratospheric gas prices. If your livelihood is car-dependent - ride share and delivery drivers - and your car uses petrol, it is currently not a very good time. Fix cost per mile has shot straight up. Another smug feather to the cap of Waymo. Their fleet of self-driving taxis is fully electric, therefore insulated from the inflating gas prices. I reckon the human taxi driver as a profession is slowly going towards extinction.

The taxi driver that drove us to the airport in Guangzhou was not feeling the gas price pinch. Because his car is fully electric. China has successfully weened itself from internal combustion vehicles. Can’t have an oil chock if you’re not dependent on oil! Perhaps it will prove shortsighted for the United States government to roll back on its EV incentives and infrastructure spend. If not for air quality, do it for oil independence.

That said, even if you drive an EV, this turmoil in the oil markets will touch you and all of us eventually, one way or another. Way too many things are dependent and correlated on the stable availability of petroleum. Gas prices is only the tip of the iceberg we can easily and initially see. There’s surely more pain to come in many other areas. I should book that flight for my fall vacation before airlines raise ticket prices…

Liquid gold

Say what you want about the ongoing Iran war (or not war), but it’s doing major devastation to gasoline prices. Those of us in California suffer even more due to a dependence on imported crude, and State environmental refining laws. Didn’t this President promise to lower petrol prices? Candidates in the CA governor race should promise to do something about this…

Thankfully I don't have a car commute. What I won’t enjoy however is the bustling lines at Costco gasoline - typically the cheapest available. I never get gas at my local Costco, but unfortunately it’s all filtered through the same road. The logjam of cars waiting for a fill up will absolutely hamper shoppers that only wish to park and get into the warehouse. This will be the reality until the war (or not war) is over.

First world problems, eh?

Speaking of privileged problems, I’ve been though many a Keurig device since 2020. For some reason, the K-Slim model that I buy cannot seem to last. And I think I’ve found the reason: the control panel is right on the lid. A lid that opens and closes constantly for loading and disposing of coffee cups. This inevitably causes irreparable stress on the electrical connections. The one I currently have has an annoying tendency to stop dispensing mid-stream like a man with a colon problem.

The definitely of crazy is doing the same thing and expecting different results. So once this K-Slim - embarrassingly, my third - dies completely, I am going to buy a model with controls that isn’t on the lid. The venerable original K-Classic should suffice nicely. The unit my parents have is going strong on eight years now.

And another one

So the United States went into a foreign country and kidnapped the sitting President. Seems like we all just forgotten about it. When you are one of the few preeminent super powers on this planet, they just let you do it. Grab them by the Maduro. The Russian Federation is drowning itself in celebration because there’s now another direction for the finger to point at. The war in Ukraine is de-facto justified because, well, what are you going to do about it?

And if there’s nothing consequential you can do about it, is that not a de-facto sanction to continue? America certainly understands that message. Kidnapping a foreign President is tables stakes now! We’ve gone into Iran and essentially assassinated the country’s supreme leader. The rest of the world can only put out statements. Let’s see what the U.S. Congress does in terms of wrestling back their sole right to declare war, but let’s not hold our breaths.

At least we used to be subtle about this sort of stuff. History is allegedly littered with the CIA covertly influencing leadership changes in foreign countries. Should agents get captured in the act, there’s plausible deniability from the reigning administration. I know this because I’ve watched all of the Mission Impossible movies. Regime change is the United States’ speciality.

You mean to tell me Khamenei couldn’t have been knocked off more silently than what transpired? A Jason Bourne type wasn’t available?

Because what Americans don’t have the stomach for is yet another war in the Middle East. It’s partially why Trump was voted into office. The messy withdrawal from Afghanistan during the Biden administration was supposed to be a bookend to billions wasted and thousands of American lives lost in Mesopotamia. That didn’t last long because now the current administration just put us into direct armed conflict with Iran. American lives are already on the lost tally. Who voted for this? Congress certainly did not.

You know who looks the most ridiculous right now - not that they care? FIFA. The peace prize that already looked stupid is now downright comedic.