Will changing the brand of engine oil I use solve this nagging problem?
Engines start to burn oil when the piston rings begin to wear, and tiny quantities of the oil lubricating the piston walls and cylinder linings are squeezed into the combustion chamber, where they mix with the fuel and burn.
Dear Gavin,
I am using Shell Helix hx5 15W40 and have little oil burning, which keeps the exhaust tailpipe black. If I change the engine oil to semi-synthetic Shell Helix hx7 10W40, will it help or stop oil burning?
Zahir.
No, it won’t help. Because the problem is not the quality of the oil you are using. And the black colour of your tailpipe may or may not have anything to do with your oil.
Engines start to burn oil when the piston rings begin to wear, and tiny quantities of the oil lubricating the piston walls and cylinder linings are squeezed into the combustion chamber, where they mix with the fuel and burn.
The telltale sign that this is happening will be wisps of grey smoke coming out of the exhaust when the engine is revved, and as the wear becomes more serious, those wisps will become copious clouds.
The remedy is a renewal of the piston oil rings and, while you are at it, the compression rings as well. By the time the rings wear out, the bearings are usually also well worn and are worth replacing while the engine is “open”. The benchmark for action is if and when more than half a litre of oil is lost between service intervals.
The smoke from burnt oil may leave a dark residue in the exhaust tailpipe. But so will any other cause of incomplete combustion of the fuel. Such causes include an imbalance of the fuel: air mixture (too rich) or faulty timing (can also be adjusted), a weak spark (renew and reset the plugs and check their HT connections), or low compression (piston/ring/valve fault), or just a predominance of usually slow and often short-trip driving in traffic.
So, have the compression, ignition timing and fuel mixture of your engine tested, and if need be, rectified. And for all car owners who make lots of short trips at low speeds, try to make some longer journeys at a sustained pace at higher revs (engine at full operating temperature) once in a while to blow out some of the cruds that accumulate.
The inside of the exhaust tailpipe of a petrol-engined car can range from black to very light grey. It should ideally be a medium grey – not too light or too dark. Both very dark and very light extremes are sub-optimal.
But even in cars where all the elements are well adjusted, it will become lighter grey if driven hard over a long distance ( for instance Nairobi to the Coast), and turn near black if subjected to perpetual short and slow trips.
The inside of diesel-engine exhausts, by nature of the fuel they burn, is always black, no matter how they are adjusted or driven, and even if they don’t visibly smoke.
Who is in charge of motoring in Kenya?
Is there a tsar that oversees all the elements of roads, vehicles, drivers, traffic, standards, laws, policing, public education and fuel supply? Who should all two million of us motorists send our suggestions or complaints to?
Charles.
Short answer: If you posed your question to 100 different arms and fingers of government, I think you would get 100 different answers. Or, for that very reason, no answer at all.
If there was a single and identifiable Tsar (and I do not think there is one yet), let me offer you two ways of sending a message with an almost exactly equal chance of success: One, write them a letter. Two, climb Mount Kenya, stand on the top of Point Lenana, and shout.
Even if every vehicle owner and holder of a driving license took turns to do the same, the result would be the same. But, figuratively speaking, if all two million stood on the snow-capped peak at the same time, and shouted, that could be front-page news.
Therein lies the real answer: if motorists wish to be heard, they need to organise themselves as a collective, and speak with one voice. So, the first question is not who the government tsar is. It is who your tsar is. What organisation represents all motorists in Kenya? If there isn’t one, why not? And if there is one, why is it so quiet? And in either case, what are motorists going to do about it?
Longer answer: Whether an existing one is found or a fresh one is formed, it will not be a new idea. Virtually every country in the world has one. And most are registered and authorised national affiliates of the global Federation de l’Automobile Internationale. Americans call theirs the Automobile Association of America, the Brits have the Royal Automobile Club and so on.
Ours is called the Automobile Association of Kenya. And it has been around for 103 years. It was first established for the prime and sole purpose of representing its members’ (motorists) interests; their collective voice in policy-making forums, their defender against inadequacies and injustices, their watchdog and lobby pressing for change and improvement.
For many decades the wiser world has been urging the establishment of a “lead agency” to overarch, oversee and coordinate the very many different elements that make up a national road transport system.
It was motorists’ channel for constant liaison with policymakers and implementers on any and every motoring issue. It wrote a Highway Code, and it kept motorists informed and educated by publishing a regular journal and issuing press statements and establishing a list of approved garages and towing services. Through its status and close and constant liaison with the government, it became a go-to source (for the government and the public) for information on the road transport system.
And it had the gravitas and authority to issue international documents such as carnets, international driving permits and TIR registrations, and was the boss body of FISA (motorsport) in this country. In these respects, it was and still is unique.
What do you want - commercial services or policy clout?
Based on its performance in these core areas, it later diversified into “commercial” operations (services already and also provided by numerous other businesses in the private sector) such as a driving school, an inspection centre workshop, authoritative vehicle valuation, insurance and more.
Perhaps inevitably, those operations appear to have become its core business, and its official representation of motorists’ interests (especially on policy issues) has apparently become secondary. The commercial activities have strengthened its finances and boosted its membership, but not everyone who joins for driving lessons necessarily renews when they have passed their driving test so there might be quite a big turnover, and at present, 95 per cent of Kenya’s motorists are not members.
How much might that change if the emphasis on providing commercial services (which are available elsewhere) took a back seat and representing motorists’ interests (available nowhere else) took hold of the steering wheel again? They don’t and won’t try to make policy, but my goodness, they would exert many millions of times more influence than any individual motorist.
How many more motorists would become members of an AA that used its authority and access (as a priority) to argue the case for fewer and smaller speed bumps compliant with the Kebs standard, for a comprehensive driving test syllabus and more rigorous driver testing, for an up-to-date Highway Code, for clear, correct and consistent road markings and signs, for compulsory use of child seats, for regulation of headlight beam power and adjustment; for a rethink on the anomalies of universal vehicle inspection, for bus and cycle lanes, for clearway traffic systems, for some separation of different traffic types, for independent monitoring of roadside checks, for town planning that made road reserves sacrosanct, for testing fuel purity and octane ratings, for investigation of trucks that cannot do more than 40kph, for repair of potholes and proper surfacing of adopted roads, for ways to get more goods traffic onto the railways and a hundred other issues that could make motoring smoother, swifter and safer (and more economical) for everybody?
Hopefully, most motorists recognise that a national road transport system is monumentally large and complex – physically, technically, politically, and economically. It is so all-embracing and all-involving that just about every part of government has some responsibility and some authority for some aspect of it.
And each one of those has its own perspective, its own priorities, its own budget, jurisdiction, relationship silos, internal fiefdoms, and variable types and levels of technical expertise and implementing diligence. And its own workforce culture.
It must be just about as near as you can get to a mission impossible to establish essential consensus and communication flows and convert those into consistent and co-ordinated and competent action – even if all the players have a shared objective of the public interest above all else, and are handsomely resourced, technically expert, and managerially experienced with highly skilled teams of diligent implementers.
The ‘lead agency’ concept
That is why for many decades the wiser world has been urging the establishment of a “lead agency” to overarch, oversee and coordinate the very many different elements that make up a national road transport system. That message has come loudest from the FIA as the only way to enable the system to achieve physical efficiency, economic viability and safety.
Kenya, which is a long-established part of the FIA’s worldwide forum, and signed up to its worldwide “Decade of Action”, has taken steps in that direction with the establishment of bodies like the National Road Safety Council, then the National Transport and Safety Authority, and more recently the Kenya Highways Authority.
In concept, these are institutions that look at the whole picture (not just one part of it), can move across the boundaries between all the Ministries, Departments, Authorities, Services, Bureaux and Technical Committees and have the responsibility and the authority to ensure they operate as a coordinated whole. Good luck to them with that challenge.
Then, as you say, we have at least two million, vehicle owners and drivers. Ah yes, and 58 million other road users.
One factor which ostensibly gives everybody a say is the compulsory “stakeholder forums” on policy issues. Though they are far from neutral in their composition, conduct or outcome, they can at least inform and sometimes influence policymakers, not just tick a box.
And every commercial sector, including motor-related stakeholders like matatus and truck operators and second-hand car dealers, recognise that individual voices will have no influence and so form their own associations, representing their own vested interests. Which person sits in the stakeholder chair marked “Private Motorist”?
Motorists might bemoan the shortfalls in road transport system policy, but they also have themselves to blame: they have failed to organise themselves into an informed, authoritative and active stakeholder voice, so loud and large that it cannot be ignored. Motorists need their own “lead agency”.
