How much oil goes into the manufacture of a new car?

Question

I'm interested in buying a new, fuel-efficient hybrid like a Honda Insight, but I'm concerned about how many barrels of oil go into the manufacturing process. It might be better to stick with my older, paid-off, 20 mpg car in terms of petroleum if the manufacture is very oil-intensive. I tried looking this up, so let's here what you have to say! (intelligent answers, please)

Answer 1

That is an unknown question. You have to consider all the oil in machining the parts, the oil used to quelch the castings and heat treat the block and crankshaft. the oil used in the air guns to assemble the car, the oil used to grease the conveyors, oil to lube the machines that go with the manufacture of cars. To get a good answer, you would have to go to accounting and find out how much oil and grease they bought over a year and how many cars they produced.

You probably are better off keeping your old ride, if it's running good, and you have kept up the maintenance. the price of a new one will pay for a lot of repairs.

Answer 2

I worked for a GM service dept. The average car has five quarts of oil in the engine, and 3-5 quarts of transmission fluid. Gear oil content is minimum, virtually negligible. If your car is getting only 20 mpg, you will do yourself and the 'Earth' a huge favor by switching to a Toyota Prius or Honda Insight. As far as the manufacturing process, Oil use is minimal except for lubrication. Your 20 mpg piece is putting the biggest impact in this equation. Now if you're 100% truly concerned- get a bicycle and think no more of it.

Answer 3

There may be more than one way to look at this. To try to add up all the oil it took to make every part of a new car it would be a never ending task. There is plastic used in so many things like electrical wiring. To define all the processes making the plastic, refining the plastic, transporting the plastic and assembling the plastic would take time. All the other parts of the car like cast iron, glass, electronics... to calculate how much oil is used in refining cast iron and glass .... how can you even think of a question like that?

Another way to look at this is... you got a car, if you get a new car you are going to get rid of your other car and someone else will make use of your old car so you are just exchanging one car for another.

Answer 4

if you talking about when goes into make a car. anything made of plastic and rubber is made from oil.

Answer 5

Hippie, buy a mustang