Tire pressure and Oil changes

I had the van's oil changed today. It was due. Past due by a hundred miles, actually. And today is Tuesday - it's $5 off at Jiffy Lube.. hmmm... I think it was Jiffy Lube. In any case, the van's oil is nice and clean.. and I'm good for another couple of months. I think? Part of the service is having fluids checked, topped off and checking the tire pressure. The woman who was checking the pressure, asked if I had a pressure gauge. I said noooooooo.... She said it would be a very good idea to get one. Apparently, my rear driver side tire, had no reading at all.. it was very very low.

And that pretty much explains everything. It was just odd, that after coming to a stop sign, it would take a minute to exit the stop sign.. my tires would spin and spin and spin. And I just figured it was the good old city of Winnipeg's lack of sanding.

The drive home from the oil place, was a piece of cake.. it almost felt as if I was riding higher..

Another interesting tidbit of information. Uplander's all have an oil indicator. It will let you know how low your oil is, and suggest that when you hit zero - it's time to bring the van in! Another interesting tidbit, the sticker that oil place gives you -- the one with the mileage on it, to let you know when to bring the van back to get the oil changed, it's totally different from the indicator in the van. like way different... the van's indicator goes off way before, I'm even near the mileage!!! And another interesting tidbit, you can change that oil indicator, any old time you want. If you see the numbers low, reset it. It will bring the indicator up to 99%. Seriously! Now, I don't condone this at all. And I would have never noticed this if it wasn't for a couple of weeks ago. I was driving and noticed my indicator on. It was reading, I had 3% left in the van. It was on a Thursday that day... and I planned to go on the next Tuesday (to get the $5 off!). Over the weekend, my husband CHANGED the indicator.. and up it popped up to 99%! Over the weekend, or maybe that Monday, I noticed that the indicator was showing we had a lot of oil. When my husband got home that night, I asked him if he "added" oil to the van to top it off? He said "noooooooooooo" And I could tell, he was definitely hiding something. I told him what I knew and he confessed to making the oil indicator up 99%. Because... he doesn't believe in timely oil changes. Because... his BROTHER (who was in his early 20's then) HAD a car and he went YEARS without an oil change. And my husband, thinks "it's all a farce and scam..." "because if my brother could go that long....."

My eyes popped.

My head didn't' spin.

But I wasn't nice. I'm not sure of the exact wording either, but I said something like.. "your brother is a complete idiot - young and stupid." And your brother doesn't or didn't have a family to drive around, a mortgage, 2 car payments, and one working parent" "Your brother would be o.k. with the engine blowing up - he didn't have to worry about feeding his family!"

I could tell mentally my husband was rolling his eyes. And that is something I will have to live with. I mean, at least he didn't do it physically! ROFLMAO

I'm not entirely sure, how long my husband has been playing with the oil indicator. I don't think I want to know. I almost feel violated he did this... and I'm counting my lucky stars that our engine hasn't blown up!

But the bigger question is - Do we listen to the van's oil indicator or the mileage indicator?