frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Global Shortage Has Led to Motor Oil Rationing at Costco

https://guessingheadlights.com/global-shortage-has-led-to-motor-oil-rationing-at-costco/
67•mikhael•2h ago

Comments

pjdesno•50m ago
What kind of vehicle takes 10 quarts of oil for a single oil change?
nycpig•47m ago
Most v8s.
mdesq•41m ago
Most often diesel engines (I used to be an auto mechanic). Even passenger car diesels can take 10+ quarts. Gas engines typically take less oil but big engines can still take 5-7+.
2OEH8eoCRo0•7m ago
I remember using a large Jerry can of oil to top off a MATV. Google says 19-28 quart capacity- oof!
chneu•39m ago
Patriots love their big trucks. More oil = owning the lib vegans.
johng•17m ago
Lots of people haul things. The US is huge compared to what most people expect. Big trucks can be a necessity depending on what you do for a living/your way of life.
readthenotes1•8m ago
That may be true. However it does not explain how many people have big trucks that are never used as trucks
bobthepanda•7m ago
The vast majority of pickups are not actually used for workmen like purposes.

In fact, as carmakers have started pivoting more towards selling them to affluent suburban households, the usable cargo volume has decreased over time despite increasing size.

6SixTy•3m ago
Right, but seeing trucks obviously not set up for towing or hauling is becoming more common nowadays. With the level of luxury trims on some truck trims now, it's obvious that they aren't a necessity anymore.

This is on top of trucks prioritizing 4 door models and taking bites out of the truck bed

bak3y•7m ago
I'm gonna buy another truck just because of this post
dietr1ch•38m ago
That's 11.3L for the civilised audience.

For reference, my 3.6L 6-cyl boxer needs about 6.5L according to my service notes.

sdcfgy•31m ago
My 3 cylinder 1.0 litre Citroen takes exactly half that. Interesting.
dietr1ch•24m ago
But that's an inline engine, right? I think a model based on engine layout, displacement/cylinder, and cylinder count might be quite good at predicting the necessary oil (and will tell you when your car uses a bit too much compared to everyone else).
whalesalad•36m ago
Diesel trucks. My Ram 1500 with the 5.7 Hemi takes 7 qt. The 5.9 Cummins in my Ram 2500 takes 12 qts.
27183•35m ago
The 3L diesel in my car takes about 8qt per change. The 5.9L diesel in my truck takes 12qt.
bijowo1676•31m ago
most of V8 engines need 10+ quarts
jervant•20m ago
Older Porsche 911s take about 11 quarts.
arjie•31m ago
Huh, neat. There was this Twitter chap who said this was going to happen a few months ago. It was a fun interaction[0]:

> > > Just got word Mobil and Shell have informed Costco and Walmart they have no packaged product to send them and to expect bare shelves in the motor oil section in a few weeks

> > Lol as if youd be the first person anyone tells.

> I am Chevrons largest passenger vehicle lubricant purchaser lol

0: https://x.com/CostaKapo/status/2053948679485009990?s=20

bethekind•14m ago
If you follow motor oil geek on YouTube, they've started changing the formulations of the premium oils months ago and that's not going to change until 2028 when more American supply comes online
hypfer•28m ago
YouTube channel Regular Car Reviews also predicted this ca 3 months ago.

So now it's here. Or.. there? How's the situation in the EU?

adamsiem•26m ago
Went by classic car show today. Beautiful stuff.

Most of the rear view mirrors were a mirror, a shaft, and a hinge.

Replaced mine last year in a 2014 X3 for $1800.

phoghed•17m ago
Why didn't you go with the shaft and hinge?
medler•20m ago
Not having to deal with oil changes is one of the many benefits of driving an EV
sschueller•16m ago
Is there really nothing that has oil in it that at some point needs changing?
what-the-grump•10m ago
It does, plenty of things inside the EV require all kinds of oils, just the maintenance cycle isn't gallons and gallons every x months. You are looking at years.

I got service centers trying to rotate my tires every 3k miles because "ev". The oil change as well, oh you need to change oil every 5k because... because why?

WarmWash•1m ago
By "plenty of things" you mean one thing with a 10yr service interval?
toomuchtodo•10m ago
Correct. ~140k miles on my 2018 Model S, tires, wipers and wiper fluid, and one battery pack heater replaced (deprecated, no longer used in newer builds) are all that have been done. Motors are lubricated at manufacture and sealed for life.

https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/tesla-electric-vehicle-pow...

stoddur•
lampe3•19m ago
Welcome To Costco, I Love You
cute_boi•12m ago
Ram Shortage, SSD shortage, CPU shortage, GPU shortage, diesel shortage, now motor oil shortage.......

Are we going to have shortage of everything now ......

readthenotes1•9m ago
And the promise is that we will have a shortage of shortages!
walt_grata•3m ago
Dont forget beef
3eb7988a1663•10m ago
Things are really about to hit the fan. The world has been surviving off of strategic petroleum reserves, but those are quickly hitting the bottom. The US last reported at 285M barrels[0]. There is a legal floor of ~250M, after which it is reserved for government national defense. Usage has been all over the place, but the drawdown has been somewhere in the region of 1M barrels per day. Public analyses have said that the cavern integrity becomes threatened once levels fall below 300M. Current government claims the "real" floor is at 70M, but I believe this is a transparent ploy to assuage markets.

The Saudi pipeline that was attacked had a capacity of 7M barrels per day. Gone for who knows how long. That 7MBPD that needs to come from somewhere.

[0] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W...

spicypixel•4m ago
It’s doubly bad now China is back buying oil.
toomuchtodo•2m ago
Not at volumes yet. How quickly they return and what volumes will determine how fast oil prices go up.

(oil futures market participant)

WarmWash•4m ago
Trump will 100% ignore the defense reserve. Congress won't stop him either.
Pxtl•8m ago
The ladies at Tran Girlismo called this soon after the blockade started.
5m ago
Same here. Got a 2017 Model S. Only wiper fluid and tires and had to change out break disks in the front but besides that, nothing.
Erem•9m ago
Surely at some point, but it hasn’t yet happened in my short 3 years owning one
adocomplete•8m ago
Nope. I've had a Model 3 since 2018 and besides swapping out tires and window washer fluid, no maintenance.

There was suggested battery fluid maintenance when I first got the car every 3 years or so, but they removed that recommendation.

It's one of the reasons I just can't go back to a regular gas car.

conception•8m ago
There is not. Just brake and washer fluid and coolant.
_aavaa_•7m ago
The biggest one that needs changing would be the differential.
medler•4m ago
They do have some gearbox oil that is usually considered to last a lifetime but some sources advise changing it every 100k miles or so. This is analogous to transmission fluid in an ICEV.

Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

https://www.atomic14.com/2026/09/13/why-is-google-still-serving-dodgy-ads
266•iamflimflam1•2h ago•123 comments

Astra and Fable still hack on simple variants of alignment evals from 2025

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/munJKF7iWMsWJLAH2/astra-and-fable-still-hack-on-simple-variants-o...
284•Levitating•5h ago•126 comments

There Is No AI (It's Just People) with Jaron Lanier

https://singjupost.com/startalk-there-is-no-ai-really-its-just-people-w-jaron-lanier-transcript/
12•andsoitis•34m ago•2 comments

Global Shortage Has Led to Motor Oil Rationing at Costco

https://guessingheadlights.com/global-shortage-has-led-to-motor-oil-rationing-at-costco/
70•mikhael•2h ago•45 comments

Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

https://www.theverge.com/column/994172/your-car-is-selling-your-data
170•bookofjoe•6h ago•100 comments

JetKVM Mini

https://jetkvm.com/blog/introducing-jetkvm-mini
452•taubek•12h ago•177 comments

Sean Carroll explains the biggest ideas in the universe – Full Interview [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBNJyztai0
39•binyu•2d ago•6 comments

Julia 1.13 Highlights

https://julialang.org/blog/2026/09/julia-1.13-highlights/
17•eigenspace•3d ago•2 comments

Why is the x86 undefined instruction called ud2? Why 2?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260910-00/?p=112689
141•ibobev•7h ago•37 comments

I'm being cyberattacked by Tesla, Inc

https://dreamstation.systems/personal/tesla.html
304•robinpie•2h ago•88 comments

Reverse engineering my e-scooter and rewriting the firmware in Rust

https://bensimms.moe/reverse-engineering-scooter/
269•vinhnx•3d ago•69 comments

Making Startups Powerful

https://paulgraham.com/powerful.html
90•tosh•6h ago•35 comments

Device Drivers lab exercise – COSC562

https://web.eecs.utk.edu/~smarz1/courses/cosc562/drivers.html
12•azhenley•2h ago•1 comments

CUDA for AMD on Windows

https://github.com/Speedstu/CUDA-for-AMD-Windows
103•chiassedu80•5h ago•58 comments

Garry Tan wants US open-weight AI labs to 'distill' frontier models, too

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/11/y-combinators-garry-tan-wants-u-s-open-weight-ai-labs-to-distil...
232•TheJCDenton•4h ago•118 comments

Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?

https://yoshuabengio.org/en/publication/why-are-ai-agents-lying-cheating-and-coordinating
531•jonifico•18h ago•615 comments

Reverse-Engineering Claude Web's MicroVM: Uncovering Anthropic's Hidden Antspace

https://aprilnea.me/en/blog/reverse-engineering-claude-code-antspace
19•rzk•2d ago•4 comments

Cpak – OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices

https://cpak.it/
32•xlmnxp•5h ago•11 comments

David Sacks: OpenAI and Anthropic Don't Need Regulations to Pace Frontier Models

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460
152•kolanos•3h ago•111 comments

'Fingerprints' inside the Sun could reveal if it once swallowed a planet

https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/fingerprints-inside-sun-could-reveal-if-it-o...
94•blincoln•8h ago•37 comments

TailTalk: A modern async user space AppleTalk stack with Rust and Tokio

https://github.com/FeralFirmware/TailTalk/
57•zdw•20h ago•13 comments

Libraries Run Rust Inside Python (With PyO3)

https://belderbos.dev/blog/how-libraries-run-rust-inside-python/
38•lumpa•4h ago•26 comments

Romania soccer introduces black card to 'combat abusive behaviour' from parents

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7586821/2026/09/12/football-black-card-referee/
64•thunderbong•3h ago•44 comments

Alan's Random Insult Generator (1999)

https://alanbellows.com/experiments/insult/index.html
53•DamnInteresting•2d ago•23 comments

Make your first edit to OpenStreetMap

https://high5apps.github.io/josm-plugin-website-wizard/
576•juliantigler•1d ago•138 comments

AI recursive self-improvement might not come so quickly after all (August 2026)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/08/18/1142188/ai-recursive-self-improvement/
16•dgellow•1h ago•10 comments

Base84 deserves a place in file names

https://00f.net/2026/09/09/base84/
48•kevvok•2d ago•37 comments

Flock cameras used to arrest a child for playing on a swing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koclOnlde0E
107•chadgpt3•1h ago•58 comments

Homebrew 7.0.0

https://brew.sh/2026/09/13/homebrew-7.0.0/
492•mikemcquaid•11h ago•196 comments

On Binary Translation and Its Consequences

https://chipsandcheese.com/p/on-binary-translation-and-its-consequences
42•matt_d•2d ago•16 comments