Question: The standard recommendation for automobile oil changes is once every 3000 miles. A local mechanic is interested in determining whether people who drive more expensive cars are more likely to follow the recommendation. Independent random samples of 45 customers who drive luxury cars and 40 customers who drive compact lower-price cars were selected. The average distance driven between oil changes was 3187 miles for the luxury car owners and 3214 miles for the compact lower-price cars. The sample standard deviations were 42.40 and 50.70 miles for the luxury and compact groups, respectively. Assume that the population distributions of the distances between oil changes have the same standard deviation for the two populations.
a. Construct a 95% confidence interval for the difference in the mean distances between oil changes for all luxury cars and all compact lower-price cars.
b. Using the 1% significance level, can you conclude that the mean distance between oil changes is less for all luxury cars than that for all compact lower-price cars?