Oil ratings

[Gallivanters]

Not at all.

What are your thoughts on the endless array of oil additives I see on the shelves at auto parts stores???

Some people swear to the benefits of Marvel Mystery Oil, STP and a host of other "oil enhancers" allof which claim to reduce wear, improve milage, prevent sludge, shine your shoes, etc, etc, etc.

I saw an "infomercial" on teevee a while back where these guys poured a bottle of their gunk into a firetruck engine and started her up. Then they removed the plug - drained the oil from the engine --- and kept the beast running (from idle to red line) for the rest of the hour long show... apparently with absolutely no oil left in the crank case!

I've never tried any of these oil additives - but that commercial sure made an impression.

What are your thoughts on off the shelf oil additives - pro or con?

Thanks,

Kirk

[Alan Wheeler]

Oil Additives. MATE!!! this is such a mine feild. I could only ever scratch the surface of this topic.
OK, so firstly a little qualifier. I used to work as an industrial techincal sales rep for Wynnes here in NZ. I'll leave the company name I represented out of it. It has now cahnged hands anyway. so I have a great deal of trainign and experiance with additives and was even on the side of additives for sometime. Now having learn't a great deal more for both sides of the story, I am not so sure.
The two arguments are,

Additive supplier.... Oil companies don't want additives in their oil because it suggests their oil is not as good as it could be. They don't put addition additives in their oil, because they are there to make a profit and they will not wast money, so they put in JUST enough to meet the spec.

Oil Company......We want a supperior oil from that of our competitors, so if we thought a simple additive could do that, we would put it in. The balance of Additive to base oil is criticle and huge amounts of R&D have gone into working out the balance of additives to the Base. By altering the Additive/Base balance, detrimental affects can result with the outcome being an unstable lubricant that can result in seriuose damage to an engine.

Both are very good and valid arguments. So who's right???? Well the only way to look at this is from experiance of what has happend in the industry.

Firstly, there are ruffly four groups of additives available.
1: Regular motor oil with standard additive base, usually about a 50W oil. And PTFE (Teflon) added.

2: Regular 50W oil once again, with additional Zinc diasomelongwindedname added.

3: Once again a Base oil product but with the actual additive packs that most oil companies are using anyway, so you are just upping the ratio.

4:Base prodcut once again, but with high quantities of solvents /detergents.

When I sold Wynnes, I was taught that all the products contained a "special space industry formulae". Sound familiar!! It was a special chemical that treated the molecular surface of the metal and softend it so as the microscopic metal peaks bent over and filled in the microscopic troughs, thus make the metal surface reduced in friction. They sell the "special" additve as the name "friction proofing". Now this was how the company in NZ sold the stuff, so I can't speak for anyone else around the world.
Were am I going with this?? well it's this "Space industry, or developed by NASA and other such claims that get me here. In the actual Space industry, they have never heard of any of these lubricants out there. Often the emblems that show rockets and NASA and what have you are totaly Bogus. They have nothing to do with anybody in the space industry.
As I said above, it is mostly addition quantities of the additive packs that have been added.

No1. touches on PTFE. This seems to be products out on their own. The story behind this, is that there is no "secret formulations" of PTFE. There is only One company in the world that makes the stuff. Du Pont Chemical Corp. Now the main guy behind the development of PTFE for Dupont, tested this product in the application of an oil additive. The official conclution from the company was, "Teflon is NOT useful as an ingrediant in oil additives or oils used in combustion engines" They trhen went on to distance themselves from additive manufacturers using Teflon, incase they got tied up in a lawsuit. They even went as far as banning the sale of Teflon from these users, but a later legal ruleing was that they couldn't stop people from buying a product.

In the endevour to keep this not to long winded.
Just about every additive company has claimed "miricles" with there products that have not been able to be consistently reproduced in the real world. I was taught some rather "interesting" way's of demoing our products, that now in hind sight, I understand as "stacking the odds" in favour of our product looking supperior. I even had a 202 Holden motor cut away so as you could see all the inside workings of the engine and I too would drain all the oil and leave her running all day on display. But the Boss of Wynnes NZ tried on two occasions to drive a car some distance on and empty sump. The car got a few miles before Siezing on both attempts. There is a big difference between an engine underlaod and one on display. Plus, the odds can be well stacked in your favour if you simply know the tricks.

Lastly, there are dozens of additives out there on shelves. Here's the real catch. MOST are actually made by the same perant company and just marketed in a different bottle, different name and different claim.
Nearly ALL of these Parent companies have had major lawsuits against them for failure of their product to make the claims stated by their products.

Here is my take on it. Engine lubrication does several important things. It takes heat away from engine components, it washes the engine of harmful combustion by products, it carries those products away for scrubbing by the filter and it maintains a film to keep close tolerance parts away from each other. A failure in any of those performance critereas results in engine wear. Mineral Oil is good at doing all those jobs, while the oil is in good condition. But minerla Base oils breakdown and so have a limited working life.
Synthetic oils simply do exactly the same job. There is no miricle antifriction property. They simply don't break down and the EP strength(that's the little thingys that stop parts from touching each other)can be very strong. The advantage on synthetics is that they last considerable longer than mineral. But the majic is NOT in the Synthetic, the Actual majic is in the filter. Keep the oil clean and you have little wear. Eventually the acid build up fule leagage becomes so high, you have to change the oil no matter what it is, to keep the metal parts safe from corrosions and oil dilution.
So my conclusion is, don't waste money on additives. They are expensive and exactly the same result can be achieved by using a good oil rating, regular religouse oil cahnges based on cycles determined by wether the oil is synthetic or mineral and good filtration with very regular filter changes.

I'll finish there unless someone has another question. I have screads of info on this subject. It just goes on and on, but the conclusion has been made by most in the industry that should know what they are talking about, that additives are not the miricle cures they are cracked up to be, and don't waste your money.

[Gallivanters]

Sounds like most of these oil additives are what they used to refer to around here as "Snake Oil" - placibo cure-all's touted to fix everything from ingrown toenails to bad eyesight while increasing one's vitality! They used to generally think of a Snake Oil Salesman as a Con Man and run 'em out of town on a pole.

By the way... I've found a Canadian company marketing small oil centrifuges - check 'em out at www.dieselproducts.com/spinclean/spinclean_sizing.html if you'd like to have a look.

While browsing their site, I noticed they also carry a line of after-market mechanical starter motors powered by wind-up springs or air. (I've been wanting something such as this ever since struggling with the dyna-starter on my old Volvo MD2B) They seem to carry starters for every major brand of marine engine and they claim they cost & weigh less than an electric starter and can be used as a primary starter.

Immagine... not needing a dedicated starting battery or switches, or combiners, or having to worry about not being able to start your engine because of a dead battery!

I'm DEFINITELY interested in one of these and feel it might make an interesting new topic.

Again - thanx for all the information on Lube Oils. You have explained this confusing subject clearly & concisely. Well done!

Have a Great Weekend!

Kirk

[GordMay]

Excellent presentation Alan !!!

Oh boy - a "special space industry formulae"!!!
I think I’ll file that one with “New & Improved”.

At the time that DuPont issued their statement (per Wheels), they also threatened legal action against anyone who used the name "Teflon" on any oil product destined for use in an internal combustion engine, and refused to sell its PTFE powders to any one who intended to use them for such purposes. They subsequently were forced by litigation to withdraw their objections and sell Teflon for these purposes.

In 1997, three subsidiaries of Quaker State Corp, the makers of “Slick 50", ( the “magic” ingredient in Slick 50, and most other “majic” additives, is PTFE*.) settled Federal Trade Commission charges that ads for Quaker State's Slick 50 Engine Treatment were false and unsubstantiated.

Other additives, such as Bardahl, Rislone and Marvel Mystery Oil claim they can make your engine run quieter and smoother, and reduce oil burning. These products contain solvents or detergents such as kerosene, naphthalene, xylene, acetone or isopropanol.

* Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a fluoropolymer discovered by Roy J. Plunkett (1910–1994) of DuPont in 1938, and introduced as a commercial product in 1946, under the DuPont brand name of “Teflon ®”. “Teflon” was the trade name originally coined by Du Pont for its fluorinated polymers PTFE, FEP and PFA.

Several other manufacturers make their own brands of PTFE:
ICI (UK) ~ “Fluon”
Hocchst (Germany) ~ “Hostaflon”
Allied Chemical ~ “Halon”
Daikin (Japan) ~ “Polyflon”
and more ...

[Jentine]

I couldn't imagine a better place in the world to ask: Is this b.s. or a viable filter http://www.gulfcoastfilter.com/produ...el_filters.htm
The best oil is just so much liquid slop without a means of removing the soot and other contaminants that get into the oil.
Jim

[hellosailor]

Jim, at $132 per filter element (plus shipping) it seems like they are selling a simple "depth filter" to take out particulates, and relying on the "makeup oil" to deal with chemical changes and additive losses.

$132 will still buy an awful lot of premium oil, for those of us who are only caring for sailboats, this package is simply too expensive to consider versus just changing the oil once or twice a year.

[Alan Wheeler]

Jim, I am not going to comment on the Filter. It looks good. I would presume it works OK, I see no reason why it would not.
I do however have some major concerns with some coments they have made in their FAQ's. I only looked at the first three questions and the are Glaringly inaccurate. So I am wondering if they really know what they are talking about. (Still, the product maybe OK.) They have said that it is Heat that turns Diesel engine Oil Black and Petrol engine oil brown. Well, we all know that's not true. They have stated mineral Oil never breaks down. Once again, not true.

Kirk, That spin filter is the sort of thing I am talking about. I don't know what cost would be, but there is no filter element, so eventually it must return it's cost. Some engine oil filters are very expensive.