The million dollar question. Unfortunately we will never know the answer.
I completely agree! I'm not into oil additives, however, I didn't don't have the best engines in my vehicles either. I'm just trying to maintain them as good as possible so they last. I saw the VOA from 2018 for Lubegard here on the forum and I went for it. I figured that adding it to Castrol EDGE 0W-40 would be a good choice. I premixed it and 15 oz. of Lubegard Bio/Tech actually turned 5 quarts of Castrol blue. Ha! Take that Royal Purple
- Blue Castrol!
After running through the engine it's the oil is amber-colored on the dipstick.
What I am wondering is:
- Is Lubegard Bio/Tech changing (lowering) the oil viscosity at operating temperature?
- Does it displace existing additives in the motor oil, and what I mean by that, is that I'm wondering if ZDDP and other additives are powered when their ppm is measured in a given quantity of oil? Let's say you have 5.73 (8.5 oz oil in filter + 160 oz motor oil + 15 oz Lubegard Bio/Tech) quarts of oil (it's what I got in the engine) and 0.47 quarts of that is Lubegard. Now let's say that Zinc in 5.26 quarts of that oil is 1000ppm, will it become 918ppm Zinc in 5.73 quarts of oil? Or am I doing the math wrong?
- Are there any negative side effects of adding the recommended 3 oz of Lubegard per quart to motor oil?
- Can the existing additives in motor oil clash with Lubegard? What happens in the motor oil already has some Moly in it? How will it work with the Moly in Lubegard? What about Calcium, Phosphorus, and Boron, which Lubegard also adds to Motor oil? How will the motor oil chemistry interact with the Lubegard Bio/Tech chemistry?
I asking all these questions because I want to keep this vehicle for a long time and get to 200,000 miles with it. The Hyundai 2.4 GDI engine wasn't Hyundai's finest work so anything I can do to get the most out of this engine is a plus. Other than oil, coolant, filters, and spark plugs there isn't much I can do from a maintenance point of view. I also maintain the rest of the vehicle like tire rotation, brakes (gotta love the crapy parking brake - you have to take the real weels of to adjust it properly, cable adjustment bottoms out easily).
Hyundai has finally replaced the 2.4 GDI Theta II engine with a 2.5 GDI SmartStream motor. I test drove a Sonata with that engine (did an extended test drive), and while it still feels like driving an NA diesel from the 90s, it is smoother than the 2.4 and the fuel economy has also improved. It might have something to do with going to a 14:1 compression ratio. However, that doesn't help me, lol.
I also know the conventional wisdom on BITOG is that a fully formulated motor oil shouldn't need anything added to it. I completely agree with that. I didn't add Lubegard to the oil thinking that I would improve the oil, I added it thinking that I can decrease the wear of my engine by a little bit more if that makes sense.
@MolaKule set me straight on oil additives and the complexity of motor oils. The only reason why I tried Lubegard is that I read good things about it on this forum and that I haven't seen any opposition to it here. I tried and contacted Lubegard with my concerns, however, I got the usual dumbed-down marketing response back.
@MolaKule if you have a couple of minutes to chime in and let me know if I'm doing this wrong or not I would really appreciate it. After I put the Lubegard in the engine I felt a bit bad and guilty telling myself that maybe I shouldn't have done that. On this vehicle, I also want to increase the OCI from 5000 to 7500 miles because it will see more highway miles soon.
