Thanks for the explanation! I can see why you are being cautious, if it cleaned aggressively and a filter plugs up, people would try and assign blame as well.Drew,
There are some blanks to fill in here. First off thanks for being a customer. I am at a Street Outlaws event so I am just now seeing this.
The effect of the esters are well known. Especially when you have people with the level of expertise we do on staff. They are not only knowledgeable in the use of these materials, they are knowledgeable in how to make the esters.
As others have said. The variable is not in the cleaner. The variables are, from our standpoint, who know what oil was run, who knows how long the oil was run, who knows under what conditions the oil was run? Are the deposits varnish or are they sludge. It is fair to say that the reality is cleaning will happen at different rates based on these variables to which we cannot control nor would the owner of the vehicle know completely.
We have a lot of experience in this area as our oils have been ester containing from the start. We have 10’s of thousands of vehicles running every day with ester containing formulations.
The last thing I want to do is put a product out there that is too aggressive and run the risk of plugging or bypassing filters. For this reason I chose to throttle back the strength of the cleaner.
A few years ago I added AN’s to our engine oils on top of the ester. This increases the cleaning ability of the oils.
The oil in Wayne’s vehicles pre date these formulas. They have literally lasted years and have only recently (I believe) been able to see the current oil. Wayne can confirm that. I don’t try to remember any details of his vehicles because he is very proficient at it.
So summarizing our original engine oils were ester containing, the cleaner has an increased concentration but I chose to keep it safe, which is important, and our current oils will clean even more since they contain AN’s as well as ester.
The challenge comes on trying to make a one fits all recommendation for a product we thoroughly understand that is going into an infinitely variable environment. So it is easy to understand that being cautious on recommendation would be important for a manufacturer who wishes to do no harm.
We have seen examples such as RDY4WAR who has run 10,000 miles on the cleaner. It is safe to do so on an engine in decent shape. It would not be something I would recommend for a sludged engine for example.
Understanding all of this it is fair to say some engines will clean fairly easily, some will be more tough. The ester will eventually get it done even on more stubborn engines it will simply take more time.
Since the application is infinitely variable there is not a method to “test” to a real world target. Aside from that we use our own oil in our 20 vehicles. Since we use our oil they are clean. This of course is the best path since once you make that change the deposits are something you don’t have to worry about.
We do see the questions about running the cleaner as a maintenance dose. This will work too but not nearly as well as if you ran the oil itself. It is still a compromise.
An example I like to use is this: if you walk in your garage each week and something knocked everything off your shelves onto the floor. If you just put your items back on the shelf each week your garage will be fine till it repeats. The best course of action is to solve the source of what knocked the items off rather than cleaning it up each week.
Hopefully this sheds some light on how we chose to address a well known material in a highly variable environment.
I will PM my cell number to you and if you have any additional questions or want to talk about your vehicle specifics feel free to call.
David
I'm glad to know that is will be safe to leave the Cleaner in for a longer haul if conditions s warrant it.
I got your PM the.
