Oil analysis on rinse phase of ARX vs before treatment

[kilou]

Hi everyone,

first of all I would apologize to start another topic on Auto-RX "safety" when so many of you have experienced great results with that product. I sure believe ARX appears to be a wonderful product and really seems to do what it's supposed to do. However it remains an oil additive and thanks to this board I have learned to become careful when it comes to oil additive. I'm highly interested in using ARX in my car but I have 2 reasons to be most careful:

- my car works fine without ARX for now despite its 256000km so I don't want to get problems with ARX (if any). I must say my engine is properly maintan and works almost like day 1......without any after market oil additive.
- I'm in Europe (not in Norway though) and the price of ARX here shipped from US becomes quite high as you have shipping plus taxes to pay. The overall cost would become close to 80$ for 2 bottles.

So I'm not going to question about effectiveness of ARX since most of you have experienced great results. My question regards the safety of the application and particulary how ARX affects the thickness or effectiveness of the oil film during lubrication. Are you aware of any oil analysis that have been done during the cleaning and rinse phases of ARX vs before or after the application?? I'm not competent in the topic of engine lubrication but I think it may be of interest to compare the "wear elements" to see if ARX has an effect on the oil film. Would this be a good indication of ARX safety??


Please again don't think I'm against ARX in any way. I'm just planning to use it but would some more info on the safety of its application. As we all know, oil additivers claim a lot of thing and it has been demonstrated on that forum that despite the actual short term effect of an additive were proven and beneficial, its long-term effects could be disastrous (ref to additives with chlorinated parrafin as an example). Of course ARX is different from these additive and doesn't deserve the same purose but as a newbye I'm left with what other believe or think...and what Frank says. I trust Frank for what he says and I believe him when he says ARX is safe........but we all have this little voice in the head that say "what if"!

Sorry for the long post and be sure that I'm very very close to order some ARX despite the high price when outside US. But I understand that if this product works...and is really safe.....this money would be good investment.

Thanks and sorry for the long post!

 

[kilou]

Just wanted to add something too: The ARX cleaning phase is something like 1500-2000 miles but it doesn't mention the time to drive that distance. I will likely not use the car very often now and it may take several months to do 1500 miles. So is it safe to have ARX in the sump during all that time? Can it hurt anything?

Thanks

 

[Rick20]

It is completely safe to have the ARX in the sump for several months while accumulating the 1500 miles. You can review oil analysis reports on the ARX website and also a study done on a v-twin Harley motor on www.cycle-rx.com.

 

[kilou]

Thanks for the reply and link! Well I couldn't wait and just placed an order for 3 bottles of ARX!! This will be my christmas present

Looking forward to see the results!

 

[kgb007stb]

I have a 3 year 10k OCI from my college days when I did not put lots of miles on my car, blackstone said that after 10K OCI all wear metals were below universal averages. This was after a clean + rinse application yet the results in my case are skewed because I developed a coolant leak which eventually pushed the wear metals up and not wanting to fix an old car I had to get rid of it. So what does this say, oil can remain in the sump for a long time when not driving a vehicle often and auto rx did not do anything towards raising the wear metals.

 

[deepsquat]

well the first thing I did when I bought my new ( for me ) corvette was start and ARX treatment..did the same to my motorcycle///niether vehicle had a problem...I just trust that it will clean up the inside ..so I can keep it clean

 

[kilou]

I'm really looking forward to see the results on my 256,000km engine which has never been treated. However I always used synthetic oils and only recently switched to semi-synthetic and I must say that when looking under the oil fill cap or on the dipstick, I can't see any evidence of sludge. Moreover at 220,000km I changed my timing belt and took the opportunity to clean the oil pump and absolutely no trace of any sludge there too! That's pretty strange for an engine with that km as I would have thought I'd have some sludge anyway. Of course I did not look everywhere, I don't plan to remove the cylinder head since this involved too much job just to look for sludge evidences so I may not have tremendeous proof that ARX will work when I'll use it but I'll try.

Is it possible to have a clean engine after 256,000km without having done anything but changing oil every 15,000km (with synthetic)?????

 

[va3ux]

quote:

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Originally posted by kilou:
Moreover at 220,000km I changed my timing belt and took the opportunity to clean the oil pump and absolutely no trace of any sludge there too! That's pretty strange for an engine with that km as I would have thought I'd have some sludge anyway. Of course I did not look everywhere, I don't plan to remove the cylinder head since this involved too much job just to look for sludge evidences so I may not have tremendeous proof that ARX will work when I'll use it but I'll try.

Is it possible to have a clean engine after 256,000km without having done anything but changing oil every 15,000km (with synthetic)?????

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Sure it is. Synthetic for the whole life of the engine : it's possible that you don't need ARX at all. However even with no visible sludge or deposits, the rings may still benefit from ARX. Have a compression test done before you start, then after the end of the rinse phase.

 

[kilou]

I may not have any oil sludge at all but what about carbon deposits on or behind the valves??? A compression test would reveal that and I'm looking for a cheap gauge now but if we stick to theory for now, any engine should have carbon build-up on the cylinder head and around the valves since this has nothing to do with engine oil (except on a badly worn engine that burns oil) but is the end product of any unperfect combustion.....and I guess after 256,000km the air/fuel mixture is not optimal.

So if I understand well, I may not have any oil sludge but I should still have carbon deposits on valves that ARX will clean? So the best oil may prevent oil sludge deposits but not carbon deposits on valves right?

 

[va3ux]

quote:

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Originally posted by kilou:
......

So if I understand well, I may not have any oil sludge but I should still have carbon deposits on valves that ARX will clean? So the best oil may prevent oil sludge deposits but not carbon deposits on valves right?

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All quite possible. Without an internal inspection it's impossible to tell what actual conditions/deposits exist.

One or two ARX treatments certainly aren't going to hurt.

 

[darkdan]

I've done a few UOA on auto-rx phases both cleaning and rinsing.

Even on my 3300 mile cleaning and 4000 mile cleaning phases....they were boring to look at.

Wear just slightly above normal. Which says to me auto-rx is completely safe.

 

[Gary Allan]

You may have deposits in the ring packs that are not apparent.

 

[kilou]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gary Allan:
You may have deposits in the ring packs that are not apparent.

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Yes this is one of the reasons I wanted to try ARX. No particular problem but I have a bit more blow-by now than before I think so maybe the rings are not sealing very properly (will clean the PCV system soon too but I'll have to remove the inlet manifold for that...).

Now back on the topic of UOA, is there someone else with a "slightly above normal" yet significative wear during ARX treatment that was not present before the treatment (or after completion of the treatment without maintenance dose)?

 

[Thatwouldbegreat]

My BMW E30 has had Redline oil for a very long time and I thought it was super clean...and it was.

ARX still seemed to improve how well it runs, probably by cleaning the ring pack.

 

[Rick20]

If you think that you are dealing with increased blow by gases, the Auto-Rx is the way to go. I think we have seen enough before and after compression studies to show that this product is very effective in cleansing stuck ring packs, and restoring compression. The real beauty is doing it safely, while you drive.