Use seal conditioners as preventive maintenance?

[kilou]

Hi,

I was just wondering whether it would be a good idea to use a seal conditioner additive in a high mileage engine to prevent the seals from getting brittle. My Volvo has 200K and does not leak a drop of oil. However I cannot get a high mileage oil in 5w40 flavour over here and I need this grade for Switzerland.

Therefore would it be good to use one of those "stop leak" additive or simply seal conditioners to help keep the seals elastic as preventive maintenance? Do regular synthetic engine oils (groupIII non-high mileage oils) contain enough seal conditioner agents to keep seals from drying even at very high mileage?

I'm looking at the following products:
- http://www.forteuk.co.uk/Seal_conditioner.htm
- http://www.liqui-moly.de/liquimoly/produktdb.nsf/id/e_1005.html

Additionally would a maintenance dose of AutoRX just help the seals stay elastic?

Glad to hear about your opinions. Remember this is not to fix an actual leak but just as preventive maintenance so that the seals don't get brittle and start leaking.

 

[greenaccord02]

I don't think it's a bad idea to run a High Mileage oil for an OCI now and again, but I don't know if the strength of an additive is called for in the absence of a problem.

 

[StevieC]

You could run a 50% 5w50 and 50% High Mileage 5w30 oil and make your own blend which should fall to a nice 40wt

 

[chevrofreak]

Mobil 1 10W-40 High Mileage blended with some 0W-40 would work, too.

 

[kilou]

The problem with blending is that I can only get MaxLife 10w40 as High Mileage oil here. This oil is a dino and is a 10w40 only (no 5w40 or 5w30 Maxlife available were I live). Therefore to get a 5w40 grade I would need a 0w40...which will be fully synthethic. I'll end up mixing a dino with a synthetic, pay $$$ for the synthetic while "killing" its properties by adding a dino that will most likely not allow extended drain intrvals (9000 miles OCI).

The additive solution seems more appropriate to me. On the other hand, The AutoRX website mention that High Mileage oils are bad for the seals in the long run. I guess swelling them is only good as a cure but it may cause leaks overtime.... AutoRX say that the best way to keep engine seals healthy is to clean them with ARX and let them be in ontact with fresh engine oil (up to groupIII). Is that really all what we need as preventive maintenance in a high mileage engine (>200K miles)??

 

[ionbeam22]

Valvoline MaxLife is a synthetic blend, I'm sure it would blend just fine with any other synthetic oil.

I would just as soon leave it alone, and would sooner add the MoS2 anti-friction/Ceratec vs the stop leak additive. Given that the seals are working just fine as is.

 

[chevrofreak]

While Auto RX will help prevent seals from going bad, I don't think the use of modern, quality high mileage types of oil will do any harm.

 

[JohnBrowning]

No because they products will cause the seal to swell which will increase the lip load so the seal will wear faster then it should. Their are seal conditioner's in motor oil already you do not want to go useing more of them then you need until the seal starts to wear out and leak. Seals are not a thing you can prevent from wearing with additives. If you want to prevent their early wear or slow down the rate they wear out at you want to keep your engine as clean as possable. Deposits get onto the surface of the seal and in behind them and this is what cause's them to fail eraly. The best way to reduce deposits is to use a true synthetic G-IV or better oil. SO you want to use PAO,Ester based type lubes. Ester's tend to swell seals and PAo tends to shrink them so all of these synthetics will have stuff in them to counter any effect they have. Because they produce fewer deposits they should last longer. Any vechile that is stilluseing Buna rubber seal material is not worth your time as the manufactures does not think you the client are worth much as this is a cheap, volitile seal material that reacts to almost everything.

 

[Warstud]

High Mileage oils tend to be on the thick side anyway so maybe Maxlife 10w30 could be as thick as the oil your already using. You'll just have to look it up.

 

[KLowD9x]

I think you're just going to have to bite the bullet and replace your valve stem seals. It's a common thing on some Volvos.

My 850 has succumbed to it, I'm hoping my S60 makes it to at least 400K miles before I have to worry about them.