You don't know more than the oil engineers....Huh?

[Ram01]

Pennzoil rules

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Phishin
Most make good products, but they can all be improved. And it's our choice as consumers to improve the products we buy, even right out of the box.


Most here know that I'm pretty much against additives. My view is generally that if one wants to clean an engine, do some short OCIs. If one wants more ZDDP, get Defy or an HDEO. If one has a new, "normal" engine in good shape, no additives are necessary.

However, not everyone's in that boat. Some people cannot get a high ZDDP oil in the grade they want. Some engines are sludged beyond belief and the owners have nothing to lose by trying a fast flush.

However, you do have to realize why many of us are against additives. Take a walk into your local Walmart. Look at the oil aisle. Almost every oil there is a name brand, quality, oil, meeting various modern specifications. There's hardly a bum steer in the lot.

Now, turn around and look at the oil additives. Is there even one there that is remotely useful? Is there even a single ZDDP additive? Or, are you more likely to find ten different varieties of oil thickeners and stop leaks? If I want thicker oil, I'd turn around again and grab the 15w40, but that's just me.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Nobody is bashing the Mfrs or engineers that make oil.
It is a simple plain fact that they are hamstrung by competitive pricing, laws, and minimum needs of the car makers.


Only if they choose to have all the alphabet soup and starbursts that are needed for warranty oils. But there are plenty out there that don't meet all those and DO make oils to suit any application. Off the top of my head without even scratching it:

Joe Gibbs, Redline, Brad Penn, Royal Purple, Amsoil, Roush, Shaeffers.... Heck, even Mobil, Valvoline, and several other "mainstream" oil blenders make lines of oil that don't carry everything to be used in an off-the-showroom-floor vehicle.

I believe that no matter what you drive, you can find an off-the-shelf, FULLY ENGINEERED oil that will protect it as much as it needs protecting. You're much better off researching and finding that ENGINEERED solution than you are taking an off-the-shelf inadequate oil and throwing off-the-shelf additives at it. That's just asking for additive clash, foaming, detergent-additive competition, viscosity breakdown, and all sorts of unintended behavior.

Think about it: you can't REMOVE the factory additives to the oil, nor can you improve the base stock. You can just pile crud on top of it. Does anyone here SERIOUSLY think you can turn a chocolate shake into a strawberry shake by ADDING something?

 

[SteveSRT8]

As long as we are all different then there will always be an additive market. There will also be boutique oils. They sell.

But I love that analogy, 440! Excellent.

 

[GearheadTool]

Well you can turn a chocolate shake into a chocolate and strawberry shake by adding strawberry to it but you are correct that you cant remove the chocolate out of it. Now, are the strawberries benefiting anything? Or, are they not hurting anything. Can go both ways.

I put Tufoil in my car once and it ran pretty much the way it used to, but then again I had already treated the engine with a respected additive from Germany. In either case, it didnt hurt anything and perhaps helped.

90% of additives on the shelf, from Slick 50 to Greased Lightning are just thick goop that pander to those that believe that (and I quote) You cant go by the owners manual. And when asked why not? I get that the people that designed the car made erroneous recommendations, or in their interest.. which somehow are not in the best interests of the car. So..

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
The OP may have been trolling.
His user name might lead one to think that.
However, I think that he raises a valid point.
We know from our own experience, as well as those of others, and the UOAs that we view in that forum, that any API spec oil since the late '90s at least will provide very good results if used in an SAE grade appropriate to the application and if changed often enough to avoid reaching the point where the oil has no remaining TBN.
What I'm trying to say is that better than available oils could be made, if cost were of no regard, but that there would really be no point in it.
Most of the API SL/SM/SN oils are very good, and there are some standouts among them, but there isn't a whole lot of space for a better than spec, cost is no object oil in almost all uses and applications.
It then follows that if the oils currently available work so well that wear is almost immeasurably small, there is really no point in using additives.


Devils Advocate: How do we know what a UOA would look like with an oil that was blended with nothing held back, cost being no object? I for one have never seen one. So in all honesty we really have no clue just how well the perfect oil can protect an engine do we? We can guess, but that's about it.


How much better can you do than current oils?
What I was saying was that there isn't a whole lot of room for improvement.
I have posted two UOAs of PP run in two old cars.
Both showed very low metal.
There just isn't room for much improvement.
Now, a more costly oil to address things like extended drains and very demanding applications, along with very demanding uses, like track days, would make sense.
Such oils already exist.
For typical normally aspirated daily driver use, no amount of extra cost in formulation can provide significant reductions in wear.
There just isn't enough wear to reduce.
GDI engines may be a special case, but I'm not sure that there can be any answer from a motor oil standpoint.