Does anyone use a Slick additive to oil?

[curiosity]

To put the contrary view (before somebody else puts it):

I've seen the ball test performed with a PTFE boundary lubricant and it failed to show any great improvement.

However it should be noted that
1) PTFE type boundary lubricants are not oils (the ball test is an oil test)

2) Boundary lubricants using PTFE generally require a bit of time to coat (ball tests are usually performed without any coating time)

3) According to at least one manufacturer PTFE is not the key ingredient in their boundary lubricant.. although PTFE dispersion is probably necessary for the lubricant to work properly (a secondary component not the primary one). Thus poor dispersion (not shaking the bottle) might account for some of the poor results.

4) Not all lubricants containing PTFE are made equal: some are oil additives (enhance the properties of the oil) while others are boundary lubricants. Some lubricants (boundary and conventional) have a lot of testing... and most have none. There is a huge difference between lubricants. Testing one lubricant with PTFE and claiming the results are representative of all is about as sensible as claiming that all oils are the same.

5) Boundary lubricants can last varying amounts of time... just as normal lubricants can. At least one boundary lubricant lasts the life of your engine (is not removed with an oil change) and others do not. There are no traditional lubricants which claim to last the life of your engine and some oil additives break down very quickly:

Chlorine is often added to oils as a high pressure additive. Such oils pass the ball pressure test with flying colours. However as soon as heat and pressure start working on the chlorine it turns into HCl (hydrochloric acid) and starts to corrode your engine. At least one highly promoted oil additive ran foul of the FTC because of this problem.

This is why one person can claim that the ball test didn't work and another to claim it did work... with the same product... and yet both could be right.

As always the devil is in the detail.

The best way to figure out what works is usually to look for proper testing... and to carry out testing as the companies suggest: Each company knows which tests work best with its products.

A competitor is not interested in being fair when it tests (it is looking for ways to show its product is superior): What would be the point of showing that another product is superior? Thus you should never rely on a competitors tests without asking "What didn't they mention?" Always give the other company the right of reply.

Always try to figure out what the limitations of a product are. Most manufacturers never mention these... but competitors might. Once you understand how things work you can often combine two or more products that work together. Often that effect is synergistic (the sum of the whole is greater than the parts).

Surprisingly despite the claims ~99% of companies have no testing on their web sites. Why is this so?

[HAHA]

Interesting article about friction on NextBigFuture:
Engine Friction can be overcome for 18% fuel efficiency gains in 5-10 years and up to 61% in 15-25 years

There are 612 million cars in the world today. The average car clocks up about 13,000 km per year, and in the meantime burns 340 litres of fuel just to overcome friction, costing the driver EUR 510 per year.

Of the energy output of fuel in a car engine, 33% is spent in exhaust, 29% in cooling and 38% in mechanical energy, of which friction losses account for 33% and air resistance for 5%. By comparison, an electric car has only half the friction loss of that of a car with a conventional internal combustion engine.

Annual friction loss in an average car worldwide amounts to 11,860 MJ: of this, 35% is spent in overcoming rolling resistance in the wheels, 35% in the engine itself, 15% in the gearbox and 15% in braking. With current technology, only 21.5% of the energy output of the fuel is used to actually move the car; the rest is wasted.

.....

A recent VTT and ANL study shows that friction in cars can be reduced with new technologies such as new surface coatings, surface textures, lubricant additives, low-viscosity lubricants, ionic liquids and low-friction tyres inflated to pressures higher than normal.

Friction can be reduced by 10% to 50% using new surface technologies such as diamond-like carbon materials and nanocomposites. Laser texturing can be employed to etch a microtopography on the surface of the material to guide the lubricant flow and internal pressures so as to reduce friction by 25% to 50% and fuel consumption by 4%. Ionic liquids are made up of electrically charged molecules that repel one another, enabling a further 25% to 50% reduction in friction.

[oil pan 4]

I have used PTFE in engines before.
The one where I used it the most was my 6.5L diesel engine build.
I sparyed the main and rod bearing shells with a light coat of remington dry PTFE spary, then put a fairly thick coat on the injector pump driver gear and used a PTFE and wax "dry chain" lub on the timing chain.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by HAHA

Interseting article about friction on NextBigFuture:
Engine Friction can be overcome for 18% fuel efficiency gains in 5-10 years and up to 61% in 15-25 years...

Part of the BMW Efficient Dynamics stuff is a significant reduction in mechanical losses due to friction, as well as things like stop-start. Not sure if they use coatings and PTFE specifically though.

[320touring]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Part of the BMW Efficient Dynamics stuff is a significant reduction in mechanical losses due to friction, as well as things like stop-start. Not sure if they use coatings and PTFE specifically though.

I'd wager at least some of that is down to the 0w30 Castrol edge fully synth they stick in most things

at £15 A LITRE it had better be magic!

[curiosity]

Some army tests:

http://xcelplus.com.au/docs/army/forthood.pdf

Tests

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...if it ain't already *in* the oil from the factory, it don't need to be added!

...years ago, the U.S.Army Automotive-Tank Command tried such additives and deemed they were not worth the added co$t and effort...since I participanted in those tests ('72-'82 at Yuma Proving Grounds) I've never used them personally.

[curiosity]

Hi,

Some Honda motorcycles used to chew out cams very rapidly in the 80's.

At the time Honda insisted that you shouldn't use any additive in their bikes... despite the fact that the cams were a warranty issue and obviously had a problem.

Later on Honda bought out their own oil additive... and suddenly it was OK to add an additive to your bike. Their additive worked... but nobody else's did?

Companies will always run behind the technology and often won't respond until a problem forces them to do so.

If you have a problem or you wish to avoid one it doesn't hurt to investigate the options?

:-)

[Goldenstate]

Years ago a friend had a small truck with 4 cylinder engine and a 5 speed transmission. The truck had about 150K miles on it when the transmission began to make some serious noises. The problem was diagnosed as a failure of some bearings. Not having enough money for new bearings and the labor to put them in, he figured he had nothing to loose and everything to gain with some Slick 50 designed for transmissions. He made the small investment and dumped it in the transmission. The results were dramatic. The nasty bearing noises vanished in a few days and he ran the truck for another 50 K miles with no further trouble.

After seeing positive results with my friends transmission, I later had an issue with a power steering pump starting to growl when making turns. Time to replace the pump was not at hand and money was also a problem. I decided to try the Slick 50 route to buy some time. I extracted some hydraulic fluid from the power steering pump and poured the Slick 50 into a happy new home where I hoped it would work as well for me as in the transmission of my friend. The noise immediately vanished and I drove the truck with the power steering pump for almost a year before the noise started to return. By that time almost 12 K miles had passed and I had the time to replace the pump.

[blownoiler]

I decided to try the Austalian version of slick 50 back in the year 2001, we have a product called "Nulon engine treatment" along with another 5 or so Nulon additives for various applications. PTFE is the active ingredient in their range of engine products.
So, my ford 6 had started to sip a bit of engine oil, I put up with it for a while, but it gradually got worse and was chewing through nearly 1 litre every 1000 kays (3 fills of lpg,) (1 weeks driving). I decided to try out the Nulon worn engine treatment as I didn't have much to lose if it didn't work! I had a steering column mounted vacuum gauge hooked up to the engine for tuning purposes, and knew the car well. I have to say that the product did what the company claimed it would, the vacuum gauge showed an improvement at hyway cruise speeds, only the width of the gauges needle, but a definite change. The temp gauge dropped about the same amount, and the oil use went down to about a litre every 4-5000 kays, (that saved me some cash!), plus the engine ran quieter, I still have that ford in my backyard, it was decommissioned a couple of years ago after being passed around to some family members. The speedo broke at 4hundred and something k/m's a few years ago, I don't know the total mileage (kilometerage?) travelled, and can throw a battery into it tomorrow and it still runs just fine. I usually throw a bottle of their product into my engine at service intervals.

[HAHA]

It's not a huge mystery why manufacturers do not deliver their products with PTFE treatments or similar. This has to do with break-in. Almost all mechanical contraptions need to break in to reach peak efficiency. Since additives effectively halt or delay wear, they will prevent break-in. Break-in also takes a while (I'd guess 20 hours of loaded run time is a bare minimum) so it's just not economically feasible to do treatments from factory.