I hate to bump a 2 year old thread, but there seems to be a question here that deserves to be answered.
Back in 2005, the Idaho national Laboratory did a 36 month test of a very similar system. They tested bypass filters using dense cellulose (cotton) filter elements with heat evaporation of water, fuel and glycol. The test were run on buses and Chevy Tahoes. The INL determined that using these systems will reduce oil expense and waste oil production by 89% on the buses and 86% on the Tahoes.
In an OTR trucking application, if you are driving 150000 miles a year, and changing your oil every 20,000 miles, with oil costing $20 per gallon, you are spending $1500 per year on oil. Saving 89% would put an extra $1335 in your pocket, and reduce waste oil production by over 60 gallons per year.
A 40 quart (10 gallon) bypass refining system will cost you $1395 + install. This means that you will pay for the unit in the first 12 months. Then your 5 year savings will look something like this (assuming oil does not increase in price):
Year 1: Paid for Unit
Year 2: Savings $1335
Year 3: Savings $2670
Year 4: Savings $4005
Year 5: Savings $5340
Multiply that across a fleet of 10, 20, 100 truck and I can clearly see how this would be beneficial for any OTR application.
It would be difficult to argue that running an engine on clean oil all the time would increase the lifespan of the engine. In a fleet environment, another savings area would be that service time can be devoted to changing belts and hoses instead of changing oil. I do not have any hard data, but I would bet that the cost of failure of belts and hoses on the road far outweigh the instances of oil related failures on the road.
