Tell my buddy not to use Lucas Oil Stabilizer.

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I know it's not a good product. I remember seeing it foam on this site. Could you please tell him the other downsides to using it? I'm not too familiar.

I'll show him this thread after your done.
Thanks!
 
I believe someone had a VOA done on it a while back and the results were nothing more than a thick oil with a weak additive package.
 
One thing I've learned From being apart of bitog is that any additive isnt necessary. Except my opinion BTW. Marvel mystery in engines that need short oci to achieve cleaner engines due to lack of maintenance. And I have seen proof and enough comments about lube guard for a transmission that I will use that. But if you take care of your ride you'll never need the foolish overpriced nonsense. I have used Lucas trans fluid in my Saturn and its the only Lucas product I will use. So my point is don't use it its not needed.
 
I've posted this before but I think it might be worth repeating here. Lucas Oil Stabilizer has its uses in the used car market. If someone is trying to unload a knocking, smoking, pig, of a car LOS might just be the ticket. A dealership I worked for added it to bad trades to unload them onto a wholesaler we did business with. A few of these treasures made it to the used car department too.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I've posted this before but I think it might be worth repeating here. Lucas Oil Stabilizer has its uses in the used car market. If someone is trying to unload a knocking, smoking, pig, of a car LOS might just be the ticket. A dealership I worked for added it to bad trades to unload them onto a wholesaler we did business with. A few of these treasures made it to the used car department too.


Ditto... Old and worn, mistreated engines may live another day on this stuff, until the next victim is found.
 
I read somewhere that Lucas Oil Stabilizer is made from the stuff the oil refineries can't sell. They sell it for pennies/gallon. I think you can get it for free from the refineries if you take a truck load of the stuff.
 
Why would someone obsessed over these useless oil additives (comprised of either stoddard solvent, high VI gp-1 oil, and/or chlorinated paraffins) is really beyond me.

My take is that if an engine needs fixing, fix it right; if it costs too much to fix it right, consider alternative means of commute (public transit, bicycle, etc.)?


Ohhh! I get it! It's main audience is for those avg joe motorists!!!!

*sarcasm on*

Q.

**hindsight: I do live 30miles from downtown and bike to work during summer time; other times I take train to commute back and forth to work. I only need to use my car during weekends to run errands**
 
Originally Posted By: hardcore302
I know it's not a good product. I remember seeing it foam on this site. Could you please tell him the other downsides to using it? I'm not too familiar.

I'll show him this thread after your done.
Thanks!
What is his goal?

In any case, none of us can home-brew better oil than the oil company chemists can blend to meet a certain price point. If you want better oil, buy better oil. By the way, oil does not need "stabilizing." I've never had unstable oil.
 
My whole deal with the oil thickeners is that it is easier (and cheaper) to just run a thicker oil.
A high mileage 10w40 of any flavor is going to have Better Additives and probably a better cold pour point than a 10w30 with Lucas added.

Lucas only dilutes the oil additive package, and oh btw, have you seen the video on the Main BITOG site about LOS making gear oil FOAM?

If you feel the need for a "Thickener" there are several made by reputable companies, and they have good additive packages. One that comes to mind is Schaeffer's #132 Moly EP Oil Treatment. You can do a search here and find out more about it.

I've used it on my truck that I only use for projects that I NEED a truck for. The Truck sees maybe 1,200 miles a year.

However, I decided that running a thick 10w30 was better than the $7 oil treatment. I still have a few in my stash, but I'm not itching to use it.

For $17 I can get any High Mileage oil I want, add the $10 for LOS and that is $27 right there.
For that same $27 I can get Mobile 1 10w40 High Mileage, a truly awesome formulation of Synthetic oil and High Mileage additives.

The choice is yours:
Dino oil with a thickener (that dilutes the additives the protect and clean his engine) and a horrible pour point in cold weather?
Or Synthetic oil with proven High Mileage additives (that's known for cleaning and stopping leaks) along with an pretty good pour point for a 40 weight?

It is your buddies ride. Hopefully he plans on selling it for scrap instead of passing it off to some 16 year old who busted their rear trying to find a good deal.
 
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I signed up to this board for this thread. A lot of posts here are completely missing the point of this product and I am guessing a lot of people posting comments don't even use Lucas oil stabilizer. Personally, I run it in every gas engine I own.

Here's why:

If you every opened a bottle of Lucas, the first thing you notice is it's like liquid string cheese. It absolutely sticks to everything. There is a reason for that. It stays up in the motor after all the oil has drained down to the pan. You know that 5 seconds of ticking when you start you vehicle up after it sat all night in the cold, you don't hear that with Lucas because all your parts are still lubricated. With the [censored] viscosity of oil these days, that's important.

I've torn down race motors that have ran Lucas in them and it's a monumental pain in the butt. Every part touched by oil has a sticky, oily film all over them. While annoying, it means it's working.

And here is the exact reason I run Lucas in everything I own. In my days before children and mortgage payments, I use to be a hardcore quarter mile bracket racer. I had a 9 and a half second nova running a 504 big block. Again, I ran 2 quarts of Lucas in it faithfully. One race, I launched the car and my AutoMeter oil warning light went on and stayed on. It was the semi-finals so I stayed in the pedal the entire quarter mile. Light still on, I drove it a quarter mile back to the pit. I figured it was the sending unit because I was sure with no oil pressure the motor would have self destructed by now. Spent about another 5 minutes in the pits running the car trying to figure out the problem. Determined that I indeed had no oil pressure. (The pump pickup had fallen into the pan) Tore the engine down that weekend and had one scarred bearing, that is ALL that was wrong.

Why.....because Lucas stayed in the motor and lubricated even with ZERO oil pressure. I saved my 10 thousand dollar engine.

Now you understand why I swear by this stuff. Is it magic in a bottle? no. Will it fix your already abused and worn out motor? no. Will it save some wear and tear and make your engine last longer, yes.

There is a reason this product went from obscurity to being able to afford putting their names on football stadiums and sponsoring Nascar drivers. There are alot of people that know this product works. People like me who can actually see what it does.
 
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^Hearing a lifter tick or not, 'less' engine noise relative to use of LOS/thicker oil vs thin, doesn't mean wear isn't occurring. Start up wear is worse with thicker oils than necessary for an engine at cold temps and being unable to flow where the oil has already drained out of the galleries over night to the pan/bottom of the sump.

Okay, so a tree falls in the forest(your engine has noisy lifters = tree falls), walk way out of range and have the tree fall again, did it still make a sound? Yes. Thicker oil simply muffles/mutes sound, doesn't necessarily 'prevent' wear by that alone. In fact, it will cause unnecessary wear by being overly viscous than needed.

If you want film lubrication to remain just add MoS2 like Lubro Moly sells, to dope up oil that doesn't have any molybdenum at all; sold at various Napa locations. That actually does something, it plates and keeps a film/protection layer between moving parts in the engine and tries to help with surface impurities. Takes several days to fall out of suspension and away from the top-end just like you say LOS has done for your racing apps.

I don't know all of the specifics, but if racing on 'street' oils you definitely 'could' have TOO THIN oils AFTER racing them so hard. You are using the wrong oil to begin with. Sure, use Lucas OR just get a thicker grade of oil(RACING oil) to begin with = problem solved.

Lucas for racing apps to fix a viscosity issue, which is present, doesn't mean street cars are having the same issues you are trying to prevent on those modified/non-street race apps. Neglected maintenance leads to engine wear, aside from factory mechanical flaws/defects, and cause more engine wear than using the 'correct' viscosity for your engine(that is to say, the correct viscosity of 'thick enough' is just that, ENOUGH thickness).

Using a thickener 'additive' with NO additives in it, not even zing, etc, is like adding water to soap which only dilutes the goods. Get a thicker grade of oil; ala step up a grade, for your racing apps.

I'd only use Lucas to gimp home for $10 instead of paying for a tow.
 
I always used Valvoline VR1 10-30 Racing oil in my race car so the "street oil" issue is moot. Also, there were motors I tore down that sat for several weeks or more and all the parts were still coated with Lucas. In fact the only way to clean the parts up was a bath in the hot tank.

I'm not a chemist, so I'm not going to debate the advantages of this chemical or that chemical. I just know what experiences I had with Lucas and wanted to share. I'm 100 percent positive that my 680 HP motor would have never survived a 7300 RPM / 9.5 second quarter mile pass with zero oil pressure had I not been running Lucas in there. I will stick with what I know.
 
Originally Posted By: Roady
I always used Valvoline VR1 10-30 Racing oil in my race car so the "street oil" issue is moot. Also, there were motors I tore down that sat for several weeks or more and all the parts were still coated with Lucas. In fact the only way to clean the parts up was a bath in the hot tank.

I'm not a chemist, so I'm not going to debate the advantages of this chemical or that chemical. I just know what experiences I had with Lucas and wanted to share. I'm 100 percent positive that my 680 HP motor would have never survived a 7300 RPM / 9.5 second quarter mile pass with zero oil pressure had I not been running Lucas in there. I will stick with what I know.


I've got a 302 in my garage that has been sitting for FOUR YEARS, the last run of oil that was in it was Mobil 1 0w40. It still has an oil film on everything, as I swiped my finger across a rocker the last time I had the valve cover off to check.
 
Drain the oil, fire it up, run it at WOT under load for 10 seconds. Then drive it around for another 5 to ten minutes. See how that works out.
 
Originally Posted By: Roady
Drain the oil, fire it up, run it at WOT under load for 10 seconds. Then drive it around for another 5 to ten minutes. See how that works out.


Why would I want to do that? Intentionally abuse it?

You alluding to a PROBLEM with your engine above, that you DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT with the oil pick-up. You are ASSUMING it was the Lucas that "saved it". However, you didn't know about the problem when it happened.

That's a very different ball of wax then suggesting somebody fire up an engine that hasn't run in four years and go WOT with it for the heck of it. They aren't even in the same ballpark.

There is nothing magical about Lucas. It is a heavy group I oil with next to no additives in it. Group I is very polar, which is why it behaves the way it does. However, a properly blended oil has anti-foaming agents, AW additives and a host of other goodies to make it perform to a "spec". Lucas doesn't perform to a spec because it is an additive, there are no spec's that it is required to meet.

There was a poster recently who mentioned driving his BMW 9 miles with no coolant in it on Mobil 1. No Lucas, and the engine was fine.

We can all pull anecdotes out of our behinds as to how well X or Y product has helped us, but without any actual data to back them up, that is all they are: anecdotes. And you don't know if the remaining ZDDP from the oil you were running (VR-1) would have protected you just as well by itself if you hadn't been running the Lucas.

I'm NOT trying to belittle your experience with the product, so please don't take it that way. I'm simply saying that we KNOW what Lucas "is" on this site, and subsequently there is a pretty good understanding of what the product is ACTUALLY capable of doing.

If you want to keep running it, that is your choice, and I'm not trying to change that.
 
Originally Posted By: Roady
Drain the oil, fire it up, run it at WOT under load for 10 seconds. Then drive it around for another 5 to ten minutes. See how that works out.

Trolling.gif
 
Well written response Overkill. One that actually has some details as to why some people don't like it. For me, it works and I will stick with it for the time being. Maybe I will browse around these forums to see what is highly regarded.

Thank you for the info you provided.
 
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