Originally Posted By: Sam2000
Originally Posted By: dave5358
But there are no independent studies of most proprietary products, such as Techron. That doesn't mean the products don't work or even work as claimed. It does mean that manufacturers tend to keep the research results and product details confidential.
This is a misrepresentation. The SAE requires technical papers to be peer reviewed by experts. So the available technical paper including research and testing results on Techron can be relied on. But even more importantly, Techron has multiple VEHICLE manufacturer approval. This is clearly independent of the oil company and means Mercedes, BMW etc would have to stand behind any damage caused by the usage of an approved additive for unlimited mileage in the case of Mercedes CPO vehicles and 10 years for Hyundai vehicles.
The SAE paper to which you are referring was written by Chevron employees. I'm sure it's good research and an interesting read, but the conclusions should not surprise anyone - they liked Techron (and they're still working at Chevron). It also costs $24 from SAE. You can spend your money if you want to hear what Chevron thinks about its own product.
Approved by vehicle manufacturers? Molykote (Dow Corning's trade name for MoS2 in oil suspension) complies with General Motors (Opel) spec B0401264, Volkswagen specification TL52112 and B7217, General Electric's specification TIL-1117-3Ri and Pratt & Whitney's specificition PWA-36246. And, one of the first spectacular uses of MoS2 in motor oil suspension was by Rolls-Royce in their Merlin engine. Granted, the Rolls Royce supercharged V-12 water cooled Merlin was only used in airplanes but the engine application seems appropriate. Pratt & Whitney is still using it.
Still in doubt? Here's a picture of the VW distributed MoS2 tubes. Look carefully at the image - second line from the bottom - and it says
Volskwagen of America. :
Note that this product was intended by VW for use in motor oil - any motor oil - that you happened to be using in your Beetle. Vehicles with air-cooled engines suffered from serious heat issues and the motor oil took a real beating. And, speaking from personal experience, it was not unusual to find a VW dealer stocking this same product in yellow tubes with only the Dow-Corning name and logo.
Sam: The whole problem with your position is one of shifting standards:
On the one hand, you like Techron, so the standard you choose in support of Techron is that technical research done by Chevron employees is sufficient. But you are unwilling to apply this same standard to other additives which you do not favor. It is most unlikely that you will find independent technical research on the product Techron, simply because it is a proprietary product. Companies tend to keep the details of their research secret. Favorable summaries are public - details are secret.
The independent research that supports Techron is research actually done on PEA - the principal ingredient in Techron. But using that logic, there is a ton of independent research on molybdenum disulfide, going back for decades. MoS2 has been in widespread use for close to 100 years - with spectacular engine oil applications by Rolls Royce in the late 1930s and beyond. You seem to accept independent research supporting the utility of PEA, but for reasons of convenience, you are unwilling to accept independent research supporting the use of MoS2 (the chemical).
Still doubting? Go to SAE's research website and
search for molybdenum. Plan on wading through 1,398 research papers. Why would you expect less? Molybdenum disulfide (and molybdenum in other forms) is the most common industrial lubricant in use today, and for a good reason. It is slippery. It resists pressure. It resists heat. And it does all of those things better than either mineral or synthetic motor oil.
Still at SAE's website, do a search for
Techron. You will get 4 results - 2 of which deal with audio equipment and 1 deals with sunroofs. The only paper remotely relevant deals with diesel injectors. But if you search for polyether amine (PEA), the principal ingredient in Techron, you'll find much more research.
I appreciate that you like Techron. Actually, I like it too. It's a good product and does what it claims to do. But I am not so in love with Techron that it blinds me and overwhelms my thought processes so that I cannot conceive of another additive product which performs as claimed. If you want to carry on an intelligent discussion of additives such as MoS2 (or Techron), I suggest you do so on a level playing field:
1) If anecdotes and employee-run internal test results are adequate for one additive, they should be adequate for other additives.
2) If you decide to judge additives based on independent tests of their principal ingredients (and such tests results
are frequently available), then independent tests of the principal ingredients in another additive should be equally acceptable.
3) Finally, you need to accept that companies simply don't reveal proprietary details about their products nor do they reveal details of internal testing... period. There are lots of reasons for this: legal, business competition, even marketing reasons. But it's simply a fact of life. That includes Techron and Molykote and Liqui-Moly MoS2 Anti Friction. Summaries are revealed but not the actual tests.
It would also be most unusual to have an
independent study of a proprietary product (unless maybe it was paid for by the company). So, what is left? Anecdotes and endorsements. From a business marketing standpoint, this makes perfect sense - much easier to sell the image or the myth or the endorsement than to sell the hard technical details of the product.