"Snake oil" working is not an easily quantifiable result. I've had Slick 50 absolutely work. I had an old turbo Daytona that would give lifter noise on start up if it had sat more than a few days. I put the Slick 50 in at an oil change and about 1000 miles later, it sat for a few days. No lifter noise on start up, and, it never made lifter noise on start up again, as long as I owned it. Did I get better milage? .. No.. Did it run cooler? .. No.. Did it have more power?... no!.. But it did what it said it would do, ( or so it would seem ) .. it left a film that didn't run down like regular oil.
Sometimes, it seems like people think "Snake oil" should equal " miracle in a can". That's not how I think it should be seen. Slick 50 claimed to reduce the wear associated with a dry engine start. It would seem to be kinda hard to see if it was effective or not. After all, what are you going to do? Say that you should've gotten 400,000 miles out of the engine, but you only got 350,000?
Snake oil is, at best, only meant to deal with a minor issue, not to resuscitate a basically dead motor.
I've used lubegard products for a transmission, they worked great. But, the transmission wasn't baked, it was just having a bad day. I had an intermittent "solenoid "A"" issue ( full line pressure on all shifts). One can of Lubegard and 500 miles late, the issue was resolved permanently.
Snake oil has it's place. It also has it's limitations.
