Oil additives of the past and present

[Michael_P]

I have never been a huge additive fan, thought I must admit over the years, I have used them on occasion for various reasons (ignorance being one). But nothing in the past 10 years or so. It seems back in the day you had SLOB, VSOT, VSET, STP loaded with the good stuff. There was a host of additives that would boost the add pack of a weak oil, had good TBN and no chlorinated paraffin. It seems today, 99% of all additives actually harm the oil more than help. There are a few exceptions (GM EOS or Red Line comes to mind), but they are expensive. I remember years ago, you could buy VSOT for $5 on sale and it boosted ZDDP, moly and calcium nicely and you could dose it and make a bottle last a few oil changes. Certain additives were always snaky like anything with PTFE, but it seems today, the claims and the prices have gotten ridiculous.
These days, I don't buy additives, but if I have time to kill, I still read the back of the bottles on the additives for fun. Usually while I am doing this, a customer or employee will approach me and tell me which one they use. They are very passionate about it too.

 

[simple_gifts]

Did you read up on Schaeffers #132?

 

[toneydoc]

I always throw in a little bit of JD while I am doing an oil and filter change.
Makes my engine run nice and smooth

 

[old1]

What is JD?

 

[147_Grain]

Neither myself or my engines consume JD (Jack Daniels).

 

[Michael_P]

I did not read on Schaeffers #132. I did before I posted though. Nice moly numbers. Even though I have never used a Schaeffers product, I've always wanted to. Good stuff.

 

[Donald]

Come on lets discuss MMO. Its from the past but still with us unchanged.

 

[Donald]

There are videos on YouTube about people doing an oil change and dumping in a few QTs of MMO from a gallon jug. Yikes.

 

[CourierDriver]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Come on lets discuss MMO. Its from the past but still with us unchanged.
I have a gallon of MMO now. It does get me almost 2 more miles to the gallon in the Buick. I drive a lot between Cookeville and Chattanooga, mountain and such.
I add it to oil and gas, engine is fine..

 

[3800Series]

I'm not a passionate user of additives I believe they have there place. I do think they do harm for the most part but I feel that is international. If you buy a used car and the previous owner didn't keep it up on maintance like oil changes then yes I think additives can help there.

Solve all problems? No but I feel its safe enough to use on occasion. Petroleum Engineers formulate products over time. They want something that can clean a engine but not damage it in the long run.

However if the engine was poorly cared for and it has sludge regular OCI can't always fix that. So yes I see additives helpful in some cases. I just don't see many company's that are willing to put out an aggressive cleaning oil that's safe in the long run.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: Michael_P
I have never been a huge additive fan, thought I must admit over the years, I have used them on occasion for various reasons (ignorance being one). But nothing in the past 10 years or so. It seems back in the day you had SLOB, VSOT, VSET, STP loaded with the good stuff. There was a host of additives that would boost the add pack of a weak oil, had good TBN and no chlorinated paraffin. It seems today, 99% of all additives actually harm the oil more than help. There are a few exceptions (GM EOS or Red Line comes to mind), but they are expensive. I remember years ago, you could buy VSOT for $5 on sale and it boosted ZDDP, moly and calcium nicely and you could dose it and make a bottle last a few oil changes. Certain additives were always snaky like anything with PTFE, but it seems today, the claims and the prices have gotten ridiculous.
These days, I don't buy additives, but if I have time to kill, I still read the back of the bottles on the additives for fun. Usually while I am doing this, a customer or employee will approach me and tell me which one they use. They are very passionate about it too.

I bought several bottles VSOT and used about 1/2 oz per quart, a bottle lasted 3-4 OCI's. I ran out of VSOT and now I use Lubro Moly MOS2, I use the same dosage of 1/2 oz MOS2 per quart.

 

[jk_636]

Originally Posted By: Donald
Come on lets discuss MMO. Its from the past but still with us unchanged.


One of the best fuel and oil additives out there. I can across this video earlier. Note that MMO and the filter he is using saved his motor.

http://youtu.be/mwAkvZf437Y

 

[Michael_P]

I picked up a few bottles of VSOT on clearance at NAPA years ago for a buck each, but I too have run out.

Good call HTSS_TR. And at $8.24 a bottle of Lubro Moly MOS2 on Amazon, that's good to know if I ever need a moly boost. I saw a bottle of Liqui Moly MoS2 Anti-Friction Engine Treatment which might be similar to Lubro Moly MOS2, but was way more money at the dealership.

I went back and Googled some VOA's. VSOT had ZDDP and Moly whereas Lubro Moly MOS2 has no ZDDP, but thats not a biggie for me.

 

[TallPaul]

I still have about 14 pints of SLOB (that is CD2 Street Legal High Performance Oil Boost) which has 4700 ppm zinc, 4300 ppm phosphorus, and 7800 ppm calcium, and is 28 cSt @ 100 C.

 

[84zmyfavorite]

MMO is what i want to soak the cylinders of my Girlfriends 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokees 4.0 with, and combine one quart MMO with five quarts Rotalla 15w-40 for its sump.

 

[gregk24]

The only oil additive that I have ever used was Seafoam. I bought it at Walmart and put about half a can in the crank case then drove maybe 5 miles to my local oil change shop and had the oil changed. This was before I knew what I know now. Not sure it helped anything, and I hope it hurt nothing.

 

[GaleHawkins]

gregk24 I use Seafoam in the same way. It will make the oil get darker but it could just be flushing crud from the oil filter. Maybe some day I will change the filter first and see if it still makes it darker.

Now we are trying to run Archoil AR9100 full time pouring it in right after each oil change. It is both a non solvent cleaner and a friction modifier. Our cost is about $12 for a 5 quart engine by buying it by the gallon.

We now sometimes change out filters only if the oil starts to darken much in gas engines that we buy used. That seems to be a cheap way to clean up an engine. The 1989 429 in the Ford F700 truck had really old dirty oil when we bought it and started using Rotella 5W-40 Synthetic. After 200 miles the oil was almost black so we changed the filter only and it cleared up then got dark again but after the third filter it stayed relative clean looking for a few years. We put 1000 miles on it over 4 years.

When I was a kid Dad bought a 1962 Ford 801 gas tractor. It only saw 10W-30 Supreme Standard motor oil (very high end oil in that era). It never saw any additives and was changed every 100 hours. At rebuild time it was very clean from head to crankcase.

Take way from the tractor story if one from the start uses quality oil and changes it per maker it seems the use of additives are more for the mind of the owner than the moving parts of the engine.

The reason we see advertisements is because they make us buy stuff.

 

[krismoriah72]

Past:

Marvel Mystery oil- It was designed in 1923 to unclog jets and maintain cleanliness of the Marvel carburetors due to lead in the gasoline.

Seafoam - invented by a fisherman in the 1930s that was tired of his gas being stale in his outboard motor. He sold his product in beer bottles and mason jars to begin with.

STP oil treatment- Founded by 3 businessmen in the 50s, studebaker used it as a marketing gimmick and it took off..marketing led to racing and stickers...and everyone used it. It has been bought and sold many times, now its fuel additive is competing with Techron in Marathon gas.

Slick 50- Teflon additive marketed in the 1990s (no comment here).

Duralube- Clorinated Paraffins marketed in the 1990s (no comment here).

Present:
Lucas Additives- Founded by a trucker Forrest Lucas in the 90s. He was tired of trucking so he bought a bunch of addtives and with no education concocted a forumula to sell to truckers to stabilize the oil. Now you cannot enter or leave an autozone or advance or napa without being hassled to buy Lucas. Their marketing team is fantastic.

2 Stroke oil TCW3- diesel and gasoline car/truck owners are adding this to their fuel tanks. There is no marketing that I know of to support this. No company is endorsing this. Each forum poster has their own brew and recommendation along with claims.

I dont have a studebaker, an outboard motor, a marvel carburetor, i dont use leaded gas, or an over the road truck that needs the oil stabilized...but i have bought and used every one of the above marketing wonders. There are videos and stories about miracles, as well as naysayers on each and every product.

 

[Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Donald
There are videos on YouTube about people doing an oil change and dumping in a few QTs of MMO from a gallon jug. Yikes.



You sure do not like MMO. In all of the instructions that I have seen for using MMO it is recommended that people replace 20% to 25% of the motor oil with MMO. It should be common sense to anybody that it is unacceptable to replace most or all of the motor oil with MMO.

 

[GaleHawkins]

We got the oil changed in the 2003 GM 5.3L at 137K miles that has had the oil pressure relief valve issue that can be a known GM issue. I ran 1/2 can of Seafoam a couple years ago and got the No Oil Pressure on hot restarts to go away. Then we ran Mobil 1 High Mileage for one change then regular Mobil 1 the last time.

This was the video that let me understand the relief valve issue.

Today I went to Motor Craft Semi blend 5W-30 and added 6 oz of Archoil AR9100 cleaner/friction modifier and drove it 130 miles with 70 miles of interstate at about 3200 RPM (third gear). The oil pressure hand range was 55-65 PSI when running at 3200 RPM on cruise but it did settle down a lot by the end of the 3200 RPM driving. There were a few WOT take offs today when there was no traffic behind me.

I am hoping the full time non solvent cleaner AND friction modifier in the AR9100 will prevent this GM weakness from ever being a problem in this engine again. The wife drives it the same way all of the time so the range of travel is less than on WOT take offs where it shifts at around 5500 RPM. That was how I triggered the issue initially after I took it to get the oil changed and I had not driven it for about one year.

Hopefully keeping the pressure relief valve that is easy to see/understand in the video clean and super slick will do the trick. I think because the way the oil pressure dash gauge was jumping around today the pressure relief valve was close to wanting to hang OPEN again on HOT restarts in our case. When it would cool the spring would reseat it I guess thankfully. If it hangs open then remove and replace is about the only option.

It is in weird cases like these GM oil pump pressure relief valve issues that makes me interested in additives like Archoil AR9100 at is commonly used in the 6.0 and 7.3L Ford diesel engines that can have sticking fuel injector issues called Stiction.