Perhaps the final word on oil additives...

[Ugly3]

lcd - What resistance do you run into when trying to sell LC to large fleet users (JB Hunt, Roadway, Schneider, etc)?

It seems obvious that it would be in their best interest to use your products as there would be significant cost savings to them.

 

[fuel tanker man]

Ugly3,

That's a good point. I manage a small portion of a 300+ truck fleet. We use Rotella 15W40 (I've got a bug in their ear about Delo 400)

.

We change oil every 25,000 right now. We used to go with shorter drain intervals but didn't see any real benefit.

How long might ten gallons (sump capacity) of Rotella 15W40 last with the Lube Power additive? How much of the additive would it require, and--more importantly--how much would that amount of Lube Power cost?

I don't know what Caterpillar says about using longer drain intervals. We may have warranty concerns. We've got a 300K mile engine warranty right now, and generally run our engines 500 to 600 thousand before trading in the trucks.

Dan

 

[salesrep]

I would guess it would be the same type of resistance that I run into. As a rule of thumb a fleet has to go out 50% longer with drains to cost justify Schaeffer's. Not including any mpg or better proctection advantages. You must show them they will actually save money by extending drains.labor,filter,driver time, disposal. Not including any mpg or better proctection advantages.One way is to get them to test a handful of trucks thru an oil analysis program.We have fleets averaging 65k intervals and saving a lot of money. The concept is the same.
You will not void warranties as long as an oil analysis program is in place. Despite what the manu rep may attempt to tell you.

 

[Ugly3]

Fuel Tanker Man & Salesrep - Thanks for the great information.

 

[LCD]

Here's another link to our site showing oil purchases by a customer before and after the use of LC/FP.

http://www.lubecontrol.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=35#35

 

[LCD]

quote:

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Originally posted by Ugly3:
lcd - What resistance do you run into when trying to sell LC to large fleet users (JB Hunt, Roadway, Schneider, etc)?

It seems obvious that it would be in their best interest to use your products as there would be significant cost savings to them.

---

Same as what sales rep stated and also we run into is getting past the reputation additives have in the marketplace. It is a tough road getting anyone to listen to us. Many companies will spend big bucks on equipment, but they cannot see or care to see that spending a little more on preventative maintence will help increase their bottom line.

Here is a great example from a statisfied fleet customer on our website, first testamonial

LCD testimonials


Fuel Tanker Man, you can always run a couple trucks with LC and see the benefit through UOA. Besides savings in oil the savings in maintence issues is the main reason to use LC and FP.

[ September 02, 2004, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: lcd ]

 

[Ugly3]

Keep in mind that maybe 80% of the public use "Quick Lube" joints for oil changes. They are not interested in etending anything - they want to be safe and have their engine run until they sell the car. Seems to be working pretty well too.

 

[kilou]

I believe in their large majority, oil additives are not so good and maybe can be harmful. However I do not believe this is the case for all of them and it is not because big oil companies with tons of $$$ have not "found" the same product as what is manufactured by a small aditive company that oil additives are necessarily bad. The premium aim of big oil companies is too make a lot of money and this is definitely not compatible with making engine oils that would avoid any wear in engines. Oil companies are tightly linked to car manufacturers and they develop things alltogether. Building a "no wear" oil is really not what wants GM or Ford because they want to sell cars. As somebody said before, efficient filtering technologies were available since a very long time but they were and are not aused even on very expensive vehicles actually because this would be a non sense for ca manufacturers.

On the other hand, oil additives companies also want to make money but they have two choices:
- do a snake oil and makes a lot of advertisment to fool people

- provide a really good product

There is not so much that take the second way but some do. Recently I've read an independant article on a french engine oil additive called Mecacyl. The test was performed on bike engines and oil analysis were performed. The test showed that the wear in the engine was significantly reduced when the additive is used....This is a ""proof"" that some additives can be good no?

 

[TallPaul]

I think the auto companies do a pretty good job selling new cars on the basis of convincing people they have to have the latest style/model that it is unlikely that worn out engines are driving many folks to the new car lots. Therefore, the incentive to build engines that are not durable over the long term is very small.

Competition is the one factor that would keep the mainstream auto companies from building a more durable engine (say roller bearings throughout) and body (aluminum to prevent rust). Just happens the basic engine tech is pretty durable.

Oil companies do put out superior products when marketable, but on average, competition again keeps them from making too good of an oil. For example, what if a mainstream oil company put out an oil with 20 percent ester? Cost per quart would be over $3. We will see Castrol Start Up (don't know the ester percent) fall on its face unless they can bring the price down (my prediction).

 

[Tim]

quote:

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Originally posted by fuel tanker man:
http://www.vtr.org/maintain/oil-additives.html

A great article on the effectiveness of oil additives. Be sure to read every word of it.

I'll post the conclusion below for those short on time:

The major oil companies are some of the richest, most powerful and aggressive corporations in world. They own multi- million dollar research facilities manned by some of the best chemical engineers money can hire. It is probably safe to say that any one of them has the capabilities and resources at hand in marketing, distribution, advertising, research and product development equal to 20 times that of any of the independent additive companies. It therefore stands to reason that if any of these additive products were actually capable of improving the capabilities of engine lubricants, the major oil companies would have been able to determine that and to find some way to cash in on it.

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I am sorry...I did not take the time to read all the responses to this post. I may be redundant...


What nonsense. Has the writer ever run a business or been in product management for a major enterprise?

The marketplace determines what products are brought to market by voting with dollars. Case in point:

While a Sales Manager for a large chemical producer, I had products in my portfolio that would be wonderful to use as (derivatized) EP additive in lubes, but the developmental chemists wouldn't even bother with samples because the stuff was over $2/lb and would be replacing $0.75/lb stuff. They knew product management would never go for it, because they knew the market was too small. I'm talking large guys here (insert your own favorite here).

There is always something better that can be produced...remember the old engine builder saw...


Guy asked how fast the engine builder could make his car, engine builder asked "how much money you got".

Of course there are limits, but we get the point.


Tim

 

[TallPaul]

Good point Tim. The problem is the big companies make their money catering to the masses and them asses for the most part only care about price. This appears to be the reason you can't get a manual transmission in a 2004 F150; the masses want automatics.

 

[Ugly3]

The last line of the authors conclusion is: It therefore stands to reason that if any of these additive products were actually capable of improving the capabilities of engine lubricants, the major oil companies would have been able to determine that and to find some way to cash in on it.

Had it been written as follows I think it would have been correct:

It therefore stands to reason that if any of these additive products were actually capable of improving the capabilities of engine lubricants, and there were a market for the benefit, the major oil companies would have been able to determine that and to find some way to cash in on it.

My point is that there is not a strong market for improved oil performance. The typical vehicle is kept for less than 10 years, regular OCI with dino oils do a fine job and engine failure is relativly rare. Quick Lube now commands 80%+ of the oil change market and it is going up.

In 2002 full synthetic oils had a whopping 3% of the market, synthetic blends had 4%, and high milage oils had 3%. The balance, 90% was dino oil.

Who is buying the 8 to 10 year old used cars with 100,000+ miles on them? Are they will informed mechanical types who will use additives and synthetic oils to get the most life from the engine? Are they people living day to day just keeping something in the sump so the car keeps running?

 

[Terry]

427ZO6, I guess that Dyson Analysis and Molakule testing results are technically ,too tainted for you to take seriously ?

I want you and anyone else to know that Odis of LC hired us to test, just like Auto-RX did and they are the only two adds I have ever mentioned publicly because the other adds would embarrass me to have my name associated with.

Now there is a small new cutting edge lubricant company in the midwest that is attempting to get up to speed soon that I will be happy to add to both of those brand names.

Tim your comments are right on.

Auto-RX fits that "too costly " level to be used in fully formulated motor oils problem. That based on a major add companies rejection of it on price.

Lube Control is just a threat since it is low cost and would nearly eliminate the frequency of oil changes on existing lower cost motor oil formulations.

Just my observations.

 

[Mystic]

Terry, that is very interesting what you say about that Midwest lubricant company. I know you can't mention a name at this time, but can I ask-do they make motor oil or some sort of motor oil supplement, engine treatment, or engine cleaner?

Personally, I am sold on Auto-RX. It seemed to work for me. It seemed to stop a seal leak.

And since you do oil analysis I trust you to be able to determine that products such as Auto-RX, Lube Control, and Fuel Power are good or not.

I have had my oil tested once so far. I was using Schaeffer's blend (5W30), LC and Schaeffer's #132, and Fuel Power in the fuel tank. I had a real good oil analysis.

 

[Mystic]

Just one more observation. There are still people who try to keep cars and trucks running for well over 100,000 miles. If a relatively inexpensive product exists that could make this easier to achieve, then it would certainly be worth the cost to the people who try to keep their vehicles running forever.

And if Lube Control can cut oil changes in half that is a lot of money saved-certainly enough to pay for the Lube Control.

If Auto-RX helps to prevent problems that can crop up in any car or truck, that certainly helps to make the cost of the Auto-RX worhtwhile. Heck, Auto-RX may have saved me $600.00. A person could buy a lot of Auto-RX for that amount of money.

 

[Terry]

This lubricant company is spooling up to produce what I would call fully formulated cutting edge formulations that are unique or exponentially higher quality than what the average Joe can normally acquire. High quality and affordable. As far as I know they are not marketing to anyone yet and have only done racing applications under contract to date.


Like many of the companies I test for they may never make it to retail market but they have invested much in formulations and mixing/ blending capability and facilities.

This is not a add company but a custom formulating lubricant company.

I have tested some of their experimental formulations and am very impressed.

 

[novadude]

This is just a shot in the dark based on posts I have observed over the past few years, but if I had to guess, I'd say that Molakule has a hand in this new oil product Terry is talking about. Pure speculation on my part.

 

[salesrep]

Bond Jam....I mean Dude-- Novadude.

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

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Pure speculation on my part.

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No ..lube-intell

 

[MolaKule]

quote:

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The major oil companies are some of the richest, most powerful and aggressive corporations in world. They own multi- million dollar research facilities manned by some of the best chemical engineers money can hire. It is probably safe to say that any one of them has the capabilities and resources at hand in marketing, distribution, advertising, research and product development equal to 20 times that of any of the independent additive companies. It therefore stands to reason that if any of these additive products were actually capable of improving the capabilities of engine lubricants, the major oil companies would have been able to determine that and to find some way to cash in on it.

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IMHO, all but the last sentence is correct. The writer presents some solid facts but then makes a conclusion based on conjecture.

The CHEMISTS at any of the large comapnies could and would make a much better oil, but economic decisions by other departments prevent them from doing that. So the oil they formulate is a compromise between engineering economics and chemistry.

quote:

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...research and product development equal to 20 times that of any of the independent additive companies.

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Let's just clarify as to WHOM the author is speaking.

He is NOT talking about bonafide additive suppliers who supply additives to the oil manufacturers and independant formulators; rather, he is speaking about the OTC Third Party types such as Wynn's, the STP's, Rislones, etc.

However, let's keep in mind that the MAJOR's are all too happy to supply these OTC Third Party additive makers with the necessary components they need.

Back in the mid 70's, I worked for Standard Oil out of Granite City, Ill. Our Isobutylene section supplied the OCP VII for most of the major oil companies, including ourselves; much of the iso was also shipped to guess who - STP and the Motor Honey group.