Magnum PI

Is slick 50 engine treatment OK to use in the focus 1.6 Zetec-SE engine?.

im only asking as I used to have a 1.7 VCT Zetec Puma & and was advised not to add it, it had something to do with the bore linings in that engine...

Just double checking before buying some...

Or is the Castrol Magnatec 5W-30 oil just as good for the money?

Cheers folks

Andy

Chip

iTrader: (3)

avoid!

Magnum PI

Thanks Chip!!

oilman

Agreed, avoid!

Have a read of this, it is a bit old now but is just as relevent as now as it was back then.

A WORD OF CAUTION ON ADDITIVES!

This is the transcript of an AA article published in Motor May 10th 1986.

The widely-advertised oil additive Slick 50 has been soundly slammed by the AA’s Technical Services.
The AA claim that their tests show Slick 50 provides no fuel savings when it is added to a cars engine oil – and there is no evidence of any other benefits under normal operating conditions.
The AA have made no press or public announcement of their report, but have produced a leaflet for the benefit of any paid-up members who apply for one. An AA member on Motor’s staff applied for a report in the normal way.
The report states that whilst there is no evidence the product will do harm to the engine, one good point is that most of it will be very rapidly removed by the oil filter. “At about Ł12 per treatment”, say the AA, “it is a very expensive way of coating your oil filter element”.
The AA performed tests by taking three identical cars and carefully running them in, splitting the driving equally among their test drivers. Oils were changed at 1500 miles, the cars were run a further 500 miles to stabilise the oils’ viscosity, the cars’ tuning was carefully checked and steady speed fuel consumptions and power outputs were measured.
The report says: “The procedure is so sensitive that, for instance, leaving the headlamps of the car switched on will make a nonsense of the results due to the extra drag of the charging system”.
Engineers added Slick 50 to two of the cars in the recommended way at 3000 miles.
After a further 2000 miles, further dynamometer tests were carried out. “One car should show the sort of gradual change expected of a car in good condition” says the report, “whereas two should show a noticeable improvement . Here came the big disappointment. After our several months of careful testwork, we could not distinguish any difference between the three cars.”
The AA claimed that all cars were performing well, but performance was remarkably consistent , within a few percent.
The AA say that a detailed examination of the claims made for the product will explain what happens when Slick 50 is added to an engine. Of one gallon of petrol burnt in an engine, says the report, some 60 percent of the energy will be lost as heat from the exhaust and cooling system. That leaves 40 percent and some 25 percent is used to drive the car and its accessories. The remaining 15 percent goes to losses such as pumping air into the engine (6 percent) and some 9 percent is lost as engine friction. Of that 9 percent, 6 percent is lost in churning the oil and only 3 percent of the total input goes into the sort of “boundary” friction that a solid lubricant could affect. “If tests of Slick 50 did show a 16 percent decrease in this friction, as claimed in current advertisements”, says the report, “it would only affect the car’s overall consumption by a half of one percent”.
The AA also claim that their tests show there is no evidence that Slick 50 produces a surface layer on the engine wearing surfaces, let alone one that could last for 100,000 miles.

On questioning John Rowland, Silkolene/Fuchs Chief R&D Chemist for 40 years about additives, I received the following reply.

Quote:

The AA report encapsulates my opinion of Slick 50, it is an expensive way of blocking your oil filter, Believe me, it does precisely nothing beneficial. It has been proven time and time again that it just blocks oil filters and oilways.

For all other “magic” additives, most are based on 1930’s technology corrosive chlorinated paraffins. (synthetic anti-seize compounds originally made 70 years ago. They are cheap, toxic and corrosive. We use them in certain types of cutting oil!) Do not touch them with somebody else’s bargepole!

UCL’s on the other hand can be useful. After all, 2-strokes in effect run entirely on UCL. So……the best UCL’s are 2-stroke oils! I always tell people to use a decent 2-stroke at 0.5% or 1%, because they are superior to the UCL’s sold as UCL’s if you get my drift. A litre of Super 2 Injector or Comp-2 will be better than a cupful of cheap mineral oil dyed red (no prizes for guessing the name) any day.

Vee engines (twins, to V8’s) benefit from UCL’s because the upper walls of the RH cylinder bank, looking from the front, always run dry. Think about it!

Unquote:

So, there you have it.

Cheers

Guy

Mark_

my mums other half bought an oil treatment off one of the shopping channels for his daewoo which is meant to line the bores and help the oil cling to the vital parts.
I advised him against adding anything to engine oil, if it was meant to be in there it would come with it.

however he didnt listen, he added it to the oil.
a few months later he phoned me saying the car was popping and backfiring.
after having a look at it and checking the normal things I removed the cam cover to find the cam lobes at the cambelt end had worn down so much that they were completely round so the valve werent opening.
I guess the stuff he added to oil must have thinkn'd the oil so much it starved the cam of oil.
expensive lesson to learn.
not sure what the name of the additive he used but ill ask him sunday when im round there

oilman

I had a bit of a look at a couple of the oil thickening additives a few weeks ago and I found the viscosity figures of one of them. It worked out that if that was mixed with 5L of 10w-40, it would make the oil into at least a 10w-60 ie way to thick for most engines. When I say at least a 10w-60, the viscosity of the additive was described as 'in excess of', so realistically the oil could end up as a 20w-70, not a grade you see often, or ever, as it's just too thick.

tabetha

There's even more crap given out, by oil companies than this, there is no reason oils couldn't last 100,000 miles if developed from different stocks, as has been shown time and time again.
tabetha

oilman

Like the link you gave us to some miracle oil company a while back? Can't remember the name of the company, but I believed very little of what they said and a couple of people I discussed it with didn't believe their claims either. I can't remember, where you the person that gave us the link to the white oil company, or was it the one with the cars that have been going for years and years without changing the oil, just topping it up?

Just wondering, what do the super long life oils do with the combustion by products, things that make the oil dirty and less efficient? If the oil is in the car for 100k, that's roughly 10 times the average service mileage, so the oil has 10 times the amount of dirt to deal with. Not really a great idea as a lot of modern cars on longlife schedules are having sludge build ups and that's with 20k service schedules. That's due more to the additive package rather than the basestock. They could add more and more additives to stop the sludge, but a large component of the oil still needs to be basestock rather than just additives, so with the super long life oils, the basestock may well last 100k, but the additives are likely to have been used up long before then leading to sludge build ups etc.

How do these super oils stand up to race/track use and heavily modified engines?

Mark_

what about engine flush's? some people say not too use them as they damage the shells. is there any truth in this?

I tend too use a flush once a year and it does seem to bring out alot of crap but often wonder if im doing the right thing

oilman

Dont use flushes, they can do more harm then good. Quality oil and regular changes, all will be tip top.

Cheers

Guy

Mark_

cheers for that. atleast i know now

oilman

I suggest against using them. Yes, they do remove a lot of crap most of the time, but most of what comes out is harmless deposits. The real problem that can occur is not what comes out, but what stays behind. There will be trace of the flush in the fresh oil, but the worst thing is that the flush may not remove all the deposits, just loosen them. The fresh oil goes in after flushing and the engines run for a while, the deposits that are loose may then break free, meaning there are hard bits in the oil. Not really what you want.

Cheers

Tim

Magnum PI

i tell you what, you certainly learn something every day being on here, this is just unbelievably useful.

New motto is "if in doubt give the folks on the PF forum a shout!!"

Thinking about it, if these additives really arn't worth the claims that the marketing would have you believe and do more harm than good, how the hell can they get away with continuing to trade, surely they're trading under false pretences.....

botters

iTrader: (2)

a mate of mine in a garage local to me siezed an audi a4 tdi after using a forte engine flush in it, upon removal of the sump the strainer on the pick up pipe was completley blocked
ive never used a flush since

oilman

I really have no idea. I guess the courts have plenty to do already and no one has really made a fuss about it yet (like the BBC are now doing with the magic elastic bands). If Advertising Standards or whatever they are called now don't know that the additives are rubbish, there's no reason to take them to court. Various companies have been fined heavily in the US though.

oilman

That's the problem. Many people may use it without issues, but then someone may have a seriously expensive thing happen due to the flush