How much do you value the engine in your car?

Think about it, because the life of your engine

depends in no small part on the quality of the oil you put in it. Oil is the lifeblood of your car's
engine. From the mid 80's for 8 or 9 years there was a veritable revolution in car engine oil. All
oils are no longer the same. Thanks to the increased popularity of sporty GTi's, 16 valve engines
and turbos in those years, in combination with the devastating problems of black death, the days
of one oil catering for everyone were over.
Take Castrol for example. They led the field for years with GTX. This was surpassed a few years
back by semi-synthetic and fully synthetic oils, including GTX2 and GTX3 Lightec. Now, that's
been surpassed by Formula SLX which will cost upwards of £50 ($75) for 5 litres. And most
recently, Castrol GTX Magnatec which is muscling in on the hitherto separate world of friction
reducers (and we'll deal with them later, on the additives page.).

What does my oil actually do?

An engine oil's job is primarily to stop all the metal surfaces in your engine from grinding
together and tearing themselves apart from friction, and dissipating the heat generated from this
process. It also transfers heat away from the combustion cycle and must be able to hold in
suspension the nasty by-products of fuel combustion, such as silica (silicon oxide) and acids. It
cleans the engine of such chemicals and buildups, and keeps the moving parts coated in oil.
Doing this helps minimise exposure to oxygen and thus oxidation at higher temperatures. It does
all of these things under tremendous heat and pressure and for the most part without succumbing
to fatigue or black death, the ultimate engine destroyer.

What the heck was Black Death?

Black death first appeared in the early 80's when a horrible sticky black substance was found to
be the cause of many engine seizures in Europe. Many engines were affected but Ford and
Vauxhall (GM) suffered the most. Faster roads, higher under-hood temperatures, tighter
engineering tolerances and overworked engine oils turned out to be contributors to the problem.
The oils just couldn't handle it and changed their chemical makeup under pressure into a sort of
tar-like glue. This blocked all the oil channels in the engines, starved them of lubrication and
caused them to seize. This could all happen in a matter of minutes. I don't recommend this but
you can reproduce the effect with a frying pan, cooking oil and a blowtorch. The cooking oil will
heat up far quicker than it's designed to and will turn to a sticky black tar in your pan. Either that
or it will set fire to your kitchen, which is why I said "don't do this".
Anyway, burning kitchens aside, Black Death was the catalyst for the production of newer higher
quality oils, many of them man-made rather than mineral-based.

Black death for the 21st century

There's a snappy new moniker for black
death now, and it's called sludge. The cause
is the same as black death and it seems to be regardless of maintenance or mileage. The chemical
compounds in engine oils break down over time due to prolonged exposure to high temperatures
and poor maintenance habits. When the oil oxidises, the additives separate from the oil and begin
to chemically break down and solidify, leading to the baked-on oil deposits turning gelatinous,
and that nasty compound is what is lovingly referred to nowadays as sludge. It's like black
yoghurt. What doesn't help is that modern engines, due to packaging, have smaller sumps than in
the "good old days" and so hold less oil. This means that the oil that is present in the engine can't
hold as much crap (for want of a better word) and can lead to earlier chemical breakdown.
The most common factor in sludge buildup is mineral oils combined with a lack of maintenance
by the car owner combined with harsh driving conditions. But this isn't true in all cases. For
some reason, a 2005 Consumer Reports article discovered that some engines from Audi,
Chrysler, Saab, Toyota, and Volkswagen appear prone to sludge almost no matter how often the
oil is changed.

What does sludge look like?

I was contacted by a BMW driver who's been having a particularly harsh time with sludge and
has been discussing it on the Bimmerfest forums. He posted some images of his problem and
other readers posted similarly-framed images of the same engine components in "normal"
condition. Below are two of those photos. On the left is what the cam case should look like in a
well maintained engine when photographed through the oil filler cap. On the right is what the
same type of engine looks like when suffering sludge buildup.
In this example, the consensus was that the sludge buildup was caused by an overheating engine,
oil that hadn't been changed for 20,000 miles of stop-go city driving, a lot of cold starts and a
period of about 12 months in storage without an oil change. Most of this happened before the
current owner got it.

Curing sludge
There's no hard and fast rules for curing an engine of sludge buildup. If it's really bad, flushing
the engine might be the only cure, but that could also cause even more problems. If flushing the
engine results in bits of sludge getting lodged where they can do more damage, you're actually
worse off.
It's interesting to note that some race techs have reported sludge buildup in race engines as a
result of aftermarket additives being used in conjunction with the regular oil. The chemical
composition of the additives isn't as neutral as some companies would lead us to believe, and
combined with particular types of oil and high-stress driving, they can cause oil breakdown and
sludge to appear. The lesson from them appears to be "don't use additives".

When is sludge not sludge?

Easy. When it's an oil and water emulsion from a leaking or blown head
gasket. If this happens, you get a whitish cream coloured sludge on the inside of the oil filler cap.
The filler cap is typically cooler than the rest of the cam case and so the oil/water mix tends to
condense there. So if you take the oil filler cap off and it looks like it's covered in vanilla yoghurt
or mayonnaise, you've got a blown head gasket. A surefire way to confirm this is if your oil level
is going up and your coolant level is going down. The coolant is getting through the breaks in the
head gasket and mixing with the oil. When it gets to the sump it separates out and the oil floats
on top. A slightly more accurate way to check for this condition is to use a combustion leak
tester, or block tester. If you're in America, NAPA sell them for about $45 (part #BK 7001006). If
you're in England, Sealey sell them for about £70 (model number VS0061). Combustion leak
testers are basically a turkey baster filled with PH liquid, with a non-return valve at the bottom.
To use one, run your engine for a few minutes until its warm (not hot) then turn it off. Use a
protective glove (like an oven glove) and take the radiator or reservoir cap off. Plug the bottom
of the combustion leak tester into the hole and squeeze the rubber bulb on top. It will suck air
from the top of the coolant through the non-return valve and bubble it through the PH liquid. If
the liquid changes colour (normally blue to yellow), it means there is combustion gas in the
coolant, which means a head gasket leak.
There is one other possible cause for this yellow goop : a blocked scavenger hose. Most engines
have a hose which comes off the cam cover and returns to the engine block somewhere via a
vacuum line. This is the scavenger hose which scavenges oil vapour and gasses that build up in
the cam cover. If it's blocked you can end up with a buildup of condensation inside the cam
cover, which can manifest itself as the yellow goop inside the filler cap.

VW / Audi sludge problems

While the the 1.8T engines in Audi A4's, Audi TT, VW Passat, Jetta, Golf, New Bettle, are all
very prone to sludge build-up, Audi/VW does not have an extended warranty for them from the
factory. The factory warranty is 4 year/50,000 miles but it can be extended if purchased.
Although Audi/VW now has 10,000 mile service intervals, oil changes can be done between
"services", and should be done if the vehicle is driven in heavy traffic, offroad, and non-highway
use. Also, Audi/ VW will only warrant an engine if the customer has proof of all their oil
changes. As of 2004 I belive all 1.8T engines must use synthetic oil.
So if you own one of these sludge-prone engines, what can you do? Obviously, Volkswagen Audi
Group (VAG) recommends that you use only VW/AUDI recommended oil which at the time of
writing is Castrol Syntec 5W-40. You should also keep up on your oil changes, making them
more frequent if you drive hard or haul a lot of cargo. The most important thing for the VW or
Audi owner is this: if the oil light comes on and beeps the high pitch beep that most everyone
ignores, pull over and shut the engine down immediately. Many VAG engines can be saved by
this procedure. Have the vehicled towed to a VAG dealer. Their standard procedure is to inspect
the cam bearings; if they're not scored, the oil pan will be removed and cleaned out and all the
crankcase breather hoses and the oil pickup tube will be replaced. They'll do an oil pressure test
with a mechanical gauge, and hopefully will also replace the turbo lines. Finally, the turbo will
be checked for bearing free-play. The VAG turbos run really hot even with proper oil and coolant
supply - that's why you need a good quality synthetic in them.

Toyota sludge problems

For their part, Toyota have the dubious honour of having the most complaints about sludge
buildup in their engines - 3,400 at the last count. At the time of writing there is a class action suit
going on against them. Details can be found at www.oilgelsettlement.com

Saab sludge problems

For an example of sludge in a Saab 9 5 Aero with only 42,000 miles on it, you might be
interested to read my case study on this engine, put together with the help of a reader. Our sludge
case study.

Mineral or synthetic?
Mineral oils are based on oil that comes from dear old Mother Earth which has been refined.
Synthetic oils are entirely concocted by chemists wearing white lab coats in oil company
laboratories. For more info, see the section on synthetics further down the page. The only other
type is semi-synthetic, sometimes called premium, which is a blend of the two. It is safe to mix
the different types, but it's wiser to switch completely to a new type rather than mixing.

Synthetics
Despite their name, most synthetic derived motor oils (ie Mobil 1, Castrol Formula RS etc ) are
actually derived from mineral oils - they are mostly Polyalphaolifins and these come from the
purest part of the mineral oil refraction process, the gas. PAO oils will mix with normal mineral
oils which means Joe public can add synthetic to his mineral, or mineral to his synthetic without
his car engine seizing up. The most stable bases are polyol-ester (not polyester, you fool). When I
say 'stable' I mean 'less likely to react adversely with other compounds.' Synthetic oil bases tend
not to contain reactive carbon atoms for this reason. Reactive carbon has a tendency to combine
with oxygen creating an acid. As you can imagine, in an oil, this would be A Bad Thing. So think
of synthetic oils as custom-built oils. They're designed to do the job efficiently but without any of
the excess baggage that can accompany mineral based oils.

Pure synthetics
Pure synthetic oils (polyalkyleneglycol) are the types used almost exclusively within the
industrial sector in polyglycol gearbox oils for heavily loaded gearboxes. These are typically
concocted by intelligent blokes in white lab coats. These chaps break apart the molecules that
make up a variety of substances, like vegetable and animal oils, and then recombine the
individual atoms that make up those molecules to build new, synthetic molecules. This process
allows the chemists to actually "fine tune" the molecules as they build them. Clever stuff. But
Polyglycols don't mix with normal mineral oils.

While we're on synthetic oils, I should mention Amsoil. I originally had

them down as an additive. I was wrong. I've got to say I've had no experience of the product
myself so I can't vent my spleen about it. However, there is a particularly good page with a ton of
info about it here. I recommend you pop over and read this and see what you think.
I've been contacted by Amsoil themselves and asked to point out the following:
Amsoil do NOT produce or market oil additives and do not wish to be associated with oil
additives. They are a formulator of synthetic lubricants for automotive and industrial
applications and have been in business for 30+ years. They are not a half-hour infomercial or
fly-by-night product, nor have they ever been involved in a legal suit regarding their product
claims in that 30+ year span. Many Amsoil products are API certified, and ALL of our products
meet and in most cases exceed the specifications of ILSAC, AGMA etc..... Their lubricants also
exceed manufacturers specifications and Amsoil are on many manufacturers approval lists. They
base their claims on ASTM certified tests and are very open to anyone, with nothing to hide.

It turns out that Amsoil actually have the stance that they recommend engine oil additives are
NOT to be used with their products. This will become relevant later on this page, and in the
additives section. They have a pretty good FAQ on the Amsoil website, which you can find here.

Mixing Mineral and Synthetic oils - the old and busted

concepts
For the longest time, I had this to say about mixing mineral and synthetic oils:

 If you've been driving around with mineral oil in your engine for years, don't switch to
synthetic oil without preparation. Synthetic oils have been known to dislodge the baked-
on deposits from mineral oils and leave them floating around your engine - not good. I
learned this lesson the hard way! It's wise to use a flushing oil first.
 If you do decide to change, only go up the scale. If you've been running around on
synthetic, don't change down to a mineral-based oil - your engine might not be able to
 cope with the degradation in lubrication. Consequently, if you've been using mineral oil,
try a semi or a full synthetic oil. By degradation, I'm speaking of the wear tolerances that
an engine develops based on the oil that it's using. Thicker mineral oils mean thicker
layers of oil coating the moving parts (by microns though). Switching to a thinner
synthetic oil can cause piston rings to leak and in some very rare cases, piston slap or
crank vibration.
 Gaskets and seals! With the makeup of synthetic oils being different from mineral oils,
mineral-oil-soaked gaskets and seals have been known to leak when exposed to synthetic
oils. Perhaps not that common an occurrence, but worth bearing in mind nevertheless.

Mixing Mineral and Synthetic oils - the new hotness

That's the thing with progress - stuff becomes out-of-date. Fortunately for you, dear reader, the
web is a great place to keep things up-to-date, so here's the current thinking on the subject of
mixing mineral and synthetic oils. This information is based on the answer to a technical
question posed on the Shell Oil website.
There is no scientific data to support the idea that mixing mineral and synthetic oils will damage
your engine. When switching from a mineral oil to a synthetic, or vice versa, you will potentially
leave a small amount of residual oil in the engine. That's perfectly okay because synthetic oil and
mineral-based motor oil are, for the most part, compatible with each other. (The exception is pure
synetics. Polyglycols don't mix with normal mineral oils.)
There is also no problem with switching back and forth between synthetic and mineral based
oils. In fact, people who are "in the know" and who operate engines in areas where temperature
fluctuations can be especially extreme, switch from mineral oil to synthetic oil for the colder
months. They then switch back to mineral oil during the warmer months.
There was a time, years ago, when switching between synthetic oils and mineral oils was not
recommended if you had used one product or the other for a long period of time. People
experienced problems with seals leaking and high oil consumption but changes in additive
chemistry and seal material have taken care of those issues. And that's an important caveat. New
seal technology is great, but if you're still driving around in a car from the 80's with its original
seals, then this argument becomes a bit of a moot point - your seals are still going to be subject to
the old leakage problems no matter what newfangled additives the oil companies are putting in
their products.

Flushing oils
These are special compound oils that are very, very thin. They almost have the consistency of tap
water when cold as well as hot. Typically they are 0W/20 oils. Don't ever drive with these oils in
the engine - it won't last. Their purpose is for cleaning out all the gunk which builds up inside an
engine. Note that Mobil1 0W40 is okay, because the '40' denotes that it's actually thick enough at
temperature to work. 0W20 just doesn't get that viscous! To use them, drain your engine of all it's
oil, but leave the old oil filter in place. Next fill it up with flushing oil and run it at a fast idle for
about 20 minutes. Finally, drain all this off (and marvel at the crap that comes out with it),
replace the oil filter, refill with a good synthetic oil and voila! Clean engine.
Of course, like most things nowadays, there's a condition attached when using flushing oils. In
an old engine you really don't want to remove all the deposits. Some of these deposits help seal
rings, lifters and even some of the flanges between the heads, covers, pan and the block, where
the gaskets are thin. I have heard of engines with over 280,000km that worked fine, but when
flushed it failed in a month because the blow-by past the scraper ring(now really
clean)contaminated the oil and screwed the rod bearings.

Using Diesel oil for flushing

A question came up some time ago about using diesel-rated oils to flush out petrol engines. The
idea was that because of the higher detergent levels in diesel engine oil, it might be a good
cleaner / flusher for a non-diesel engine. Well most of the diesel oil specification oils can be used
in old petrol engines for cleaning, but you want to use a low specification oil to ensure that you
do not over clean your engine and lose compression for example. Generally speaking, an SAE
15W/40 diesel engine oil for about 500 miles might do the trick.

The question of phosphorus.

Phosphorus is the key component for valve train protection in an engine, and 1600ppm (parts per
million) used to be the standard for phosphorus in engine oil. In 1996 that was dropped to
800ppm and then more recently to 400ppm - a quarter of the original spec. Valvetrains and their
components are not especially cheap to replace and this drop in phosphorus content has been a
problem for many engines. So why was the level dropped? Money. Next to lead, it's the second
most destructive substance to shove through a catalytic converter. The US government mandated
a 150,000 mile liftime on catalytic converters and the quickest way to do that was to drop
phosphorous levels and bugger the valvetrain problem. Literally.
In the US, Mobil 1 originally came out with the 0W40 as a 'European Formula' as it was always
above 1000 ppm. This initially got them out of the 1996 800ppm jam and knowledgeable
consumers sought it out for obvious reasons. Their 15W50 has also maintained a very high level
of phosphorus and all of the extended life Mobil synthetics now have at least 1000ppm. How do
they get away with this? They're not classified as energy/fuel conserving oils and thus do not
interfere with the precious government CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) ratings. (See my
section on the EPA and fuel economy in the Fuel and Engine Bible for more info on this). This
also means that they don't get the coveted ratings of other oils but they do protect your
valvetrain.

A quick guide to the different grades of oil.

Fully Synthetic Characteristics

Fuel economy savings
0W-30 Enhances engine performance and power
0W-40 Ensures engine is protected from wear and deposit build-up
5W-40 Ensures good cold starting and quick circulation in freezing temperatures
Gets to moving parts of the engine quickly
Semi-synthetic Characteristics
 Better protection
5W-30
Good protection within the first 10 minutes after starting out
10W-40
Roughly three times better at reducing engine wear
15W-40
Increased oil change intervals - don't need to change it quite so often
Mineral Characteristics
10W-40 Basic protection for a variety of engines
15W-40 Oil needs to be changed more often

So what should I buy?

Quality Counts! It doesn't matter what sort of fancy marketing goes into an engine oil, how
many naked babes smear it all over their bodies, how bright and colourful the packaging is, it's
what's written on the packaging which counts. Specifications and approvals are everything.
There are two established testing bodies. The API (American Petroleum Institute), and the
European counterpart, the ACEA (Association des Constructeurs Europeens d'Automobiles -
which was the CCMC). You've probably never heard of either of them, but their stamp of
approval will be seen on the side of every reputable can of engine oil.

The API

The API classifications are different for petrol and diesel engines:
 For petrol, listings start with 'S' (meaning Service category, but you can also think
of it as Spark-plug ignition), followed by another code to denote standard. 'SM' is
the current top grade, which recently replaced 'SL' and 'SH'. 'SH' will be found on
most expensive oils, and almost all the new synthetics. It's basically an upgraded
'SG' oil which has been tested more sternly.
 For diesel oils, the first letter is 'C' (meaning Commercial category, but you can
also think of it as Compression ignition). 'CH' is the highest grade at the moment,
(technically CH-4 for heavy-duty) but 'CF' is the most popular and is well
adequate for passenger vehicle applications.

Note about Castrol oils: Castrol have recently upgraded all their oils and for some
reason, Castrol diesels now use the 'S' rating, thus completely negating my little aid-
memoir above. So the older CC,CD,CE and CF ratings no longer exist, but have been
replaced by an 'SH' grade diesel oil. This link is a service bulletin from Castrol
themselves, explaining the situation.
The CCMC/ACEA

The ACEA standards are prefixed with a 'G' for petrol engines and a 'D' or
'PD' for diesel. Coupled with this are numerous approvals by car manufacturers which
 many oil containers sport with pride. ACEA replaced CCMC in 1996 primarily to allow
for greater read-across in test programs (eg. for viscosity, viscosity modifiers and base
oil). The CCMC specifications were G (1 to 5) for gasoline, D (1 to 5) or heavy duty
diesel and PD1 and PD2 for passenger car diesel. ACEA though have a slightly different
nomenclature they can be summarised as A for petrol, B for passenger car diesel and E
for heavy duty diesel. The ACEA grades may also be followed by the year of issue which
will be either '96, '98 (current) but coming soon is 2000.
Full ACEA specs are:
 A1 Fuel Economy Petrol
 A2 Standard performance level

 A3 High performance and / or extended drain

 B1 Fuel Economy diesel
 B2 Standard performance level
 B3 High performance and / or extended drain
 B4 For direct injection passenger car diesel engines
 E1 Non-turbo charged light duty diesel
 E2 Standard performance level
 E3 High performance extended drain
 E4 Higher performance and longer extended drain
 E5 (1999) High performance / long drain plus American/API performances. - This
is ACEAs first attempt at a global spec.

Typically, these markings will be found in a statement similar to: Meets the requirements of API
SH/CD along the label somewhere. Also, you ought to be able to see the API Service Symbol
somewhere on the packaging:
Beware the fake API symbol

Some unscrupulous manufacturers (and

there's not many left that do this) will put a symbol on their packaging designed to look like the
API symbol without actually being the API symbol. They do this in an effort to pump up the
'quality' of their product by relying on people not really knowing exactly what the proper API
symbol should look like. To the left is an example of a fake symbol - it looks similar but as long
as you remember what to look for, you won't get taken by this scam.
Amsoil are one of the biggest inadvertent offenders of the fake API symbol. Take a look at one of
their labels here on the right. See that little starburst that says "Fuel efficient formula SL-CF"? It
can say all it likes, but the fact of the matter is that this is absolutely not an API-certified SL or
CF oil. That doesn't mean it doesn't perform to those levels, but for warranty purposes, this is not
an API certified product. To be fair, some Amsoil products are API certified and they do have the
correct labelling, but their top-tier products do not. The issue of fake API labelling and non-
compliance has caused such a stir at Amsoil that they had to put an entire page up on their site
dedicated to answering this particular question. You can find it here. Basically what it boils down
to is money. Amsoil don't want to pay the $300,000 it can cost for an API certification of a single
oil formulation, and getting API certification can limit them to single vendors for some of the
raw products they use. If those vendors put their prices up or go out of business, Amsoil need to
either pass the increase in price on to the consumer, or go through the whole API thing again
from scratch.

If this is all confusing you, then rest assured that all top oils safely conform to the current
standards. What you should treat with caution are the real cheapies and those with nothing but
a maker's name on the pack. Anything below about £12 ($18) for 5 litres just isn't going to be
worth it.

A Brief History of Time API ratings

Some people have asked about the old standards, and although they're not especially relevant, some
rampant plagiarism from an API service bulletin means I can bring you all the API ratings right back from
when the earth was cooling.

Petrol Engines Diesel Engines

Category Status Service Category Status Service
 Introduced in 2006 for high-
speed four-stroke engines.
Designed to meet 2007 on-
highway exhaust emission
standards. CJ-4 oils are
compounded for use in all
applications with diesel fuels
ranging in sulphur content up to
500ppm (0.05% by weight).
However, use of these oils with
greater than 15ppm sulfur fuel
CJ-4 Current
may impact exhaust
aftertreatment system durability
and/or oil drain intervals. CJ-4
oils are effective at sustaining
emission control system
durability where particulate
filters and other advanced
aftertreatment systems are used.
CJ-4 oils exceed the performance
criteria of CF-4, CG-4, CH-4 and
CI-4.
Introduced in 2002 for high-
speed four-stroke engines.
Designed to meet 2004 exhaust
emission standards implemented
in 2002. CI-4 oils are formulated
to sustain engine durability where
CI-4 Current
exhaust gas recirculation (EGR)
is used and are intented for use
with diesel fuels ranging in
sulphur content up to 0.5%
weight. Can be used in place of
CD, CE, CF-4, CG-4 and CH-4
Introduced in 1998 for high-
For all automotive
speed four-stroke engines. CH-4
engines presently in
oils are specifically designed for
use. Introduced in
SM Current CH-4 Current use with diesel fuels ranging in
the API service
sulphur content up to 0.5%
symbol in November
weight. Can be used in place of
2004
CD, CE, CF-4 and CG-4.
SL Current For all automotive CG-4 Current Introduced in 1995 for high-
engines presently in speed four-stroke engines. CG-4
use. Introduced in oils are specifically designed for
the API service use with diesel fuels ranging in
 sulphur content less than 0.5%
weight. CG-4 oil needs to be
symbol in 1998 used for engines meeting 1994
emission standards. Can be used
in place of CD, CE and CF-4.
For all automotive
Still Introduced in 1990 for high-
engines presently in
current speed four-stroke naturally
SJ use. Introduced in CF-4 Current
but nearly aspirated and turbo engines. Can
the API service
obsolete be used in place of CD and CE.
symbol in 1996
Introduced in 1994 for severe
For model year 1996 duty, two stroke motorcycle
SH Obsolete CF-2 Current
and older engines. engines. Can be used in place of
CD-II.
Introduced in 1994 for off-road,
indirect-injected and other diesel
For model year 1993
SG Obsolete CF Current engines including those using
and older engines.
fuel over0.5% weight sulphur.
Can be used in place of CD.
Introduced in 1987 for high-
For model year 1988 speed four-stroke naturally
SF Obsolete CE Obsolete
and older engines. aspirated and turbo engines. Can
be used in place of CC and CD.
For model year 1979 Introduced in 1987 for two-stroke
SE Obsolete CD-II Obsolete
and older engines. motorcycle engines.
Introduced in 1955 for certain
For model year 1971
SD Obsolete CD Obsolete naturally aspirated and turbo
and older engines.
engines.
For model year 1967
SC Obsolete CC Obsolete Introduced in 1961 for all diesels.
and older engines.
For older engines.
Use this only when
Introduced in 1949 for moderate-
SB Obsolete specifically CB Obsolete
duty engines.
recommended by the
manufacturer.
For much older
engines with no
performance
requirement. Use this Introduced in 1940 for light-duty
SA Obsolete CA Obsolete
only when engines.
specifically
recommended by the
manufacturer.
 Grade counts too!The API/ACEA ratings only refer to an oil's quality. For grade,
you need to look at the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) ratings. These describe the oil's
function and viscosity standard. Viscosity means the substance and clinging properties of the
lubricant. When cold, oil can become like treacle so it is important that any lube is kept as thin as
possible. It's cold performance is denoted by the letter 'W', meaning 'winter'. At the other end of
the scale, a scorching hot oil can be as thin as water and about as useful too. So it needs to be as
thick as possible when warm. Thin when cold but thick when warm? That's where MultiGrade
oil comes in. For ages, good old 20W/50 was the oil to have. But as engines progressed and
tolerances decreased, a lighter, thinner oil was required, especially when cold. Thus 15W/50,
15W/40 and even 15W/30 oils are now commonplace. Synthetics can go down as far as 5W
which seemed unbeatable until Castrol came up with SLX - a 0W30 formulation! 'Free flowing'
just doesn't describe it! It's predominantly a workshop oil retailing at around £10 ($15) a litre, but
recommended for use in places like Canada in the winter. The latest offering to this 0W30
engineering miracle comes from AMSOIL.

So again: what should I buy? That all depends on your car, your pocket and how you intend to
drive and service the car. All brands claim theirs offers the best protection available - until they
launch a superior alternative. It's like washing powders - whiter than white until new Super-
Nukem-Dazzo comes out. For most motorists and most cars, a quality mainline oil is the best.
Ones which are known to be good at their job. Stuff like Castrol GTX. They're not too dear
either. Don't believe the sales hype - they all perform to the same standards once they're out of
the can and into your engine. Moving up a step, you could look at Duckhams QXR and Castrol
Protection Plus and GTX3 Lightec. The latter two of these are designed specifically for engines
with catalytic converters. They're also a good choice for GTi's and turbo'd engines. Go up a step
again and you're looking at synthetic oils aimed squarely at the performance market. To get more
money out of you, the manufacturers sell this stuff in smaller amounts which makes an oil
change more expensive.

Marine Diesels and other special

considerations.
Inland Marine Diesels (and certain road vehicles under special conditions) can, and do, glaze
their bores due the low cylinder wall temperature causing the oil (and more importantly the
additive pack) to undergo a chemical change to a varnish-like substance. The low temperature is
caused by operating under light load for long periods.
This is related to engine design, some engines being nearly immune to it and others susceptible.
The old Sherpa van diesel engines were notorious for this problem. The "cure" such as it is, is to
use a low API specification oil, such as CC. Certain engine manufacturers/marinisers are now
marketing the API CC oil for this purpose under their own name (and at a premium). You'll find
some modern engines where its' industrial/vehicle manual states API CF and the marinised
manual states API CC/CD. {Thanks to Tony Brooks for this information.}

Marine Oils.
I sometimes get asked "why are marine engine oils so expensive and why can't I just use regular
motor oil in my marine engine instead?". Well, the National Marine Manufacturers Association
Oil Certification Committee (click here for more info) introduced a four-stroke engine oil test
and standard called the 4T certification. This specification is meant to assist boaters and
manufacturers in identifying four-stroke cycle engine oils that have been specially formulated to
withstand the rigors of marine engine operation. The certification was prompted by the growing
influence of four-stroke engines in the marine market and their unique lubrication demands. So
the simple answer is that regular road-based engine oil products don't contain rust inhibitors and
won't pass the 4T certification. Lakes, waterways and the sea is a lot more aggressive an
environment for an engine to operate around than on land.
Note : the NMMA have long had a similar specification for 2-stroke oils destined for marine use,
called the TC-W3® certification.

The eBay problem

This paragraph may seem a little out of place but I have had a lot of problems with a couple of
eBay members (megamanuals and lowhondaprelude) stealing my work, turning it into PDF files
and selling it on eBay. Generally, idiots like this do a copy/paste job so they won't notice this
paragraph here. If you're reading this and you bought this page anywhere other than from my
website at www.carbibles.com, then you have a pirated, copyright-infringing copy. Please send
me an email as I am building a case file against the people doing this. Go to www.carbibles.com
to see the full site and find my contact details. And now, back to the meat of the subject....

Engine Oil Shelf Life.

I couldn't decide whether to put this in the FAQ or the main page, so it's in both, because I get
asked this question a lot. Typically, the question is along the lines of "GenericAutoSuperStore
are having a sale on WickedlySlippy Brand synthetic oil. If I buy it now, how long can I keep if
before I use it?"
In general, liquid lubricants (ie. oils, not greases) will remain intact for a number of years. The
main factor affecting the life of the oil is the storage condition for the products. Exposure to
extreme temperature changes, and moisture will reduce the shelf life of the lubricants. ie. don't
leave in the sun with the lid off. Best to keep them sealed and unopened.

Technically, engine oils have shelf lives of four to five years. However, as years pass, unused
engine oils can become obsolete and fail to meet the technical requirements of current engines.
The specs get updated regularly based on new scientific testing procedures and engine
requirements. But this is only really a concern if you've bought a brand new car but have engine
oil you bought for the previous car. An oil that is a number of years old might not be formulated
to meet the requirements set for your newer engine.

If your unopened containers of engine oil are more than three years old, read the labels to make
sure they meet the latest industry standards. If they do meet the current standards, you might
want to take the extra precaution of obtaining oil analysis before using them. An oil analysis will
check for key properties of the oil and ensure that it still meets the original manufacturing specs.
Of course the cost of getting an analysis done on old oil is probably going to outweigh going and buying
fresh stuff. So it's a double-edged sword.
As a general rule, the simpler the oil formulation, the longer the shelf life. The following is a guideline
under protected conditions:

Product Shelf Life

Base Oils, Process Oils 3 years
Hydraulic Oils, Compressor Oils, General Purpose Lubricating Oils 2 years
Engine Oils and Transmission Oils 3 years
Industrial and Automotive Gear Oils 2 years
Metal Working and Cutting Oils 1 year

The following are signs of storage instability in a lubricant:

 Settling out of the additives as a gel or sticky liquid

 Floc or haze
 Precipitates/solid material
 Colour change or haziness

Water contamination in a lubricant can be detected by a "milky" appearance of the product.

"High mileage" oils.

 M
ore and more oil companies are coming out with "high mileage" oils now, some recommended
for engines with as few as 75,000 miles on them. So what is a "high mileage" oil you ask? Well
very generally speaking, these oils have two additives in them which are more suited to older
engines. The first is normally a burnoff-inhibitor which helps prevent the oil from burning off if
it gets past an engine seal into the combustion chamber. The second is a "seal conditioner", the
exact makeup of which I'm not sure of, but it's designed to soak into seals such as head- and
rocker-cover gaskets and force them to expand. Thus if one of the seals is a bit leaky, the seal
conditioner will attempt to minimise the leak.
I've not had experience of high mileage oils myself, but a few people who've e-mailed me have
passed on various tales from it being the miracle cure to it making no difference at all. I think the
general rule-of-thumb though should be "if it 'aint broke, don't fix it." Just because your engine
has over 75,000 miles on it, doesn't automatically mean you need high mileage oil. Is the exhaust
sooty or smokey? Are you noticing oil leaks? Is the engine consuming oil? If your engine is
working fine, the exhaust is clean and you're not noticing any problems, my guess is that it
doesn't need high-mileage oil.

What about own-brands?

If you can't afford the big-name players, you could look at own-brand oils. These are usually
badged oils from one of the larger companies but sold without the name, they are cheaper. Check
the standards and grade ratings on the pack first! The example on the right is a local store in
Chelmsford in England who sell their own label oil which is bottled for them by a volume
retailer. The label tells you all you need to know.
Viscosity and Viscosity Index (VI).
The proper viscosity is the single most important criteria of a lubricating oil. The basic
performance of machinery is based on the viscosity of the lubricant. Viscosity is, if you like, the
resistance to the flowability of the oil. The thicker an oil, the higher its viscosity. The chart on the
right shows a rough guide to ambient temperatures vs oil viscosity performance in both
multigrade (top half) and single grade (lower half) oils.
Multigrade oils work by having a polymer added to a light base oil which prevents the oil from
thinning too much as it warms up. At low temperatures, the polymers are coiled up and allow the
oil to flow as it's low number (W number) indicates. As the oil heats up, the polymers unwind
into long chains which prevent the oil from thinning as much as it normally would. The result is
that at 100°C, the oil has thinned only as much as it's higher rating. Think of it like this: a 10W30
oil is a 10-weight oil that will not thin more than a 30-weight oil when it gets hot.
The viscosity index of a lubricant is an empirical formula that allows the change in viscosity in
the presence of heat to be calculated. This tells the user how much the oil will thin when it is
subjected to heat. The higher the viscosity index, the less an oil will thin at a specified
temperature. Multi-viscosity motor oils will have a viscosity index well over 100, while single
viscosity motor oils and most industrial oils will have a VI of about 100 or less.

Viscosity and oil weight numbers is quite a nauseatingly detailed topic. So if you're curious about
why a 15W50 oil is so-called, then put on the geek shield and pop over to the Viscosity Page.....

Servicing and checking

For God's sake don't skimp on either of these. You can never check your engine oil too often. Use
the dipstick - that's what it's there for - and don't run below the 'min' mark. Below that, there isn't
enough oil for the pump to be able to supply the top of the engine whilst keeping a reserve in the
sump. All oils, no matter what their type, are made of long-chained molecules which get sheared
into shorter chains in a running engine. This in turn means that the oil begins to lose it's viscosity
over time, and it uses up the additives in it that prevent scuffing between cams and followers,
rings and cylinder walls etc etc. When this happens, fresh oil is the key. And don't worry about
the engine oil turning black. It will lose it's golden-brown colour within a few hundred miles of
being put in to the engine. That doesn't mean it's not working. Quite the contrary - it means it is
working well. It changes colour as it traps oxidised oil, clots and the flakes of metal that pop off
heavily loaded engine parts. Just don't leave it too long between oil changes.

So how often should I change my oil?

You can never change your engine oil too frequently. The more you do it, the longer the engine
will last. The whole debate about exactly when you change your oil is somewhat of a grey area.
Manufacturers tell you every 10,000 miles or so. Your mate with a classic car tells you every
3,000 miles. Ole' Bob with the bad breath who drives a truck tells you he's never once changed
the oil in his car. Fact is, large quantities of water are produced by the normal combustion
process and, depending on engine wear, some of it gets into the crank case. If you have a good
crank case breathing system it gets removed from there PDQ, but even so, in cold weather a lot
of condensation will take place. This is bad enough in itself, since water is not noted for its
lubrication qualities in an engine, but even worse, that water dissolves any nitrates formed during
the combustion process. If my memory of chemistry serves me right, that leaves you with a
mixture of Nitric (HNO3) and Nitrous (HNO2) acid circulating round your engine! So not only do
you suffer a high rate of wear at start-up and when the engine is cold, you suffer a high rate of
subsequent corrosion during normal running or even when stationary.
The point I'm trying to make is that the optimum time for changing oil ought to be related to a
number of factors, of which distance travelled is probably one of the least important in most
cases. Here is my selection in rough order of importance:

1. Number of cold starts (more condensation in a cold engine)

2. Ambient temperature (how long before warm enough to stop serious condensation)
3. Effectiveness of crank case scavenging (more of that anon)
4. State of wear of the engine (piston blow-by multiplies the problem)
5. Accuracy of carburation during warm-up period (extra gook produced)
6. Distance travelled (well, lets get that one out of the way)

If you were clever (or anal) enough, you could probably come up with a really clever formula
incorporating all those factors. However, I would give 1, 2, and 3 equal top weighting. Items 1 to
3 have to be taken together since a given number of "cold" starts in the Dakar in summer is not
the same as an equal number conducted in Fargo in January. The effect in either case will be
modified by how much gas gets past the pistons. What we are really after is the severity and
duration of the initial condensation period. All other things being equal, that will give you how
much condensate will be produced and I would suggest that more than anything else determines
when the oil should be dumped.

Dammit Chris, get to the point already!

Hang on a tic - if you really want the answer, there's a couple more factors you need to take
account of: Crank-case scavenging (that's the clever term for sucking the nasty fumes back out of
the crank-case) - or lack of it - is a crucial multiplying factor affecting all the other items listed
above. As an example, the worst I've heard of was a Ford Fiesta of the mid 70s or so. It's crank-
case fume extraction was via a tiny orifice directly into the inlet manifold which obviously could
not handle any significant volume of crank-case fumes without upsetting the carburation. The car
in question had been used almost exclusively for 5 mile journeys to/from work, shopping etc,

and it had always been serviced "by the book". Despite (or
because of) this, the engine was totally buggered at 40,000 miles. Alternatively you might get a
car that by virtue of excellent crank case fume scavenging could tolerate many more cold starts
than one without.
Taking all these into consideration, my philosophy would be to totally ignore the distance and
change the oil three times a year - about November, February and May. Move these dates a bit
according to the severity of the winter. An average family car will do around 14,000 miles per
year and about 2/3 of that will fall in the May - November period. At the end of that period, the
car will have just about touched on the recommended oil change distance - but all done at
reasonable temperatures and including long distance runs during vacations and good weather.
During the Nov - Feb. period it may accumulate only 2 or 3 thousand miles, all low temperature
starts and mostly short runs. The Feb. to May period is likely to be about the same.
About 10 or 15 years ago, an article in the ANWB journal (ANWB is the Dutch equivalent of the
AA - or the AAA in the American case) reached more or less the same conclusion that distance
was not very important. In their case they applied this to their road service fleet, which typically
once started in the morning never got cold. In effect, they hardly ever changed the oil! I seem to
remember 30,000 miles between oil changes being quoted. I also seem to remember that they
had some kind of water or acid indicator attached to the end of the dipstick and went by that
rather than distance.

That's a politician's answer - you've dodged

the entire issue!

Have I? I don't know how far you drive in a year, where you live, the style of your driving or
anything else so I can't tell you what's right for your car. Personally, I changed the oil and filter in
my 1985 Audi Coupe every 5,000 miles. It had done over 150,000 miles when I sold it, wasn't
leaking and didn't consume any oil. If you must have a figure from me, then 5,000 is it.

What else happens when I change the oil

then?
Engines pump about 10,000 litres of air for every litre of fuel consumed, and along with all that
air, they suck in plenty of dirt and grit. A good air filter will stop everything bigger than a micron
in diameter - everything smaller mostly just floats around harmlessly in the 0.001inch minimum
thickness oil films that separate all the moving parts. Despite all of this, there will always be
submicron particles that get in and there will be places in the engines oilways where they will
gather. Every time you empty the oil from your sump, you're also draining this fine grit with it.

Checking the oil in your engine, and topping

up.
 Note that this
section only applies to wet sump engines - the type found in most consumer vehicles. For more
info on sump types, see Wet sumps vs. dry sumps below.
To a lot of people, this little section could be categorised by the rearranging the words "granny
eggs teaching suck your to". But you'd be surprised by the number of people that don't know how
to do even this basic task. When checking the level of oil in the engine, the car should be on a
level plane, and should be relatively cold. I've run into several people lately who insist in keeping
the crankcase topped off completely, and they invariably check the dipstick just after shutting
down the engine. Reading the oil in this way results in an erroneous reading because a quantity
of oil (usually about half a litre) is still confined in the oilways and passages (galleries) of the
engine, and takes some time to drain back into the crankcase. (On the image, the blue areas are
where oil is likely to still be running back down to the sump). On seeing what appears to be an
abnormally low level on the dipstick, these people then add more oil to the oil filler at the top of
the engine. The oilways and passages all empty, and suddenly the engine becomes over-filled
with oil, going way above the 'MAX' mark on the dipstick.

What happens when an engine is overfilled with oil?

So you topped up the engine when it was warm after getting a faulty dipstick reading, or you put
too much oil in when you changed it yourself. What's the worst that could happen? Well the
problem with this is that the next time the engine is run, the windage in the crankcase and other
pressures generated by the oil pump, etc. place a great strain on the seal on the rear main bearing.
Eventually, often much sooner than the ordinary man in the street might expect, the rear main
bearing seal ruptures, and the engine becomes a 'leaker'. If you've got a manual gearbox, this
means one thing: this oil goes right onto the flywheel and the face of the clutch disc. A lubricated
clutch is A Bad Thing. If this still goes unnoticed, the front seal is the next to go, and the engine
then becomes a 'gusher' (or to be more colourful, it starts pissing oil all over the place). As well
as smothering the clutch with oil from the rear, the oil now coming from the front leak will be
neatly distributed about the engine bay as it hits the front pulley - often propelling it out as far as
the brake discs. At the same time as this Hollywood disaster movie is unfolding outside the
engine, things aren't working out any better on the inside. As you can see from the diagram, the
correct oil level is really close to the rotating crank. Overfilling will mean the crank dips into the
oil and churns it into a froth. Froth is good on certain types of coffee but not good in an engine.
The mixture of aerated oil will be forced into the bearings and in case you didn't know, air is not
a lubricant. Typically this means that bearing damage will follow quite rapidly, especially if you
are driving on a motorway. You'll know bearing damage when you get it. The engine smells like
a garage mechanic cooking over an open flame and the noise coming from the engine is the sort
of thing you'd normally hear in vaudeville plays when a piano is pushed down a flight of stairs.
As if that all wasn't bad enough, the excess oil gets thrown up into the piston bores where the
piston rings have a hard time coping with the excess oil and pressure. It gets into the combustion
chamber and some of it will get out into the exhaust system unburned resulting in a nice patina of
oil all over the platinum surfaces of your catalytic converter. This renders it utterly useless for
good.
Well, you did ask.

So what's the best way to check the oil level?

If your engine is cold (for example it has been parked overnight) you can check the oil level right
away. The oil will have had time to settle back into the sump. Just make sure the car is level
before you do. If the engine is warm or hot (after you've been driving) then you should wait for
30 minutes or so to let as much oil as possible drain back into the sump. Checking it first thing
the next morning is ideal.
It's worth pointing out that you should double-check your owner's manual too - some cars, like I
the '92 Porcshe Carrera, require that the oil is checked while the engine is running and the oil is
at temperature.

Wet sumps vs. dry sumps.

Almost all passenger cars, trucks and SUVs use what's called a wet sump system. If you look at
the diagram above you can see the sump (or oil pan) is the lowest part of the engine. In a wet
sump system, excess oil drains back into the sump when it has passed through the engine, and
the oil pump then sucks it out of the sump and pumps it back to the top of the engine. The
advantage of a wet sump is that it's cost effective to build and maintain and it makes oil-checking
easy for the average driver. The disadvantage is that cornering and braking can cause the oil to
slosh around in the sump. This can
cause the oil to not cover the oil pump pickup tube, which could starve the top end of oil, or it
could get deep enough in a severe cornering maneuver to bog-down the crank, which is A Bad
Thing. To counter these problems, a lot of wet sumps now have baffles in them to stop the oil
moving around so much, and for your average road-going consumer-level vehicle, this is a fine
compromise.

Dry sumps
When it comes to racing vehicles, wet sumps simply have too many disadvantages. Instead, race
engines typically use a dry sump. As its name implies, the sump of the engine is dry - it never
fills with oil. In a wet-sump system, the sump has to be large enough to accommodate all the oil
from the engine when it is turned off. In a dry sump system, that requirement is gone so the sump
can be much much smaller. (In the image on the right, the right-most sump is representative of a
dry sump). A smaller sump means the engine can be mounted lower down in the vehicle, which
in turn lowers the centre of gravity. So how can this be? Well a dry sump system uses a remote
oil reservoir or tank, and a either a second oil pump, or a single multi-stage pump. In a double
pump system, one oil pump works just like a wet sump - it distributes oil to the top end of the
engine, but it pulls the oil from the reservoir instead of the sump. The second pump scavenges
the oil from the sump and returns it to the reservoir. In a single pump system, one pump is either
a three- or four-stage pump. It has multiple circuits running off the same pump to pressurise the
engine and scavenge oil back from the sump. The advantages of dry sumps for racing become
obvious when you examine the design. The engine can be mounted lower in the chassis because
of the shallow oil pan. The pumps typically don't run off the crank-driven belts so no engine
power is sapped in driving them. The remote tank or reservoir can be pretty much any size you
like and be mounted anywhere in the vehicle (usually low down again for centre of gravity
reasons). There isn't oil sloshing around in the sump so you don't run the risk of bogging down
the crank. For all these reasons, dry sumps are considered to be safer and far more dependable
than their wet counterparts. So if it's that much better, why don't you find this system in
consumer vehicles? Simple. The increased weight, complexity and cost of having larger or more
pumps and a remote reservoir with all the additional high pressure oil lines involved. For a
racing team, this isn't an issue, but for Toyota or Ford, adding that sort of cost and complexity to
their passenger vehicles is just a no-go.
Can I use car engine oil in my motorbike
then?
No you can't. Or at least I wouldn't recommend it....
The real answer to this question lies in the type of motorbike you own. If you own a bike with a
wet clutch (ie. where the clutch sits partially submerged in the sump oil) and you dump car oil
into it, all sorts of nasty things happen. Oils formulated for car engines have friction modifiers in
them. When the engine oil gets into the clutch, the friction modifiers get to work and you'll end
up with a clutch that won't bite. In addition, the chemical makeup of some car oils has been
known to soften the clutch material on motorbikes to the point where the entire clutch pack fails.
Bike oils generally don't have friction modifiers, so they don't have this problem. If you're not
sure, check for a JASO MA spec on the bottle. If you see that on the label, then it means the oil
has been tested and confirmed to work with a wet clutch. Mobil have cautionary information on
exactly this subject on their Motorcycle Oils FAQ page.
The other side of this coin is if you have a dry clutch bike, like some BMWs. In this case, the
clutch is configured similar to a car in that it's never in contact with the engine oil, and if that's
the case, then regular car engine oil might provide all the protection and lubrication you need for
your bike. The issue then becomes a question of the exact formulation of the oil. The additive
packages for car engine oil are typically balanced differently than those for motorbikes with fuel
economy and emission system protection being the higher priorities. Your typical passenger car
doesn't rev to 12,000 rpm either so stuffing normal car engine oil in a motorbike engine that can
run to double or even triple the rpm of a car engine could cause all sorts of problems.
The debate about whether any of this is true is burning in many forums across the internet. One
site in particular casts some doubt on the issue, claiming the only difference between car and
bike oil is the price. I don't subscribe to that theory but in order for you to make your own
decision, here's a link: Testing motorcycle oil.

Can I use diesel engine oil in my petrol

engine?
Not really. Diesel engines run much higher compression ratios than petrol engines and they run a
lot hotter, so the oil is formulated to deal with this. Plus they produce a lot more dirt in terms of
combustion by-products. Diesel-rated oils typically have more detergents in them to deal with
this (see Using Diesel oil for flushing above). It's not unheard of for diesel oils to clean a petrol
engine so well that it loses compression. Diesel-rated oils also have an anti-foaming agent in
them which is unique to diesel engines, and not needed in petrol engines.

And so to engine additives

Think what you will of these. Whatever you call them, they are an addition to the engine which it
was not designed to take. Engines are designed to use engine oil, not Teflon®. Make up your
own mind - read this report and see what you think. In my opinion (and that doesn't mean I'm
right) the majority of these are primarily a placebo to put uneducated minds at rest whilst making
a nice profit for the additive manufacturer.
The additive part of this site started quite small, but as more and more of the companies got into
lawsuits and legal actions, and lost, this page became far too long to read all in one go. So if
you're considering Duralube, ProLong, Slick50 or any of the other brand-name placebos, you'll
be wanting to hot-step it over to my additives page pretty darned quickly.....

Nanolubricants
Not something off Star Trek, although it sounds like it. Nanolubricants use the geometrical
properties of miniature particles to provide lubrication. A couple of companies are working on
these new generation lubricants; New York-based Applied Nanomaterials (ApNano) is one of
them. Their R&D lab in the commercial arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel is
initially developing an onion-type nanostructure, i.e. a multilayered hollow structure of nested
spheres called NanoLubTM. According to the theory of the company's founders, such a structure
can replace lubricants, because it works like a box moving along a near infinite layer of super-
miniaturized ball bearings. They claim that respected institutes worldwide have proved that
powder made from these nanostructures is six to ten times more effective than regular lubricants.
In their case, the nanospheres are built from tungsten disulfide (WS2). The layers slide past each
other, reducing friction, while the hollow cores provide flexibility. Applied Nanomaterials claims
the materials can withstand immense pressures. The material acts as a kind of solid ball bearing
between the metal layers, rather like the wheels of a tank tread. In addition, the nanostructures
insert themselves within each metal layer, while other nanostructures slide over them, creating a
smooth layer at the molecular level.

The idea is that unlike oil, the nanolubricant never wears down; it is permanent and requires no
maintenance. Theoretically, a nanolubricant can be used for various friction reducing
applications, such as on the outer coating of ships and planes to reduce water and air friction,
respectively. If you're that way inclined, think of what it could do to the sex toy industry....

The powder will eventually stand on its own as a lubricant, however Applied Nanomaterials
realizes that recognition of the technology requires collaboration with lubricant manufacturers as
an additive to existing lubricants. The problem of course is that if this lubricant never needs
changing, anyone who decides to mass manufacture and market it is going to lose a chunk of
revenue - once you dump it in your engine, you never buy any more. Great for you and me, bad
business model for the company who dares to market it.

Applied Nanomaterials competitors are developing similar materials, but based on nested carbon
nanotube structures that over time tend to disintegrate under friction from the materials they
lubricate.

Don't expect to see NanoLubTM on the shelves just yet though. It can take a day to manufacture
just 750g of the stuff.
An alternative to engine additives: pre-
pressurisation

What the additive manufacturers tell you is true - when you start your engine,
there really is very little oil in the right place - most of it is in the sump. There is another
alternative. I found a site called AutoEngineLube.com and they seem to be offering an interesting
alternative. They have a system which uses a cylinder of pressurised oil and a solenoid valve, all
connected to the regular oil system. It works with only one moving part, (the solenoid valve -
duh!). When the key is turned on it opens the valve and the oil that was trapped in the tank the
previous time it was running goes back into the oil gallery in 1 or 2 seconds and the low oil
pressure light will flash off. There's likely to still be a little lag before full-on lubrication gets to
the main bearings, but from what I can tell, this system will massively reduce that lag compared
to starting from cold - it pressurises the system before the starter engages. Of course an engine
that has set up for a few months and is completely dry will take a few more seconds. When the
engine is turned off the solenoid valve shuts off in 30 milliseconds so you end up with pressure
on the tank equal to the pressure the last time it was running. The tank will hold more than
enough oil to accomplish this. Its completely over engineered as the tank is rated for over a
thousand pounds and the hose is good for 300lb. Because the valve is designed for an industrial
application with an expected duty life of several million cycles, AutoEngineLube give it a
lifetime warranty. It only uses previously filtered oil from the gallery so no damage can be done
by it in any way.
Their system comes as a kit and requires some menial installation - most savvy home mechanics
should be able to do it. I'm not sure how it would affect the warranty on a car engine. In theory, if
it works, it ought to make no difference but you know what manufacturers are like - if you even
sneeze on your engine, it's likely to void the warranty.
Pop over and check them out if you're interested. If you end up buying one of these, I'd like to
know what sort of results you get so I can add an objective review to my site.
AutoEngineLube.com can be found here. Another site sells a similar product - PreLuber.com can
be found here.

It's worth pointing out that pre-lubers have been around for quite a while; the original systems
featured an electric pump that circulated the oil from the sump before the starter turned. The
pump would bring the oil up to full operating pressure before you attempted to start the engine. A
reader of this site e-mailed me about this. He had one on an old MG-TD, because the car got
very infrequent use; it worked rather well and he never had any major engine problems with it
installed. Enginelube.com still do the "old style" pre-lubers but their website has vanished so I
don't have a good link for them now.

Case study: MOROSO Accumulater (pistonless upright

bottle type) pre-oiler on V8 Zephyrs

A reader contacted me about using pre-oilers on classic vehicles. Here's what he had to say:
"I use the MOROSO Accumulater 2 which is a pistonless upright bottle type. I researched these
after experiencing oil pressure drops of 20psi on uphill right hand corners at speed. The Moroso
2 cured it right away. I plumbed it directly into where the oil sender went and used a tee for the
oil light sender. I have a ½" ball valve at the bottle I use but intend to rig a choke cable to use it
from inside the car. Electric solenoid valves are available too. To do an oil change the factory
fitted tire valve is pumped with 20psi of air and the tap opened, old oil is then fully pushed out
into the sump via the oil feeds.
The car if used for racing etc is driven with the ball valve open, any drop in oil pressure is taken
over by the accumulater until the oil pump pick up is covered again. I also use the oiler to lube
the engine (Ford V8) by turning the valve with the engine off, the oil pressure goes up to about
20-30psi (you can hear it gurgle in the rocker covers!). After 10-15 seconds I then start the
engine. You turn the valve off with the engine running to trap oil for the next start up.Racers run
these on engines that can be "claimed" after a race as if the engine had a high doller sump pan
they would lose it with the engine. The Accumulater works better than any trap door or baffled
sump if you spin backwards off a track too!"
There are further writeups of this particular installation available at the MKIII Zephyr V8 site
and at StockCarRacing.com.

Oil filters and filtration.

Thanks to one reader who noted that in all of this page, until mid-2001 I had not given much, if
any space, to the topic of filters and filtration. So here we go.
 It's all very well changing your oil often, but it's not just the oil that
helps prevent engine wear. The oil filter does its part too. Dirt is the prime cause of engine wear.
Not big dirt, like you'd see in a yard, but minute particles of dirt. It's dirt nevertheless, and it's
abrasive. These contaminants vary from road dust (which are razor-like flakes from an engine's
perspective) that doesn't get filtered out by the air filter, up to actual metal particles - the
byproducts of the casting scarf from the original engine manufacture, and basic engine wear. All
this nastiness is carried around by the oil into the minute parts of your engine, being rammed into
the precision clearances between bearings and other moving parts. Once in, they don't come out
easy, but tend to stay there, wearing grooves, grinding and generally messing up your engine.
Other debris that causes problems are a by-product of the mere way an engine works - sooty
particles from the combustion process can be forced past the piston rings and transported around
in the oil too. This is definitely A Bad Thing - the soot acts like a sponge and soaks up other oil
additives reducing the oil's anti-wear properties, and messing up it's viscosity. All this dirt is why
oil goes black when it's used. That lovely syrup-like yellow that it is when you put it in is pure
oil. The black stuff that comes out at an oil change is the same oil full of contaminants and by-
products from wear and tear.

That's where the oil filter comes in. It's job is to catch all this crap floating around in the oil, and to stop it
from recirculating. Most oil filters that you or I will ever see are the spin-on type. They're shaped like an
aluminium can and spin on to a threaded oil feeder poking out of the side of the engine somewhere.
They're called 'full-flow' oil filters because they sit in the normal flow of the oil through the engine. Sort
of like an electrical component in series with all the other electrical component. Because it sits in-line, it
has to be designed not to restrict the flow of oil around the circuit, and thus can only really be effective
at stopping the larger particles. Large, in this case, is around the 20micron size. So here's the catch. The
smallest contaminants are in the 10-20micron size range. Not only is that "extremely small", but it means
that they pass right through the oil filter and back out into circulation. This is why regular oil changes are
a necessity, because these tiny little things can be the most damaging.
 This is an exploded view of a typical spin-on oil filter used in automotive applications. I've
sliced the filter element (the brownish-yellow part) so you can see the internal structure of the
filter). Typically the engine oil enters through the ring of 5 or 6 holes in the base and into the
main cannister. From there it is forced inwards through the filter element, through the drain
holes in the central core and out through the central, threaded hole in the base.

There is another alternative, but it's only really used in heavy applications or for racing. That
alternative is to fit a secondary bypass oil filter. This is sort of like a filter in parallel with the
primary one. It doesn't restrict the flow of oil in the main circuit, but the oil that passes through it
is filtered down to the 5 micron range, thus removing even the smallest contaminants. The
newest filters claim to work down to 1 micron, though I can't confirm nor deny those claims. The
upside is that by cleaning the oil so completely, bypass oil filters increase not only engine life,
but also the life of the oil itself. This means longer service intervals.

Magnetised oil traps

 Recently, magnetic filter additions
have started to surface. I was sent one in 2001 to try out and it
really did seem to work. The product in question was called the
Bear Trap BT500. Their website can be found here (now owned
by One Eye Industries). It's basically a sleeve made of foam
rubber and plastic with some magnets in it. It bends to clamp
around the outside of your regular spin-on oil filter. The idea is
that the magnets will attract any metal debris in your oil and stick
them to the inside of the oil filter wall, thus preventing them
from going back into the oil circulation. Being of a curious
nature (or stupid, depending on how you look at it) I decided to
dismantle my oil filter after using the Bear Trap for 5000 miles. I
learned a couple of things.

1. You shouldn't try to do this yourself.

2. It's bloody messy.
3. But most importantly, after a brief period in accident and emergency to stitch up the gash
in my hand, I discovered that sure enough, there were tiny arrangements of metal filings
clustered around the inside of the oil filter wall where the magnets from the beartrap had
been. You'll excuse the lack of photos to prove the point, but I had other things to worry
about. If you visit their website or that of FilterMag (below) you'll see similar cutaway
photos.

So can I recommend their product? Yes.

Another alternative to the Bear Trap is

the FilterMag - essentially the same style of product but from a different manufacturer. FilterMag
can be found at this link.

An alternative to custom magnetised oil

traps.
Thanks to John Nightingale who read my pages and then felt he should contribute something.
For those of you who do more than just change your filter - ie. take off the oil pan completely,
John writes:
" Next time you are in the mall or high street, drop into the Radio Shack or a hardware store and
purchase a package of modern, powerful ceramic magnets. These are available in various
shapes and they are cheap. Radio Shack sells a package of two wafer shaped magnets, for
instance. Stroll out to your car at the end of your shopping trip, bend down and stick these
magnets onto convenient flat surfaces the bottom of your oil pan either side of the drain hole or
as convenient. Now the magnets will magnetize the steel of the oil pan in their area. On the
inside, particles coming through the field established by a magnet will be sequestered by being
stuck to the bottom of the oil pan. Next time you take off the oil pan, clean it out in the usual way,
pull off the magnets from the outside, clean them up and then stick them onto the inside of the oil
pan at the bottom but clear of the drain hole. This will give an even better result since now the
oil is exposed to the naked magnets themselves. The bottom of the oil pan in the area of each of
the magnets is also magnetized, of course, and contributing to the effect. Resist the temptation to
stand the magnets on edge to expose more of their surface to the oil. Placing the magnets flat on
the oil pan uses the oil pan's steel as a keeper for the magnets and will ensure that they stay
powerful. Placing the magnets flat will increase the area of the oil pan that is part of the
magnetic circuit so you will loose no particle pick up area by having the magnets lying flat. "

Magnetised oil traps - doing it yourself.

There's nothing really special about magnetised oil traps other than the type of magnet they use.
Bear Trap and FilterMag basically offer a consumer-oriented product. But if you're a tinkerer,
there's nothing to stop you doing it yourself. The magnets normally used are Neodymium, nearly
the most powerful nonelectric magnet type. They are the kind of magnet used in computer hard
drives, often coming in pairs held just a few millimeters apart with the back end of the hard drive
head assembly (the part being made of coiled wire) in between. If you can find a couple of old
hard drives - try the local computer junk store - you ought to be able to disassemble them and
take the magnets out to stick to your own oil filter. John Nicholas Sarris, a reader of my site,
suggested this and provided the following photos as an example.

An open hard drive. The

magnets (one visible) are in the
upper left corner and are
crescent shaped.
 The top magnet plate has been
removed. As you can see on the
lower magnet it is attached to a
metal plate. I presume this it to
keep the magnetic field from the
magnets between the two
magnets and not extend outside
the hard drive case.

The hard drive's head assembly

has been removed. The lower
magnet attached to its plate is
clearly visible.

A pair of hard drive magnets

side-by-side. They are still
attached to their metal plates
because the adhesive used to
attach them is immensely
strong. I once removed a hard
drive magnet from its plate, but
broke it in half in the process.

The same magnets holding

themselves to my hand. I could
have them stick to each other
through my palm, but it was
hard to take a good picture. This
actually hurt my fingers a bit.
As you can see they are strong
despite being only 2mm thick.
The plate they are attached to
itself is 3mm thick.

The importance of neodynium magnets

I thought it worth pointing out here what a potential disaster awaits the home tinkerer if you just
grab any old magnet and stick it on the outside of your oil filter. Your common or garden ferrous
magnet, like those horrible souvenir magnets stuck to your fridge (you know you've got some)
are usually made from iron, and thus have a limited life span which in some cases can be as short
as 6 or 12 months. During this time they progressively lose thier power. Not enough for that
hideous magnetic photo frame to drop off the fridge, but enough to be a problem if it was stuck
to your oil filter. Why's that then? Well, come the end of the filters life, just as the magnet is
weakening and the collection of metal particles is at it's highest, one good jolt and it could
dislodge, and a large collection of metal shavings and filings could detach from the inside of the
filter and find its way back into your engine all in one go. That would be bad. So as much as you
might like the magnetic photo of granny and the giraffe from Whipsnade zoo to be stuck in a
filthy oily place on your car, don't do it.

Larger filters on standard cars?

There's a school of thought which says that enlarging the oil filter on your car is A Good Thing.
Why is this?
The small oil filters fitted to engines these days run with quite a high back pressure, and the
bypass valve trips at about 3500rpm. That means that your oil is not being filtered when the
engine is spinning faster than 3500rpm. As the oil filter does its job and starts to clog up, that
rpm value can be lower.
If you increase the size of the filter, this will raise the rpm at which the bypass valve will switch.
With a bigger filter and lower back pressure, for the same rpm (prior to bypass valve operation)
less engine power will be lost in the filter. Bigger filter means better filtering and more power at
low to mid revs. Clever eh? But there's some things you need to be aware of if you're going to try
this approach, all of which are relevant, and none of which I can confirm or deny

 Bigger filter = more "dead" space = more oil. Remember you'd need to add more oil to
the engine to keep the oil level at the correct mark on the dipstick. This isn't necessarily a
bad thing - more oil doing the same job theoretically means less stress on the oil.
 Oil may take a little longer to circulate around the engine after startup, as the pump may
have to fill up the larger capacity oil filter. With modern filters this ought not to be a
problem though because all but the cheapest filters have backflow preventers which keep
oil in the filter when the engine is off.
 Availability of filters and fouling. If you put a larger filter on it might foul something else
in the engine bay. That is if you can find a larger filter to start with. The rule of thumb is
to go to a motor factors shop, and find the oil filter that was designed for your engine
.Then look through the myriad of larger oil filter boxes for a bigger filter that has the
same screw thread and sealing ring diameter. Nowadays most spin-on filters have a
20mm screw thread so that's not going to be the hard part. Finding the same sealing ring
diameter is the thing to be careful of. And don't ask the people at the parts counter.
Because of liability issues, they're unlikely to sell you anything other than exact filter for
your make and model of vehicle.
A Practical example of the proper procedures
saving an engine.
I started these pages back in 1994 and have been adding to them ever since. I've always followed
my own advice and in 2005, it paid off big time. I'll tell this in the past tense because it'll get lost
in the page and I'll forget to update it when I change motorbikes.
So I owned a 2001 BMW R1150GS motorbike. I bought it pre-owned from my local dealer who
assured me it had been through the workshops as part of the "standard procedure" of them taking
a bike in and re-selling it. For 2 years I'd been riding it with horrible engine noise and engine
detonation (pre-ignition). Every time I took it back to the dealer, they were adamant there was
nothing wrong with the engine, and that "they all do that". Not believing them, I finally found an
independent BMW specialist who took the engine apart for me. It turned out the BMW
dealership had lied - the bike had never been in their service department. This was evidenced by
the fact that the cylinders had sand in them. The dealership had never bothered to check the bike
and wouldn't believe my complaints about the noisy engine. The independent mechanic fixed it
all up for me - an $1100 repair bill that involved basically stripping down the entire engine,
honing the cylinder barrels, putting in new piston rings, cleaning the pistons, barrels, heads,
throttle and airbox, flushing and cleaning the whole thing and putting it all back together. The
point is that during the two years I'd been riding it with sand in the engine, I'd been religiously
topping up the oil and changing the filter. It's a testament to BMW engineering that the engine
ran without seizing up, but it's also a testament to paying attention to your oil changes. If I'd let it
slide, or not done the filter, that engine would not have been a rebuild - it would have been a far
more costly brand new engine.

This is all great. Now how do I actually

change my oil?
A good number of readers will get to this point in the page and think "this is easy - I could do
this!", and for the most part, you can. Below is a generic, idiots-guide to changing the oil in your
engine. It's not specific to any particular car but ought to cover most engines.

Before you start, you'll need the following :

 new oil (duh!)

 a drain pan
 an oil funnel
 rags
 a socket wrench set and / or hex wrench set (allen wrenches)
 an oil filter remover
 a new crush washer
 rubber gloves
 engineer / shop manual, if one is available

1. Start your engine and run it for a couple of minutes to get some heat into the oil
2. Leave the engine to stand for 5 or 10 minutes. When you started it, it heated the oil but it
also filled the oilways. You want the oil to drain back to the sump.
3. Take the dipstick out or loosen it off and break the seal where it plugs into the engine
dipstick tube. This prevents a vacuum building up behind the oil when you start to drain
it.
4. Get your drain pan / oil container and stuff it under the sump. Make sure it's sitting under
the sump drain plug. I Really like the combined drainer / container types. They look like
regular oil containers but if you lay them on their side, there's a pop-out plug. When you
drain the oil, it runs into the side of the container, then you can put the plug back in and
use the same container to take the oil away.

5. Put your rubber gloves on. Try to use the disposable type. Your mum / wife will never
forgive you if you use the washing-up gloves. Remember - used oil is toxic and
carcinogenic. If you get it on your skin, it could cause problems. Use your socket wrench
or allen wrench to loosen the sump plug just slightly. Once it's loose, remove it by hand.

6. Be amazed as the black syrup runs out of the engine and into your container. Be more
amazed how, if it's windy, those last dregs just won't hit the container no matter where
you put it. They will however go all over the road/garage floor/cat.
7. Remove the old crush washer from the sump plug and throw it away. Replace it with a
new one. Use some of the oil from the drain container on the end of a rag to wipe around
the drain hole in the sump. This will help clean any mess away and leave you with a
smooth surface. Screw the sump plug back in by hand until it's finger tight and then use
your wrench to crush the washer. This can vary from a quarter turn to a half turn. Don't
overdo it or you'll strip the threads. Similarly, don't leave it too loose or it will fall out. If
in doubt, use a torque wrench set to the value indicated in your shop manual.

8. Now get your oil filter remover out. Push the oil drain container under the oil filter -
when you spin it off, there will be a lot of oil comes out. Use the filter remover to grip the
oil filter and spin it off anticlockwise. 99.9% of oil filters take some muscle to get going.
This is why a filter remover is a must-have. Stabbing the filter with a screwdriver and
using brute force may work, but you'll be finding oil all over yourself for weeks to come
if you use that method. Apart from that, some cars have aluminium inserts that protrude
out of the engine block into the body of the filter, so firing a screw driver into the filter
near its base (the strongest part) may shear that aluminium bit off the engine block. That
Would Be Bad.
Once the filter is finger-loose, spin it off by hand. (these things below are filter removers)

9. Clean off the face of the oil filter mount on the side of the engine block using a rag. Use a
little oil on a rag to wipe around the seal of the new filter and spin it on by hand. Once it's
locked against the side of the engine block, another quarter-turn by hand is normally
enough to secure it in place.
10. Pull the drain container out from under the car and use a rag to wipe down any excess oil
that has spilled down the side of the engine block. Pay attention around the sump plug
 and the filter. These are places you'll be checking later for leaks so the cleaner they are
now, the better.
11. Use a little WD40 on the oil container and an old rag to clean the remaining oil down into
the container. Put the plug back in and make sure it fits snug. That's your waste oil. Don't
drink it.
12. Up to the top of the again engine now. Put the dipstick back in. Find the oil filler cap and
take it off. It might say "OIL" or it might say "710". It is not a "710 cap" as one person
once asked for. "710" is "OIL" upside-down. Some people need to be told....
13. Look in your shop manual for the system capacity with filter change. This will be more
than the capacity without a filter change. A lot of oil containers now come with capacity
marks on the side of them. Put your oil funnel into the oil filler hole and pour in the right
amount of oil. Do it slowly. If you do it quick, you'll get airlocks and the funnel will burp
oil in your face.
14. Once you're happy you've got enough oil in there (check it with the dipstick if you're not
sure), remove the funnel, replace the oil cap and replace the dipstick.
15. Pull the main high tension wire from the distributor cap or in some way disable the
engine so that you can crank it over but it WILL NOT start. (Note : you might want to
pull out the fuel pump fuse too - if you crank the engine without it starting, it will still be
pumping fuel - that could cause a backfire or damage the catalyst). Crank it over until the
low pressure light goes off, and another 15-20 seconds for good measure. You are
pumping new oil into the empty filter and then expelling all the air from the oil lines and
cavities.
16. Replace the high tension lead (and fuel pump fuse) and start the engine and let it idle for
a minute or so. Stop the engine. I don't want you crawling under a car to look for leaks
when the engine is running. There's so many things that can go wrong with spinning fan
blades, belts, human hair, clothes, fingers and the odd dodgy auto-gearbox that will slip
into "D" and run you over.
17. With the engine off have a look at the side of the engine block around the oil filter. Check
the area around the sump drain too. Both should be as clean as you left them with no sign
of leaks. If there's a leak, a little tightening of the drain plug or filter should cure it.

One reader suggested and additional step before (9) above. When he changes his filter, he fills
the new one up with clean oil and waits for it to soak into the filter itself. Once he's satisfied that
the filter is soaked, he pours the excess oil out of the filter and then screws it on to the engine.

Job well done. Now you should have hands that smell of talcum powder and rubber (from the
gloves), a couple of greasy, slippery tools and a container full of old oil. Oh, and a crush washer
and filter. If you've got more than this, you took something off that I didn't tell you to. If you
turned the engine off before checking for leaks, you should also have a full complement of
fingers, hair (if you had it to start with) and you should still be fully clothed. Congratulations.
You've changed your engine oil.
Using oil extractors

There's another way of getting the oil out of your car's engine during an oil change - oil
extractors. The typical extractor uses a vacuum mechanism either generated by you pumping a
handle to build up a vacuum in the reservoir, or by a powered vacuum pump. The example on the
right is a manual style. Basically you pump the handle to build up a vacuum, then poke the
extractor hose into the oil and let her rip.
Extractors are a convenience item designed to eliminate the need to get your vehicle up on a
ramp, or for you to crawl under it and deal with the drain plug. The only problem with an
extractor is that you can never be 100% guaranteed that you get all the oil out. For it to work
best, the suction hose needs to be in the lowest point of the sump pan, where the drain bolt is.
The problem is that first of all, the sump isn't transparent, so you can't tell where the suction hose
really is. (Remember you'll be feeding it in through dipstick tube). Second, a lot of sumps have
anti-slosh baffles in them both horizontally and vertically. If you don't get the extractor pipe
through one of the baffle holes, you'll be leaving the entire sump's-worth of oil in there. Third,
and finally, any congealed oil, clogs or clumps of sludge will likely get stuck in the extractor
hose causing a blockage. That would mean taking the hose out, cleaning out the blockage, then
feeding it back in again which subjects you to the initial two problems all over again.
Oil extractors are more commonly used for getting oil out of smaller engines like lawnmowers.
I've never used one in a car engine but because of the problems mentioned above, I can't imagine
it would be especially efficient. Having said that, the Smart car has no sump drain so the only
way to get oil out of those things in a service is to use an extractor.

Finally, and just as importantly: Disposing of

used engine oil.
Think about it for a minute. What did you do with that last oil change? Pour it away down a
drain? Seal it and bin it? The annual average for oil which is just washed away is 720Million
gallons! About 120Million of that is from tanker spills which leaves another 600Million from
domestic and business disposal. This all ends up polluting the groundwater.
So what can you do? Well, you can dispose of your used oil properly. Firstly, it's worth noting
that engine oils which have been used are mildly carcinogenic. This means cancer, specifically
skin cancer. To be safe, wash any off quickly with a de-greaser like GUNK. For heavens sake,
don't use petrol (gasoline) - most fuels contain long chain hydrocarbons, which when exposed to
skin pass right through to the blood stream. (This can mean liver damage, and possibly failure)
Better still, wear protective gloves. Once the oil is drained into a suitable container, try your local
garage. All garage workshops must have disposal barrels and many will allow you to dump your
oil into their barrels. In the UK, many DIY superstores now have oil disposal banks where you
can empty your used oil, and it's collected every couple of days by a tanker. So next time, just
think about first. If only for the fact that in most civilised countries, it's actually an arrestable
offence to dispose of oil in the public sewerage system. If you live in the UK, phone 0800
663366 to find the location of your nearest oil bank. Alternatively, you can use the postcode
search on the oilbank website.