Slick 50 - Any use ?

[zim]

Morning,

http://www.dcp-shop.co.uk/buy-car-accessories/product_info.php?products_id=21453

My boss at work swears blind that by adding slick 50 to your engine is good. He reckons that it'll help in the event of loosing oil suction and the engine in effect running dry (until you shut down).

Have other people used it ? and what are your opinions ?

Cheers

Gordon

[Dave W]

I always used it when rebuilding engines, it never did any harm and all the old school mechanics used it religiously. As to whether it was of any real benefit in either the long or the short term... who knows !

I never had an engine seize on me when I'd used it but then OTOH I never had an engine seize on me when I didn't, I will still use it though in the future just like my dad taught me.

[paintman]

You may find this of interest.

http://www.carbibles.com/additives.html

[rtbarton]

From my car's handbook

"Volvo do not reccomend the use of supplementary additives as this may affect the operational life of the engine."

[nicks90]

any oil additives - utter pooh.

oil companies spend literally BILLIONS in R&D between them to make the best base stock and additive packs for car engines. If sticking in a bottle of slick50 did the trick, then why dont shell or any of the others put it in their normal oils?

Its a big old capitalist world out there and if someone like Mobil or Shell or Castrol could get an edge over its competitors to steal market share - they would!

Being able to say their oil reduces engine wear by 80%, fuel consumption by 40% (add all the other bollox) compared to all their competitors would mean they would clear up the market completely and get full market dominance.

Guess what - hasnt happened. Why?

Cos there are no miracle additives.

[Dengie Boy]

How about this stuff?? seems good

[FridgeFreezer]

I'm sure Activ8 know far more about oil and additives than the multi-trillion dollar oil companies and their vast R&D labs.

Or to put it another way...

[timmymac]

I wonder how many test machines they got through testing activ8, as it kept it lubricated once removed all following test would be useless.

[PUSKAPUSIA]

IVE ALLWAYS USED IT AND SWEAR BY IT...ANY MOTOR I PUT IT IN DOES GO 5 - 10 MILES AN HOUR FASTER THAN BEFORE ADDING IT...ALSO HAVE HAD AN SERIOUS OIL LEAK IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IN RUSSIA AND SHE KEPT ON GOING...WHEN I CHECKED OIL, THERE WAS NONE.(MAYBE THE HAND OF GOD)?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

[FridgeFreezer]

No, it's not food for thought. An engine will keep going with no oil anyway. You can start and run a factory fresh engine with no oil.

What you are experiencing is a placebo effect, there is no science behind any of this - if there was, Exxon, Shell et al would be putting it in their oil already and manufacturers would be specifying it from the factory.

[Badger90]

there was tread on here a while back of a chap that wanted to know about this additives..

some chaps posted that he had it in his series 3 and he was offraoding at a pay and play day and ripped his sump off at the end as he was leaving..

it drove 10min drive home with no oil and he got home to find out that he had no oil and no damage to the engine!!

but in the summer i wouldnt mind testing this..

by geting 2 of the same cars and put an additive in one and not the other.

drop the oil on both and then run them to see how long each one take to seize..

[FridgeFreezer]

If the ability to run without oil is a major factor in this then I'd question your maintenance schedule. If you want to run your engine without oil I'm sure there are other more effective things you can pour in.

[landroversforever]

Going by its name only.... by using the word 'slick', I would expect it to make it run easier, therefore be thinner than oil. would that no then mean it helps the oil drain out??

[Badger90]

i dont offroad anymore.. and i would NEVER run my truck on low oil..

but people that do alot offroading it could come in handy if the unlikly happends of ripping yor sump off happens.

i have used it once. and i must say it did make my engine rung abit smoother..

and after having having the bottom end rebuilt and now everything is alittle tighter might put some more in.

as IIRC they last for quit a few oil changes because it coats every thing.

[Maverik]

In engineering you very rarely get somthing for nothing - there is always a trade off. I would tend to agree with Fridge on this one.

Engines are designed with certain oil types in mind to run and have a lifetime of usually a pre-defined period.

Addatives may give a performance boost in some way but there's always a catch - for example you're changing the viscosity of the oil, what effect will that have on the pump? will the filter then work as it should etc etc. 99% of the time stick to manufacturers recommendations.... (notice i put 99%)

[milliejasper1111]

There is some interesting reading on this site about said products, www.carbibles.com

sorry cant do a linky thingy

Ian

[rtbarton]

.....and after having having the bottom end rebuilt and now everything is alittle tighter might put some more in.

To my mind that's an argument against using it as it will delay the running-in process.

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

after having having the bottom end rebuilt and now everything is alittle tighter might put some more in.

If you want to protect your engine after it has run in then just use a good quality synthetic oil and change it regularly.

As for Slick 50 .......... does it really do what it says on the tin ?

http://www.miata.net/garage/slickftc2.html

[Badger90]

well my 200tdi has done 206100 miles and all its life the oil has been changed every 3000 miles and run on 10w40

i agree with fridge and the other chap that it will delay the running in. as it coats every thing to make it more slippy.

and the same applyed to my grandads old 300tdi auto rangger. it was p-reg i think and when he sold that it had done 240.000 miles and its still going strong now (so his mate says who he sold it to)

but the oil was changed every 3000 miles on that as well.

but as for my engine thats tired and worn it helped a great deal as it has been run in,

but as i have just had the bigend shells changed it may take longer to run them in.

i would only use it on a old tired engine or a robust tractor engine.. like in my massey 35. built in 1960s

if you get my drift!

[simonr]

Add some washing up liquid and milk - and you get a tasty milk-shake.

Si

[heath robinson]

There's a product called Lubrilon, which is what was in the original slick 50. This stuff has more than just "Testimonials", it has been tested by the TÜV, the FAA, and the US army (see this bit), and sounds good enough that I've put it in mine. Before I used it, I did a lot of asking around, and showed the site to various engineery types, including my dad (Ex BEA/BA flight and ground engineer, not just "Daaaaad, wossis?" ), and decided that this is actually a pretty genuine product.

I doesn't cost much, and so far has seemed to be good. Again, not that ideal for running yer engine in, but for an older lump, seems to be worth the punt. I couldn't find any real adverse reports of it, so thought it's worth putting into this discussion.

[nicks90]

i refer back to my previous post in this thread - we live in a very capitalist world driven by profits and market share dominated by extremely powerful oil companies with annual turnover in the TRILLIONS

oil companies spend literally BILLIONS in R&D between them to make the best base stock and additive packs for car engines. If sticking in a bottle of slick50 did the trick, then why dont shell or any of the others put it in their normal oils?

Its a big old capitalist world out there and if someone like Mobil or Shell or Castrol could get an edge over its competitors to steal market share - they would!

Being able to say their oil reduces engine wear by 80%, fuel consumption by 40% (add all the other bollox) compared to all their competitors would mean they would clear up the market completely and get full market dominance.

Guess what - hasnt happened. Why?

Cos there are no miracle additives

do you lot really really really think that all the big oil companies wont have bought a bottle of each of these snake oils and done their own testing on them to see if they have discovered the magic 'silver bullet' of engine protection?

If they had, it would have been adopted into their own oils and wiped the floor with all the other international oil companies and would dominate the world.

[heath robinson]

You're entitled to your opinion, as I'm entitled to mine. Oil companies have NEVER had a vested interest in reliability or economy. Don't get arsey about what is after all only my opinion, when all you are refuting it with is your opinion. I'm not trying to start an argument, so don't get all het up, I'm just saying that you can't expect other people not to have an opinion.

The stuff I mentioned WAS SOLD BY SHELL for years, as the origional Slick 50, which is why Slick 50 enjoyed such a good reputation and market share to begin with. Shell then changed the formula, to what it is now. They had no interest in prolonging the life of components made by companies in which they had a vested interest... The guy who had invented the additive in the first place had to take shell to court to get back control of his ideas.

As I said, My dad worked in aerospace for years, and in heavy civil engineering after that. Strangely, I'll take his well-formed opinion over that of someone who just repeats his generalisations in bigger letters. If you think that the FAA's approval for something to be used in light aircraft engines is trivial, you clearly have no idea of what you're talking about.

The best example of how big business treats beneficial development is how Bosch dealt with the guy who designed the fore-runner to those four-pronged spark plugs. They may well be pants, but the original thing had no gap at the top, and a rounded central electrode. It lasted almost indefinitely. Bosch bought this design, and sat on it. When asked about this, they openly said "We'll never produce that. It never fails! we want our products to fail eventually, so we can sell them repeatedly".

As I said in my first post, I looked into this a fair bit, and asked some very bright minds for their considered opinions, so allow me the chance to form my own opinion. Also, give people credit for the intelligence to do a little actual research. Maybe do a little investigating of your own before repeating yourself in the face of new information.

I'm just giving my experiences and opinions, not trying to start one of those long-winded arguments discussions like BBC/P76 had a while back.

[Steve King]

I'm unconvinced about the claims that Slick 50 will coat the moving parts with something like a Teflon coating, but I reckon it does reduce friction'

After swapping the engine and gearbox on my first car (Austin 1300 GT) I added Slick 50 after running it in. The revs increased a fair bit & I had to adjust the carbs to bring the idling speed down.

[Simon_CSK]

Here's my story on the use of Slick 50. However I have not used it since but think it is a good thing.

About 18 years ago I had an Opel Kadett 1.2 which I used Slick 50 in. One evening the timing chain broke which when I repaired I did not notice that the chain had punctured the timing chain cover. I took the car from Lanarkshire in Scotland to the Wirral some 200 miles most of the time dripping oil and constantly topping up to keep going.

My brother lives on the Wirral and over the course of a week tried several times to fix the oil leak but only made it worse. After spending the weekend fishing and getting back to his house about 7pm with a drive home to Scotland. I proceeded to drive the car, very fast, home again stopping to top off regularly however every time I slowed the engine the oil light blinked furiously. I kept going to the point that I gave up topping up the oil and decided that if I didn't make it home the AA would transport the car for me.

The end result was that the car kept going for about a week without any oil and eventually needed a new engine.

I have to admit that I was very impressed and can only attribute the engines continued operation to the Slick 50 that I had in the engine.