No more oil exchange.... synthetic oils live forever. How to do ?

[SenseMaker2013]

OK, Folks.... another thread and topic which came out of an interesting dicussion about Landrovers as Electric Vehicles.

The fact that they don't and that commercial EV's and Hybrids are little better than milk floats says they are protecting their existing market! (

Source of comment

by

simonr

)

I experienced this in the 80th with Oil filter systems like the Frantz-Filter (just named here as an exmpale as there exist some other few companies producing and offering such oil cleaning solutions of high sustainability)...

The synthetic oils are already of such extreme good quality (since more than 25 years), that never, I really say never you need to do oil exchange. It just needs to filter this oil by a good filter, and it runs, runs, runs...

The trick of the petrol and automotive industries is, that they use bad filters, by purpose. They dont offer "particular filters" so all what do the normal fiters, is to filter roughly. So for a normal consumer who pays mostly an expensive credit for his huge expensive car it looks like, that the "black oil" he can see during a regular filter seems dirty and must be exchanged. And naturally this owner is scared to damage his engine. But its an irrational fear being produced by the marketing folks of the car companies.

Finest particular filter as existing with the "Frantz Filter" can clean even these "black particulars" (inclusive other parts, e.g. water emulsion) out, so the synthetic oil keeps its function for ever. As the filter steals little bit oil, it just needs to fill up by time with new oil, thats all.

The cool thing, every normal car, every truck, every traktor, coach, motorbike or generator can be equipped with such a filter, as it works parallel..... so no expensive costs of adapting the existing mashine... its just built up a parallal circle (thats why it is called "Bypass filter system").

The oil pressure wont change, so no fear to damage the mashine... an owner of a vehicle/motor can safe lots of money to avoid the regular oil exchange (a long life synthetic oil SAE range 0W-30 or SAE 0W-40 actually is between 8 to 12 Euros per litre plus the filter itself is between 8-10 Euros per piece).

The filter which looks like toilette paper :-) can be exchanged very simple. Even the old filter which is delivered from the car factory is kept as you can see in this video:

(YOu will understand this video without words :-) )

If you have big mashines which needs a bigger volume of oil cleaning, you just combine a couple of filters, very simple.... (Click on the images to get them in big in the pics gallery on the website of Frantz Filter).

Such companies like Frantz Filter are tackled heavily by the automotive industries. These big global players arent shy to use even criminal methods to attack such cool inventions and the patent holders as I know. In 1988/1989 I was negotiating with Frantz Filter directly to overtake a representation for German regions... so I know what I am talking about. it was a very brutal time of ongoing fights for surviving as the big auto concerns try everything to kill these kind of products as they can damage their markets heavily. Lawyers can be very nasty folks.

Meanwhile Frantz Filter has a big range of solutions.... here a US video:

Calculate on your own.... a basic set costs 219 Euro (inclusive Vat)

The filter itself costs 12,50 Euros (inclusive Vat) and should be exchanged every 10,000 kilometers (for diesel every 9,000 km)

Thats it.

[SenseMaker2013]

As we can see, people start thinking seriously about this solutoin and the mechanisms of a "bypass" Frantz Oil Filter....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAYMRbGo_E

[simonr]

Does it work on Snake Oil?

Si

[elbekko]

Does it somehow magically protect the oil's properties?

[FridgeFreezer]

Does it reassemble all of the long-chain polymers that have been chopped up by mechanical forces?

[SenseMaker2013]

Does it somehow magically protect the oil's properties?

Synthetic Oils generally are created for what they shall work for... stability in high temperatures is nothing new for oils. Naturally if a regular filter only filters down to 10-20 microns (one micron = 1 millionth of a metre) the regular used oils get weakend by dirty particles as the regular solutions do not filter out moisture or fuel contaminants.

The extra bypass filters are 99% efficient and have a cleaning efefct down to 40-50 microns

One of the inventors had been a German guy named Hermann Trabold. He had designed a patented bypass oil fine-filtration system already 25 years ago as a professional researcher and oil analyst.

http://www.oil-filter.net/warum.html

Trabold Filters you still can buy.

In 2000 the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction concluded a two-year test of bypass filters in 48 school buses (and as a result of this test later installed the filters on 580 new buses). Most test buses were in operation without oil changes for more than three years, and engine wear and maintenance costs were significantly reduced. As a result of this program, DPI installed systems on all 580 new buses purchased in 2000.

You can find many, many examples worldwide, even from truck companies who use such bypass filters very successfully to reduce their running costs and expand the life time of their extreme expensive diesel engines, e.g. this a Peterbilt Diesel Truck.

Its not a joke we are talking here about. Its seriously science. But if the simple car owners like to be fooled by the automotive and petrol industries, the bad game shall go on to spend billions of dollars for nothing good.

[SenseMaker2013]

The One Million Miles test... with Oil Bypass Filters. The study was ordered in 2005 by US government.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Refined+Global+Solutions'+Original+OilRig+Performs+in+Major+U.S....-a0131890793

Read the evaluation report (about a test period of 35 months) of the US Departement of Energy... as a result of testing ten diesel engine buses (8 of them had been actively counted) travelled till June 30, 2005 an accumulated 829,871 total test miles

http://www.inl.gov/technicalpublications/Documents/3310989.pdf

All single test reports here: http://avt.inl.gov/obp.html

As summary it is said: "... avoided an average of two out of three oil changes before the oil analysis led to changing the engine oils." - So for the future less you could calculate:

Three oil exchanges using a bypass replace 9 regular ones (with the old system).

(Remember, that you can take with you the bypass system from car to car. Its a one time investment.)

Not bad to reduce the costs at round about 8,000 Euros*) if you estimate the total amount for oil exchange though a driver's life, isnt it ? :-) - Not to forget doing something good for the environment.

------------------------------------

Rec.: If you calculate this on a life span of a driver, e.g. using the costs as it is seen by statistics in Germany at an average investment by more than half of all owners for buying a car in 2011 at a prize of 22,500 Euros:

• German car drivers have 54 years of mobility and buy 3 new cars and 5 used cars.
• A German driver invests in average 116,900 Euros for buying cars through his life.
• Petrol costs 78,900 Euros.
• Insurance and Tax: 58,100 Euros.
• Rent or buying a garage is spent 20,300 Euro.
• Cleaning and keeping in shape is 16,900 Euro.
• Replacing tools and tires is 15,200 Euro.
• Maintenance and *) Oil exchange is 13,000 Euro.

[simonr]

Does it reassemble all of the long-chain polymers that have been chopped up by mechanical forces?

Ha Ha! For once I beat you to it with the Snake Oil comment!

OK, I've not done any research into the degradation of oil or the miraculous restorative properties of bog paper - but it just seems a bit too good to be true. If it was based on something other than bog paper - I'd probably be more convinced.

We need Steve200tdi! He does this kind of thing for a living - performing oil & wear analysis on engines for a very respected company, unconnected to the oil industry.

There is more that happens to oil inside an engine than picking up soot & particulates. The only thing, even the best filter in the world can do is remove particulates. It will not restore the polymer chain length nor correct for the change in PH. It may be that these don't matter - but I want my engine to last as long as it possibly can and there is no way I'm going to give up changing the oil because some American bloke on the internet says it will be fine. He doesn't have to pay for a new engine!

Si

[SenseMaker2013]

We need Steve200tdi! He does this kind of thing for a living - performing oil & wear analysis on engines for a very respected company, unconnected to the oil industry.

So where are the experts for oil viscosity ? :-)

[landroversforever]

Does the filter smell like cows's mates droppings?

[TheRecklessEngineer]

OOOooo, me me me!

As you might/might not know, I'm an engineering officer aboard a merchant shipping vessel - part of my job involves engine oil processing. There seem to be a few of us on here, so I'm hoping someone else will chime in and back me up on this. (Maverick? SmasherWebbs?). What I know relates directly to diesels - but I imagine much of the theory would apply to petrol engines too.

There are a few things that will prevent an engine oil from doing it's job properly - the most critical is the quantity of sludge suspended in the oil. This is carbon deposits from combustion as well as metal particles from bits of the engine as they wear. The limiting factor in automotive applications is this quantity of sludge as a normal particulate filter isn't very effective at removing it. If left unchecked, it will deposit out on engine surfaces, in the sump etc (That's that lovely crusty black stuff you see at the top end of a Rover V8)

In the marine world, we use purifiers (a glorified centrifuge) to remove this as well as any water in the oil. As a result, we can essentially run the same engine oil indefinitely. Looking at the logs on this ship, we're covering about 12,000 hours on the same oil - that's about 500,000 miles @ 40mph.

What will also prevent it doing it's job though is contamination with fuel oil (lots of cold starts will exaggerate this, as seen in an automotive environment) and reduction in base number (how alkaline it is - much less of a problem on ULSD in a car than the high sulphur stuff we sometimes burn). There is really little choice but to change the oil if either of these two conditions occur.

So, if this filter is as effective as it claims to be, then there is no reason why you can't extend your oil change intervals. Although, the advertising is quite pushy, which would start alarm bells ringing with me.

There are quite a lot of standard plant with small centrifuges built in - like the oil filter on a Td5. Google turns up a fair few results for off the shelf options.

I imagine, for the vast majority of people, the cost of an oil change once/year isn't really that significant in the running costs of a vehicle. Truckers/large plant, perhaps it might be valid.

[sutty_32]

Synthetic Oils generally are created for what they shall work for... stability in high temperatures is nothing new for oils. Naturally if a regular filter only filters down to 10-20 microns (one micron = 1 millionth of a metre) the regular used oils get weakend by dirty particles as the regular solutions do not filter out moisture or fuel contaminants.

The extra bypass filters are 99% efficient and have a cleaning efefct down to 40-50 microns

Isn't 40 mircrons bigger than 20 microns? so your saying the additional bypass filter is worse at filtering than the standard filter?

Also, having 2 filters in a system will be better than 1, and why the need to keep the original filter if these are so good?

I also think you are a little misinformed about the big car manufacturers. Dealerships are independent for most of the big manufacturers, so the only profit they see from a car service would be from parts, such as filters (which in the case you give you still need to buy filters). A lot of these companies vehicle sales are in fact to the fleet market, such as company cars, where a big deciding factor for which car company gets the contract is vehicle running costs, so there is a constant push to reduce service costs as it is a deal breaker.

Case and point, on modern Land Rovers the gearbox oil is no longer considered a service item, it is there for the life of the vehicle.

Maybe if you include a magnet on the filter it would also reduce the friction in the engine by aligning the oil molecules, might even get a 50% fuel saving!

[SenseMaker2013]

Isn't 40 mircrons bigger than 20 microns? so your saying the additional bypass filter is worse at filtering than the standard filter?

oh.... part of my sentence has disappeared I should better re-read in the pre-view before clicking post... so tks tipping on these disturbing numbers.

The correct sentence should have be:

The extra bypass filters are 99% efficient with filtering down to 0.1 micron while the normal filters only have a cleaning effect down to 40-50 microns,

[SenseMaker2013]

... As a result, we can essentially run the same engine oil indefinitely. Looking at the logs on this ship, we're covering about 12,000 hours on the same oil - that's about 500,000 miles @ 40mph.

@TheRecklessEngineer: good comment.... makes some aspects very clear. Out of the mouth of an engineer having to do with lots of oil on board a seagoing vessel, I think its proofen by experience...

I have heard of these centrifuges being used by explorers using trucks as home mobiles... but mainly they use it as "Diesel Centrifuges". What about this aspect to pre-clean the diesel ? - Has it any influence onto the oil, too ? - If so: What kind of effect has it onto the oil itself ?

Even on Yachts we use "water seperators" as we like to avoid any problems with the diesel mashine...

Same I know from truckers and Motor homes having even double filter system.....

So in combination with such centrifuges, water filters plus bypass oil filters it should help a mashine to have a long, long life, even without oil exchange. :-) isnt ?!

[SenseMaker2013]

Also, having 2 filters in a system will be better than 1, and why the need to keep the original filter if these are so good?

Its the princips of a bypass, to pick up a dip of oil, clean it and then bring it back into the reguarly cycle... so the main oil, still runs through the regular filter (which has no real deep cleaning function anyhow).

Another aspect I think is the guarantee.... if you do any changes on the mashine, the car company might say: No more guarantee... so with the bypass system you dont change anything of the original mashine, instead you complete it with an extra filter service. Its some tricky legal aspects behind. :-)

[TheRecklessEngineer]

Yes, you can use them to clean diesel too, but this has little bearing on the rate of degradation of the oil.

Sure, you can fit all of these things to your car and make your oil last for many times longer than it otherwise would. But - I highly suspect that in 95% of cases in an automotive environment that it would be more expensive to do so than to simply change your oil.

As I said previously, very high mileage, trucks, large plant etc, might well benefit from such a system. I doubt that many car owners would benefit. I certainly don't think that there is an engine oil conspiracy to keep us changing it.

My daily driver actually has engine oil monitoring as part of the on board computer. Depending on driving style (cold starts etc) it will vary the oil change interval. That's fitted to a vehicle with 'fussy' oil requirements and costs nearly £100 for a DIY oil change. I can imagine it simply isn't viable for a vehicle that takes standard 10W40 from ASDA.

I suspect that the Franz filter 'struggle against the automotive giants' is a marketing ploy.

[Adam001]

oh.... part of my sentence has disappeared I should better re-read in the pre-view before clicking post... so tks tipping on these disturbing numbers.

The correct sentence should have be:

The extra bypass filters are 99% efficient with filtering down to 0.1 micron while the normal filters only have a cleaning effect down to 40-50 microns,

0.1 Microns??? So then, if you are selling them, can you tell me what the flow rate is and at what pressure? Quite Frankly 0.1microns is totally unreasonable given the size of the filter in these photos, if the medium was water then yeah, I might be able to believe it.

Ah you say it only takes a part of the oil, how is it plumbed in?

[Adam001]

Its the princips of a bypass, to pick up a dip of oil, clean it and then bring it back into the reguarly cycle... so the main oil, still runs through the regular filter (which has no real deep cleaning function anyhow).

Another aspect I think is the guarantee.... if you do any changes on the mashine, the car company might say: No more guarantee... so with the bypass system you dont change anything of the original mashine, instead you complete it with an extra filter service. Its some tricky legal aspects behind. :-)

Erm...it would invalidate the warranty

[Phil Hancock]

We used to have a similar set up made by 'Cleenol' on all our work boats, we ran out of the filter elements and did not know where to get replacements from(pre internet days) so i removed them. The oil pressure went up as a result!

[pat_pending]

Short journeys and cold starts allow lube' oil to be contaminated with fuel, this both dilutes and destroys the oil.

You can't just filter that out.

In engines that hold huge ammounts of oil and run for hours or days non stop it probably works, in an average car engine it's probably just not worth bothering with.

As also stated earlier, if car makers could reduce service intervals they would, in fact if they thought they could do away with serviceing altogether I'm sure they would. Anything that would help sales.

[tacr2man]

IIRC there were several mining companies in Australia that changed oil on condition , rather than interval , the analysis was done by caterpillar . I stopped using a full synthetic in my 300tdi defender engine , as it was thickening , and I was not happy with extending the interval . I did think of using one of these bi pass filters as they were quite popular with road train drivers at the time . I sold the vehicle after 250,000km was still running sweet !

The early landies were bi pass filter engines AAMOI !

[Tanuki]

IIRC there were several mining companies in Australia that changed oil on condition , rather than interval , the analysis was done by caterpillar . I stopped using a full synthetic in my 300tdi defender engine , as it was thickening , and I was not happy with extending the interval . I did think of using one of these bi pass filters as they were quite popular with road train drivers at the time . I sold the vehicle after 250,000km was still running sweet !

The early landies were bi pass filter engines AAMOI !

Yes, big industrial Diesels (the kind used for generators, pumps etc) have 2 oil filtration systems - one the traditional full-flow system we're all familiar with, the other a 'depth filter' which bleeds off a very small amount of oil (less than 1%) from the high-pressure side of the pump, filters it, and returns it to the sump. These filters are typically made of sintered material (metal or plastic or ceramic), though some are made from something that looks like a block of compacted cardboard..

And yes, these engines do not have a specified oil-change interval: every month or so you take a small sample of the oil and send it away to a testing-lab: there they analyse it for levels of fuel-contamination, remaining anti-wear ingredients, molecular film-strength etc - and - most importantly - levels of certain metals (leaf/tin/indium/copper) that are used in the bearings. Then they email you a report on overall engine-condition and how many hours longer they think the oil will last.

It's quite common for engines to do 8,000 hours between oil-changes: and strangely it's usually the engines which are worked the hardest that go the longest between changes!

[CwazyWabbit]

Always amazes me the technical gurus that exist on this forum

[BogMonster]

Does it work on Snake Oil?

Si

:rofl: :rofl:

[SenseMaker2013]

And yes, these engines do not have a specified oil-change interval: every month or so you take a small sample of the oil and send it away to a testing-lab: there they analyse it for levels of fuel-contamination, remaining anti-wear ingredients, molecular film-strength etc - and - most importantly - levels of certain metals (leaf/tin/indium/copper) that are used in the bearings. Then they email you a report on overall engine-condition and how many hours longer they think the oil will last.

... interesting. Tks for sharing. Always great to learn something new.

How much does cost such a service ? - Is it an anually contract or you contract a specific number of analysis ? - So does make it sense to use an analysis service for trucks, too ? - Is such a service interesting too for trucker drivers ? - In Europe so fare I know the average run of a diesel engine on a truck per year is 150-180,000 kms. Mostly they are sold as used ones after 4-5 years these days. The market is overflooding with used trucks currently so for a buyer it would be interesting to have such analysis knowing that the engine and its oil was handled properly by the 1st owner, isnt ?!