More Engine Oil Discussion - Magnatec?

Yes I'm not a fan of PTFE in oils, and it's definitely been getting some bad press lately. Slick 50 and other engine oil additives - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

That's why I mentioned MoS (Molybdenum Sulphide) as an alternative for a friction reducing and surface bonding additive. Of course some people will argue against using any extra additives in motor oil, and they may be right, but I have seen some evidence of MoS products giving good results.

Re the Castrol Magnatec. I use it myself sometimes as it's a reasonably priced oil over here, but as for it's claims of magic molecules that cling (better than anything else) to engine parts at cold start. Well let's just say I've always considered this to be at least 95% marketing spiel and maybe 5% reality.

 

I haven't heard that- thanks, I'll look into it further. I had no issues with my Camry, or a Ford Falcon that I owned before that for 17 years. If the evidence proves me wrong, then I'm happy to concede that.

As I mentioned earlier, check out the Castrol UK website. They show evidence of trials they have conducted- admitedly they did the trials and it is up to us to evaluate whether they may be some merit in the claims. We will never get perfectly objective proof.

 

David,

I think what you are doing is overkill. We have a LOT of prii here in US. Most of the regular people do not care about what oil the FastLube puts in their Prius, and their engines are fine. As long as you change oil with a reasonable interval, and do not overfill/under-fill too much , engine will be Ok for a long time - based on PriusChat most of failures are battery or inverter or transmission. My previous Toyota car was Tercel with 240 K miles and the 1.6l engine was still running strong while all it had was mineral oil changed at 3000 mi interval.
Alex

 

I like some synthetic content in oil because of its broader viscosity index and improved flow during cold startups, particularly in winter (it gets chilly up here). Synthetics' ability to resist degradation during extended use (Amsoil claims that users can extend oil change intervals to 15,000 miles and beyond) is less important to me because I change oil at Toyota's recommended intervals. To me, that makes a full synthetic oil's primary benefit irrelevant.
Every once in awhile I surf through the forums at bobistheoilguy.com. It's the land of oil nerds, and frequented by many people in the industry who know what they're talking about. It gets a little technical sometimes, but definitely worth a look if you want to learn more about motor oil.

 

Ok, I took a look at their site and even watched their magnatec video/ad. Is this the evidence part you're referring to?

The only problem with that is that we just don't know what they're testing it against. In the video they show that the wear is greater during the warm up time interval when they test the oil without their "intelligent molecules", but that doesn't really give us any information on how the wear compares with other leading brands of motor oil.

All of the manufactures know that the wear rate is greater when the oil is cold, mainly because some of the traditional antiwear additives don't function properly until the oil is up to temperature. Different manufactures rely on different additives to help mitigate this. Maybe Castrol magnatec has something special that none of the others have, but personally I'd like to see comparisons against competitors in the same market space (maybe something like Shell Helix HX7) before taking that as fact.

It also bothers me slightly that they don't even try to market magnatec in the US. Apparently they tried but it fell foul of some of their advertising standards (terms like intelligent molecules and the whole "magnetic" analogy just didn't cut it). They did try to relaunch it as "Castrol Startup" but it didn't sell very well and eventually they dropped it altogether.

 

Hi alekska,
Yes- you may well be right. I've been using this approach for years now, and am simply continuing with it, despite lack of objective evidence. the proven reliability and longevity of the Prius was a factor in my purchasing one. Reduced friction must help, as long as there are no other negatives.

 

I've heard from someone who worked for Castrol that Magnatec is the real deal and not just marketing hype.
However, the minimal difference is not worth loosing sleep over it.
That trademark never got any traction in US. I understand that Castrol marketed that oil in US as Edge "Start Up" but it was a commercial failure.

 

Would that be Shannow over at BITOG. I know that he loves to tell the story about time he had dinner with some engineers from Castrol, and they told him all about how good Magnatec was.

 

There's a lot of snake-oil (pardon the pun) out there, and claims are multitudinous, but few of them seem to be based on third-party, unbiased test results. I used PTFE years ago, because the theory behind it seemed sound enough, but I can't swear to any actual tangible benefits. Since I switched to synthetic oils, I seem to have reduced engine-wear nearly to zero, so I don't see much room for improvement.

Some of the snake-oil giveaways are testimonials (anyone can find positive reviews about anything), charts with no source reference, or vague claims with no quantitative values.

When I was a young feller, I was approached by a guy selling an oil-additive that he also wanted me to sell for him. He put a few drops of regular engine-oil on a ball-bearing, and lowered a drill-press with a rotating shaft onto it, applied pressure to the metal until the oil broke down and started to squeal, producing heat and smoke. He put a drop of his "additive" on the metal, applied the same pressure (it had a pressure-gauge) and it didn't squeal. He said as a demonstration, he would add it to the oil of a car, let it mix, then take the drain-plug out and let all the oil drain out. Then he'd take the customers in the car for a ride of half an hour or so, without any oil in the crankcase. He said that sold it every time. I never took him up on his offer for me to work for him.

I did some research into it later. I found that when this additive was placed on cast iron and left for awhile, it would eat a hole completely through it. This answers why the additive seemed to "lubricate" and the metal didn't bind-up; it was softening it like lead! I never heard of that guy or his product any time afterwards. I hope he went to jail.

 

Dupont do state that it requires high tempertures to activate, however I have seen an article where the prescence of it is enough to reduce friction significantly, so if correct that would be of some benefit. I have not found any issues with deposits, etc, altho' I realise that that is not proof.

 

Believe what you will. But here's the summary of legal action the US government brought against the maker of the leading PTFE engine oil additive, alleging the company claimed falsely that PTFE coats engine wear surfaces. As part of the settlement the company agreed to stop making the claim -- in the States. Quaker State Subsidiaries Settle FTC Charges Against Slick 50 | Federal Trade Commission

 

I'm no chemist, but PTFE is extremely unreactive with other substances, therefore it is used as a non-stick surface, and as an inert barrier against reactive substances. The properties of PTFE don't seem to portend to adhere to metal surfaces, forming a wear-resistant barrier against metal abrasion (wear).

It's not proof of anything one way or the other, just my opinion, but I'm not seeing the underlying rationale for using PTFE as an engine oil additive.

 

Thanks for that- interesting read. I wasn't aware of this action.

 

The sad thing is that it seems to fall to the government to prove that this junk doesn't work. It's disappointing to say the least, to see rave reviews about products with imaginary benefits, based only on the higher price. (If it costs a lot, it's gotta be good, right?)

 

I used Wal-Mart's SuperTEC oil($12.74 for a 5 qt jug) in my Lexus SC400 for 334K miles before I sold it. At 280K miles, I examined the cylinder walls with a fiber optic bore-scope. The original honing cross hatches were clearly visible. Cylinder compression on all 8 cylinders varied no more than 1 psi (174 to 175).

Many years ago I was a Mobile 1 guy always using it in all my cars, but over the years and over a million miles, I saw it create more problems than it helped. I saw cars that would burn oil when they collected moderate amounts of oil only to completely stop when I started using non synthetic.

Just buy the cheapest dino oil you can that has the highest ratings you can get and save yourselves the money.

 

Nowadays, there's really no excuse for any engine oil to provide poor lubrication. Enough is known about the chemistry of lubricants that virtually any oil at any price can provide good lubrication.

However, I'm sure there is a market for the cheapest possible oil, so that lube shops can up-sell the name-brands over the house brand, therefore I'm sure it's still possible to wear out your engine using an inferior oil. Personally I know someone who destroyed all the seals in his machine by using cheap oil from a distributor named "Service Station Supply."

 

People are so ritualistic about their oil changes and what oil they use.
I suppose it's OK in nearly every case.

But I really don't see much if any benefit from doing anything but using OEM (Toyota) oil or Mobil One.
I don't think any other formulation or any other additive is going to give me any benefit.

They've been selling additives and/or "magic" Oils for decades, maybe since the advent of populace car ownership. In all this time, I've never heard of any formulation that suddenly doubles or triples the life of an automobile engine in reality.