[oilman]

Originally Posted by skyship007

Liqui Moly are the only oil additive company that fully test their products. They might not be cheap but they will do exactly what their PDS says. That's way
different to most back street mixers.

That's fine, but I still wouldn't use any additives when oil companies advise not to mix any additives with their oils. Liqui-Moly have not tested their additives with all oils on the market, so you cannot be certain what will happen with some oils.

Just yesterday we were approached by yet another of the miracle oil additive companies. We won't be dealing with them. I could sell additives easily, people like to buy products that make their car better, but we do not advise the use of additives. We have had several additives tested and none have been an overall benefit to the car, some have been harmful.

Originally Posted by skyship007

Tim is right about using specific miles, but folks like a figure and the oil companies use 70K miles for HM oils, although most oily folks prefer 100K miles. It all depends on wear which has more to do with abuse and the number of stop starts.
Most HM oils are not full synthetics (Except Mobil 1 who make 2 types of 10w60) because a FS oil tends to have a higher leak rate when the seals are worn.
If you do have an old oil burner (Or even a new one) the cost of the oil is significant, so using Castrol Edge rather than Valvoline 10w40 is bad news.

I'm not sure what you mean by oily folks, but I deal with automotive oils far more than most people, I'm in contact with the oil techs for several of the big oil companies (and the more specialised ones too) and not once have any of them said that a modern (or relatively modern) engine is on high mileage at 70 or 100k and needs to use a thicker oil. I guess the oil companies might say that to the public in order to sell the more expensive HM oils, but we get more accurate information. Perhaps an older 60s/70s/80s engine would be seen as high mileage at 100k, but they used mineral oil and the engines were built to larger tolerances, leading to more wear.

Mobil make one 10w-60 for the UK market, the Mobil 1 10w-60 Extended Life (you can check via this link http://www.mobil.co.uk/UK-English-LC...s_mobil-1.aspx). The Motorsport Formula was the same stuff, but with a slightly different label.

Full synthetic oils do not have a higher leak rate than mineral oils. Leak rate is due to the viscosity and if an oil is a certain viscosity it is that viscosity whether it is synthetic, mineral or olive oil. Yes, there can be variances within a grade (like a 5w-40 could be almost as thin as a 0w-30 or almost as thick as 10w-50), but the chemical make up of the oil is irrelevant. You can make a synthetic thinner than a mineral oil, but you can make it thicker as well, there is more control when producing a synthetic oil.

Originally Posted by skyship007

The alternate to using an HM oil is to just move up one grade and try half a can of a major brand oil stop leak.

No, do not do that. Moving to a grade thicker is already reducing the flow rate of the oil, adding a stop leak product to that is likely to make it a couple of grades thicker than that. One major brand product I looked at would turn 5L of 5w-30 into a 15w-60. Yes, that will stop the leak, but it will not be protecting the engine properly.

Originally Posted by skyship007

The lifter additive made by LM contains both detergent additives, a thickner and additional anti wear additives. It's aimed at one specific issue and in many cases changing the oil more often and using something thicker or a shorter oil change interval will also help.

Okay, the detergent and antiwear additives are good things, but the thickener is a bad option, it's just covering up the issue by reducing noise. Like the stop leak issue above, it reduces protection.

Cheers

Tim