Slick 50 - FROM THE BEGINNING?

If you want to be nice to your engine, use Mobil 1 synthetic oil and a quality filter and leave the snake oils on the shelf.

Ditto. I don't see how you could do better.

Weeelll, here goes. Oil additives are mostly snake oil, period. There is no substitute for regular oil changes with quality oil. (I prefer synthetic myself). In 1979 I bought a 1978 Mustang II with a 2.3L motor. Those motors were famous for lack of oil to the camshaft, cam failures, etc. From 4500miles to 190,000 miles I used a can of Wynns Friction Proofing in the oil at each oil change. The car was scrapped by another owner at ~220,000 miles still "running". Would the motor have gone that many miles without the Wynns? Maybe, but there is no way to tell. I saw many of these motors go into the upper 100Ks without failure and without the Wynns FP. If you change your oil with quality oil and a quality filter, there is no reason it will not last 100K or more. After 150K it's a crapshoot, regardless of oil or additives. If there is a casting flaw somewhere in the motor, or anything like that, no additive in the world will stop the inevitible. Slick 50 will certainly not harm your motor, but there is no real way to tell if there is any benefit. If Pop insists on it, pour it in. Then you will both be happy.

Regards, Tom

snipped-for-privacy@mrs.umn.edu (Rebecca Webb) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@educ-dyn6.mrs.umn.edu:

First off, 156,000 miles isn't a lot these days. In 1970 it would have been remarkable. My dad put 140K on a 1958 Dodge, and it was the talk of the town at the time. The fact that you got 156K on your Contour doesn't mean much. If you'd got to 300K and were still getting 2K per quart of oil, then you could think about bragging.

Secondly, if Slick 50 or other was that good, wouldn't the manufacturers themselves recommend them? Oils are full of additives already, so what would one more substance be? Instead, they emphatically UNrecommend them. Some links here:

Especially check out the "skepdic" link.

Slick 50 and it's ilk will definitely harm your motor. The PTFE (Teflon) in it plugs the tiny oil passages, effectively starving that part of the engine for oil, greatly -increasing- wear.

Plus, the makers of Slick 50 were busted by the FTC about 5 years ago for deceptive advertising.

The OP should stay away from it. Regular oil changes with regular oil, not the $expensive Mobil 1, will work just fine. If you don't race your car, regular oil will work just fine.

Rebecca Webb opined in news: snipped-for-privacy@educ-dyn6.mrs.umn.edu:

Lots of "Dad's" swear by Pennzoil and Fram Filters, too...

Just use what the dealer supplies or Mobil 1, forget the additives and when he asks you about the slick 50, say "Sure do, Dad"

Motorcraft or Purolator filters, never FRAM

And i'm older than he is probably

Slick 50 also almost did not make it to market because of this. Dupont did not want to sell the PTFE ( Dupont is the creator of PTFE ) to the makers of Slick

50 for that very fact and warned the makers to not produce the product for it's intended purposes. The makers of Slick 50 as far as I know sued and won, Dupont had no choice.

I agree. 2000 Taurus with a duratec and 156K miles. Mobil1 from the start. Not a hiccup yet.

I agree completely. I would go with Mobil 1, but Motorcraft should be fine.

Kendell and valvoline are good oils, too; NAPA and Wix are very good filters as well.

I'm not, I think. ;-)

Jeff

Slick 50 will not do much other than help your money slide more easily into the pockets of the folks who make it. Consumer Repots among several groups has tested it more than once and if flat out does not help. Of course, it didn't hurt either but that's a whole lot of cash to fork out for what amounts to an engineering placebo. Frequent oil changes, good quality filters and the use of a quality motor oil will do more than anything else to prolong the life of your car. Save the dough, buy more frequent oil changes.

I have a some thoughts. First, I have rebuilt several engines, and there is no way Slick 50 will plug any oil passages. If the teflon particles were big enough to do this, it would plug your oil filter. Running crap like Quaker State in a cold climate, on short trips, year after year will surely leave a thick, waxy, sludge in your upper engine. I have seen it in engines I tore down.

Second, I have used nothing but Valvoline semi-synthetic in my old Ranger with a 4 cylinder for the last ten years. It has 150,000 plus and doesn't burn a quart in 2,000 miles or leak a drop. No additives.

Third, the advice here about using almost any oil filter EXCEPT those junk Fram filters is correct.

Fourth, if your father tells you it works and it seems to have worked for you in the past, why are you asking? Put the stuff in when the dealer isn't looking.

I stand corrected, big time. I wasn't aware of this. I don't use oil additives and don't recommend them. I tend to consider additives as snake oil (useless) but I've never heard about them actually causing harm. If a customer insists, I go along with his wishes with the proper caveats. Does anyone have documentation that Slick 50 or any other additive actually causes harm in a motor? Tom

Cold causes the 'teflon' to fall out of suspension, also. DYODD.

Kee-ryste, here we go *again*. It is difficult to believe anybody gullible enough to fall for Slick-50's cheap pseudoscientific bullcrap is smart enough to keep breathing, but here we are.

There is no need to add Doctor MoJo's Motor Cream with Flex Fluoride and Vitamin-E and Teflon (or Slick-50, or ProLong, or Motor-Up, or any of the MANY other scam products on the market) to your engine. It will not "treat" anything. It will not help anything. It can very easily damage your engine by clogging small oil passages. Teflon belongs on the frying pans in your kitchen, NOT in your engine.

That's because he's seen your type of "I know better than trained tribologists and engineers" fools ruin their engines and bitch about it before.

The same was true 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 30 years ago.

You think you'll suffer engine part damage without Slick-50? Oh, my. You are a marketing psychologist's wettest possible dream.

WETTEST possible dream.

I would say it's never too late to stop being a willfully-ignorant, paranoid, superstitious, manipulated fool, but it would seem you've bought another Ford, so I may be wrong on that point. You can be *less* of a fool by not pouring worthless and potentially harmful gunk into your engine.

Geeze, *GROW* a brain, then think about the claims they make for a bare fifteen seconds, and you can figure this out all by yourself.

DS

And "warming up" the engine for half an hour before driving off, and revving the engine before shutting it down, and pumping the accelerator while cranking the engine...

Yeah? Then how come Chrysler 2.7s and Toyota 3.0s and PRV-V6s have such chronic problems with tiny oil passages clogging even WITHOUT dumping Teflon particles in?

1) You're assuming the Teflon particles *don't* clog the oil filter. 2) Are you aware of what happens to the size of Teflon particles when they are heated? Hint: It doesn't remain the same, and it doesn't decrease.

Or, y'know, she could tell her father to keep his nose out of her car.

I made the mistake of trying it in the early 90's. I don't think it cause harm, but eventually I found some crusty brown stuff on the oil filler cap and stuck to the filler hole threads on the valve cover. I have the feeling it'll eventually solidify where it shouldn't.

You did approx 126K in 3 years on your Contour if I'm reading this correctly. So.... your car tends not to do a lot of stone cold for weeks dry starting (I'd imagine), You're also swapping your car after

3 years... If you're worried about longevity, talk to the taxi mechanics or police mechanics or bus/truck mechanics. I think you might be surprised at how few use Slick 50, or any other additive.

IF you want to use it, go ahead. The amount of driving you do will mean that the engine will plug up & puke out after you've traded it in on something else.

Another approach is to talk to everyone you know who drives a car and ask each of them how often they personally have had, not they know someone who know's someone who's had an engine fail, but someone who's actually had their own engine fail due to oil starvation issues.

I've changed oil on a Ford F150 Pickup that hadn't had it's oil changed for 40K. It had conventional oil. Inline 6, Fram filter. Black, tar oil from the pan, filter base silted up 1/2 way.

It was driven the wreckers years later with a rotten body and nearly

200,000 on the clock. No oil additives ever.

Give your engine 30 seconds warm up each time you start it cold & you'll be fine, or.... add Slick 50, give it 30 seconds warm up each time you start it cold & change your oil & vehicle often & you'll be fine.

Either way you should be ok. Modern cars are pretty rugged & cheap to replace, go with what gives YOU peace of mind.

can find more if you just do a search.