Re: Motor Oil, Quaker States view of facts and myths

Maybe it is because they make profit on it.?

In 1977 I was running Quaker 10w-30w in a one year old Chevy. One winter morning when the temperature dropped to zero I started the car and there was no oil pressure because the oil had gelled. A year or two later Quaker was forced to acknowldege they had a defective blend. They knew at the time that it was in the field and never told anybody. I did no damage and never bought Quaker State again.

I agree, C.E. Quaker State WAS really good. Pennzoil, IMHO, was crappo. Now, I have lost faith in Quaker State...but not necessarily because of the Slick 50 situation.

The Slick story is, to me, not as clearcut as it might have seemed. If I understand correctly, the Slick-o's got into trouble claiming things that they had no proof for....not necessarily that the claims might not have been at least partially true. Some of the claims would be difficult (or expensive) to support.

Slick is still for sale, I have never seen a documented case of filter plugging or engine damage due to it, and will keep an open mind until there is conclusive proof, one way or the other. (Have used it, no problems, don't any more...good oil is good enough, I guess.)

That's simply not the case. In the "old days" with carburetors and little or no emission controls the oil was constantly getting contaminated with too much fuel from cold starts. And due to the lack of emissions controls there was a lot of gunk created as combustion byproducts. Due to the quicker wear from the poorer manufacturing tolerances and poorer finishes on parts, the engines developed blow by sooner and that blowby was full of contaminants from above mentioned lack of emissions control. That blowby went right down into the crankcase and some got into the oil. Then there was the required twice yearly tune-ups which if skipped could make the dirty engine problem even worst as the plugs fouled and misfired more and more often.

Today's motors combined with today's emissions controls have tremendously reduced all that crap that used to wind up in the oil. There is absolutely no reason any vehicle can't go 6000 miles/6 months between changes (most could easily go 12 months) on todays oils. We have a fleet of 1000's and it's been established over the years that a

6000 mile interval is more then adequate with anything built in the last 15 years.

You still create acids in combustion and shed little

I've got two Vans with over 200K on them that only get oil changes scheduled for every 6K and often due to heavy use they go pass 10K between oil changes. And they only get bulk oil, not fancy synthetics. Original engines and auto trannies in both of them.

I wonder. Are there any statistics (not anecdotes) on why cars are finally junked?

My irrelevant anecdotal experience is that 60's-70's cars were junked when they rusted away. Early 90's cars seem to get junked when they devel>

True if you're comparing a 1940's engine with today's engine, but almost nothing has changed in terms of internal finishes and tolerances between about 1965 and today for most engines. A few were still using autothermic tin-coated pistons in '65, but not many. Block alloys (excpet for Chevrolet) had all gone to high nickel content for hardness by around '62. PCV was standard by '66 so the blow-by was being actively scavenged just as it is today.

I do agree that EFI makes a big difference in keeping fuel contamination out of the engine, but oil analyses on my old (60s) and new (90s) engines show almost no difference.

My irrelevant $0.02 - about 1/2 get totalled. The other half ... seems to depend on the brand. Pickup trucks seem to keep going until the last load falls through the floor of the box because it's all rusted out. I think for newer cars it's because they just fall apart - the power windows stop working, the AC breaks, etc etc and then something expensive like the clutch goes and the car is just junked.

Ray

Actually, I was being ironic. In my opinion (and it is only an opinion but based on personal experiences), in the old days Quaker State was crap. I used it for awhile in the early 70's until I saw the insides of my friend's

350 Olds engine. After that, I stayed as far as possible away from the stuff.

As for Slick 50 - Another of my friend's became a Slick 50 enthusiast after it had been out for a couple of years. He put it in everything. The result was that he had two different vehicles towed to a shop with no oil pressure. In both cases, the oil pick-up screen was clogged with "something." He refused to blame it on the Slick 50, but the mechanic who did the work did not even heave to be told that he was using Slick 50. He had seen it all before. The same friend also put the Slick 50 in an outboard - that engine ended up on the junk pile with "mysterious problems." BTW, after the outboard failed (for unknown reasons), he never used Slick 50 again. So far he has not had to have another oil pick-up screen cleaned. However, lately he has been talking up Z-Max.............Some people never learn.

Regards,

Ed White

I suspect that there ARE statistics, have heard they exist, but have never seen them.

This is the sort of thing that marketing management groups are likely to have but are perhaps a bit too sensitive to bandy publicly.

The rotting body welds at the rear windows of GM cars of a few years ago might lead one to question why this happened. I asked an ex GM employee, since the fix was easy...stop brazing the body panels together in an area where water accumulates. He said that management knew about it, they knew that people change cars for cosmetic reasons, and chose not to do anything about it for years. True, it is anecdotal.