They've been sued by DuPont, had their asses slapped by the FTC for their snake-oil claims, been outed for marketing a product that has no genuine benefits and can actually damage an engine, so how do they manage to stay in business, still making essentially the same claims?
Don't know much about Slick 50, but it sure sounds like it could be slick.
I've worked on cars long enough to know there is money to be made from peddling cans of goop to: make engine engine oil slippery, enhance transmission fluid, condition power steering fluid, stabilize gasoline, clean fuel injectors, improve fuel economy, improve engine performance, and plug a leaky cooling system. In my experience most of the products do no harm, and that's a good thing.
The FTC hammered them because they made claims which they had not tested adequately and for which they had no proof, if I remember correctly. The FTC didnt come out and say the product was trash, just that the marketing was deceptive and misleading.
My application for micronized PTFE was better served by another chemistry and was not taken further.
What about Anal Care Kits?
?????????????????
They're still in business because nobody *ever* lost money marketing to ignorant idiots and gullible fools. Since there are so many of both, it's a large market. Since logic and science haven't been effectively taught in the US for several decades now, it's also a growth market.
Did not Quaker State buy the rights to market Slick 50? A change of ownership seems to have 'purified' the product.
Two absolutely true educational horrors from a friend of mine who is a technology teacher currently at a "magnet" school for talented / gifted students.
Horror #1: One student had absolutely no idea how to use a ruler. This was a teenager too, not a 5yr old.
Horror #2: A group of students in an intro robotics class was given a socket wrench set to use in the assembly of components. Not a single student in the group knew how to use a socket wrench.
With "talented and gifted" students like that the future of this country is very bleak...
Pete C.
That is apalling - his parents should have taught that basic household skill.
Not surprising given the way that shop and other trade related courses are taught in classrooms away from the main high school campus for potential dropouts and other problem students. Most kids are actively discouraged from shop classes when many of those skills would be very useful in daily life. Not to mention a career.
Much as I hate to start a discussion like this, when I was in high school, boys were encouraged to take some shop classes even if they were college bound. I'm proud to say I took at least one semester of every shop class and went a lot further in auto and machine shop. It meant some summer school, but it was worth it imho.
Someone is gonna pick up those jobs, but I really dislike the condescending attitude of many teachers and school administrators towards trade related schooling. A good automotive tech is highly skilled and trained person these days.
I thought you learned how to use a ruler in the 1st grade at the latest.
Absolutely inexcusable the way schools try to steer kids away from skills / careers that are not "in". Many kids would would otherwise have a very rewarding career end up pushed towards something they don't like, aren't good at and may ultimately fail at.
As for socket wrenches, not only is it the loss of shop class in the schools, it's also the lack of those skills in their parents. It used to be that your dad would change the oil on the family cars and do other basic maintenance and you'd pick up some of the mechanical skills that way. Now most of the parents don't even know how to check the oil in their car, much less change it.
I'm probably a bit younger, but not that much as shop class did still exist when I was in school. Unfortunately I never really had the opportunity to take shop class as I was fairly talented in other areas and was somewhat steered in that direction. Fortunately though I was never one to yield to any kind of pressure (peer, parent, teacher, etc.) so that didn't stop my interest in things mechanical.
My father although I didn't get along with him very well, worked at Colt Firearms doing machining / setup for machine operators so I was able to get some machining exposure that way. I've since built up a halfway decent shop myself and treat every project / repair opportunity as an excuse to add more tools. I've taken a few evening classes at local tech schools to add to / improve my skills in various areas and enjoyed them quite a bit.
My feeling is that all students regardless of sex, need to take both a shop type class and a home-ec. type class as skills in both those areas seem to be desperately needed today.
Absolutely and we seem to be importing people to do those jobs. A good automotive tech is indeed highly skilled and trained and they sure seem to be in short supply based on what I've seen in a number of car dealer and other commercial shops. Examples such as the tech who forgot to put the bolts back in the center bearing carrier on the drive shaft on my truck after clutch work, or the folks at two different tire places who didn't comprehend hub piloted wheels or torquing sequences and put wheels on my truck crooked.
Pete C.
The Anal Care Kit is sold by Bullshit Productions, Inc. Is it useful at all? I have hemorrhoids
From what I understand, the Teflon while doing nothing to actually assist in lubrication, can build up in oil channels, causing oil starvation and excessive wear, the exact opposite of what it claims to do.
Much debated, Doc, but we have gone through this thread several times in the last 4-5 years. Many people believe the stories of PTFE buildup in filters, plugging of oil passages, etc but nobody yet has actually documented an incident, if my memory serves correctly. ( Like the story of the guy waking up in a tub of ice with a kidney stolen...Many believe it, nobody can document it)
PTFE does have some lubrication properties, and it can be burnished onto the surface of metals. Both are true. I have done it under lab conditions..but that is where the truth peters out. (STP was poly(alphaolefin). Believe it or not, this was an excellent lubricant, the effects of which seem to concentrate on metal surfaces.)
Whether engines are saved by, or damaged by, Slick 50 use would have to be determined by statistical analysis of considerable objective data. And I have not seen this....just shop talk, to date.
It is my position that the use of good lubrication oil (not necessarily synthetic) and timely oil changes will give you all the protection you need.
Well, I have heard that problem either does or does not occur. Thus my statement that "most of the products do no harm". That's faint praise, or a subtle way of saying purchasers are wasting money on those fixes-in-a-bottle.
A lot of driving experience leads me to believe that the fuels, lubricants and other fluids produced by the major companies are pretty good as produced. I'm unconvinced that some mom-and-pop operation can improve on the products that come from the research of hundreds of chemists and engineers that Shell, Mobil and the other big guns employ. I've found that following a program of regular changes of fluids and filter as appropriate will extend the life of any car. I've also found that in general people who reach for products in the automotive elixir section of Pep Boys are usually trying to reverse the effects of deferred maintenance.
Because P.T.Barnum was VERY correct.....
Slick 50 is now just another product group under the Shell Consumer group, along with Rain-X, Gumout, Fix-A-Flat and a dozen others. Sales are slowing down for Slick 50 engine treatment, but it still sells.
Here is a better question -
How do the executives at Shell Oil company sleep at night?
Shell now owns the Slick 50 brand as the result of a chain of buyouts (Quaker State bought Blue Corral, Pennzoil bought Quaker State, Shell bought Pennzoil-Quaker State). In the not so distant past Shell preached against adding anything to your crankcase but API certified motor oil (no additives to the motor oil like STP or Slick 50). Just another example of how the guys at Enron were no so different from the guys running other corporations.
Ed
The only conceivable explanation is that the parents took no interest in the child's earlier education and the "No child left behind" policy is effectively "No child moves forward"; unless the story is an urban legend.
I actually find this to be too much like an urban legend. There is a threaded hole, a threaded fastener with a hex head, a hex socket with a square hole, and a handle with a square peg. The handle has a widget for which direction the ratchet works, but this is amenable to exhaustive trials. However, I admit to being rather gifted in this area, so it may not be obvious to everyone at first inspection (99th centile, for pattern recognition, Canadian Test of Basic Skills [If I understood any of a number of unspecified languages, I would be an intelligence analyst, or so I was told]). Twelve point sockets will cause problems, because it is not obvious that they will fit; unless, they do some experimentation.
The only way I can figure for any student to have trouble deciphering the use of a socket wrench is to have never seen one being used. So these children may have been the victims of their parents' affluence, because their parents have never needed to turn a wrench. In my experience, children will watch all wrench turning efforts, as the shiny chrome attracts them like moths to a candle, and only threatening serious injury and/or death will keep them at any distance (which I utter only for their safety).
An urban legend? What do you base that statement on. I finished raising three kids through high school and university and I can assure you that schools actively steer the college track boys from shop classes.
??? - Don't get the context of this at all.
And I don't get this either.
Well, they have probably seen one in action. But they probably never had to select the right socket and extension and that is where you learn.
This was a teenager and occurred several years ago, well before the "No child " and would have put the problem years when this skill should have been learned somewhere around 1990-1992 I'd think.
Well it's not urban legend unfortunately. And it certainly seems intuitive to me, but I suspect if these poor kids were never exposed to anything mechanical when they were young (Legos, erector set, etc) they might well have not developed the mechanical / spatial skills for it to be intuitive.
Probably similar to a program I saw on one of the Discovery Networks channels recently about "feral children". One of the things that they found is that after a certain age the children were simply not able to develop complex language skills. The same probably applies to the mechanical / spatial skills.
Exactly, as I mentioned earlier, in years past they could watch their parent changing the oil on the car at least and pickup some mechanical skills. These days most parents don't even know how to check the oil in their car.
Pete C.
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