Fastboy

An auto enthusiast friend of mine told me about an oil additive called micorlon (www.microlon.com) that is supposted to stick to the metal in your cyclinders making the engine more efficient, burn less oil, etc.
He swears by it--says he has tracked the milage of his BMW's and other vehicles before and after adding this stuff with good results, and is so convinced that he's now even putting it into his lawn mower and other 4-stroke household motorized tools...
Does anybody see any potential danger to using this kind of thing on ones P-car?

x50type

Probably good for door hinges too..............................!

jcb-memphis

I don't add anything to my oil....fear of an engine rebuild.....just change the oil more often is my personal opinion of what is best for the car.

If it was that good, M1 would add it to the oil they sell and charge us. I don't think there are too many mysteries left in the process....reminds me a bit of those vornado air filter turbulence makers. My fluid dynamics background always told me that smooth flow would get more air into the system....dyno people showed the things did nothing.


Anyway, data and engine take apart would be needed for me to subject my very expensive engine to some sort of mystery syrup.


Jeff

beentherebaby

This and many other additives have been tested over the years with little or no indication of any improvement and in some cases compromised oil performance.

Based on my experience and many other folks who have actually dyno/track/street tested these additives, along with most new vehicle OMs and warranty requirements - Skip the oil additives. At best they are likely to only lighten your wallet. At worst they could cause engine damage or operational issues.

Macster

Given the pressure on car makers to lower fuel consumption and decrease CO2 emissions any additive that did what your friend claimed would be already offered in engine oil used by the car makers.

My thinking is that if I'm using an oil that requires and additive to increase the oil's ability to do its job I'm using the wrong oil.

There is an exception: I have been told by Porsche techs that the use of Swepco 502 oil additive -- which contains 100ppm "Micronized Moly" (IIRC another name for molybdenum disulfide) -- helps quiet engines upon startup engines that are used infrequently. (A bottle costs around $10 and this when I purchased it from the local Porsche dealer's parts counter.)

I tried several bottles -- over the course of several oil change intervals -- in my Boxster and Turbo and could not notice any difference one way or the other in quietness, oil consumption, fuel mileage, etc.

However, I use both cars regularly and this helps to ensure the engines are quiet upon startup cause neither one sits long enough to have sufficient quantities of residual oil drain away from internal engine bearings, etc.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Kevin

I would be very careful about adding oil additives.

Typically you have 4 different oil additives on the market.

1) ZDDP is the major anti wear additive that has been restricted due to emission issues with the Cats. There are aftermarket zinc additives that you can buy like ZDDPlus and GM's EOS assembly lube and STP.

2) Chlorinated Parifin, which is a very good metal conditioner>typically used for gear sets and gearboxes. There is a HIGH content of CF in Castrol 10W60. I have used this in different applications over the years. Aftermarket suppliers are Energy Release. Please note that this is some VERY nasty stuff. The metal to metal conditioning is a the TOP of the scale. I use a blend of this product for my turbocharger assy lube> My special BLEND...

3) Moly based additives, there are many Moly based lubes. I tend to favor the LubiMoly brand. With that said, I would use ZDDP or CP before Moly based lubes.

4) Teflon based lubricants. This was very popular 15 years ago. Fram use to manufacture oil filters with Teflon added as a pre-lube engine additive. I don't recommend this additive...

If going to the dark side of additives, you have to be very careful which additive the chemistry of your engine oil "base" is. You can run into trouble running CP with a ZDDP based Mobil 1. However, I personally feel that CP is used in the Mobil 1 TDT for the gear to gear conditioning. It's just my opinion.

I have the old HIGH content GM EOS on my shelves that I hord for special engine projects.

Joe Weinstein

99.9% of car owners should never use additives. For those who know/think they need/want more
ZDDP etc, find an oil that comes with what you want, so the manufacturer's work to ensure that all the
additives in the oil work together as designed is maintained. Please ponder why the best tribologists in
the world (lubrication scientists) at Mobil Inc. and such could be somehow completely oblivious to some
new (or old!) ingredient someone wants to sell you in a tiny flashy little bottle?

Independent additives are subject to a lot of 'snake oil'. Teflon is one such. It was/is produced by
DuPont, which did plenty of due diligence to test whether it would be a useful oil additive, and found no
such value (parts that get teflon chemically bonded with it are a different story). DuPont declared such,
and said they would no longer sell teflon to companies producing oils and oil additives *and was sued by
them* to force DuPont to continue to sell, based on the lack of evidence that teflon caused any harm.
Rather than spend a lot on lawyers to keep *not* selling something, DuPont caved and continues to
sell the raw ingredient.

Another trick to 'additives' is that the companies take advantage of the non-linearity of viscosity.
That means that if you add just a little thin oil to some thick oil, the result is significantly thinner.
On the other hand it take a *lot* of thick oil to make a batch of thin oil thicker, usually multiple times
the original volume.
The way the trick works is to sell you half a quart of thin oil with whatever secret sauce they're
selling, and whether or not the magic molecules exist, your resulting engine oil is thinner, which will
reduce internal friction (viscosity = liquid friction), and MPG will benefit as long as the thin oil will still
do the main job (and usually it can).

Joe

Macster

Regarding oils with ZDDP...

In the Novemember issue of Porsche Panorama in the Tech Q & A section (page 70) a person asks what is the recommended oil for his 2001 Boxster S?

In the answer -- by Scott Slausen -- starts out with mentioning both Mobil 1 0w-40 and Mobil 1 5w-40 oils as the two approved oils.

Slausen then mentions ZDDP and says oils with claimed higher levels of ZDDP are not recommended as they are a mix of standard oil and synthetic oil.

These standard and sythetic oils tend to have higher viscosities. The standard oil part gives the oil its slightly higher ZDDP level while the synthetic part of the oil is there to extend the life of the oil.

Slausen goes on to write that standard oils have have shown to suffer severe breakdown in as little as 700 miles which is why standard oils had oil change intervals of 3K miles sometimes less.

Slausen says that ZDDP was used in the '50s but its use has been surpassed in general by synthetic oils.

Might add on my own that if an oil maker feels a need to mix in an anti-wear additive is the oil maker doing this to provide extra good engine protection or is it perhaps because the additive is cheaper than just making a better oil?

Sincerely,

Macster.

Kevin

There must have been something lost in the editing process in the Panorama. Mobil uses ZDDP in there oil. It has been reduced due to EPA guidelines. The ZDDP levels are extremly high in Mobil 1 racing oils and Mobil 1 VTWIN. Mobil would NOT lower the ZDDP levels on there own.

Yes, there are other additives that Mobil has been forced to use in there newer oils.

There is NO standard oil and synthetic oil blending in Mobil 1 racing and VTwin oils>they have HIGH ZDDP levels.

My opinion and recommendations are to use a OIL that has the highest ZDDP that we can find. Hint> Mobil 1 5W40 TDT..

http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...duct_Guide.pdf

For Air-cooled turbo owners>> look at the Mobil 1 Vtwin

996TT and 997TT owners look at the 5W40 Turbo Diesel Truck

Look at the Racing oil levels..

Fastboy

This is all very good information. And, as I suspected, anything that sounds too good to be true usually is. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

Sumflow

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fastboy

Does anybody see any potential danger to using this kind of thing on ones P-car?

I was tracking the mileage keeping track on my iPhone up until the time it disappeared out of my car. I did not tear the engine apart and compare the coefficient of friction of metal parts against those of stock, So I really have no way of knowing if it worked as claimed or not. But I plan to use it again. Porsche tested an anti-friction resin, which Porsche claims accounted for almost a 10% increase in mileage on their test car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by beentherebaby

This and many other additives have been tested

I don’t believe Microlon is intended to be an additive. It's about friction! It's not about the fuel or the lubricant. It is a one-time treatment that I first learned when Porsche was testing it.

http://www.motreq.com/Document/porschetest.pdf

Quote:

Skip the oil additives.

He was asking about metal treatment, responding about oil additive does not show you have experience with friction reducers. In fact if you are doing the whole engine some is added using fuel as the carrier. How can it be an oil additive if it is applied using the fuel?

This slippery metal treatment was originally developed to treat high performance piston aircraft engines. It penetrates the metal surfaces where heat and friction occurs, filling minor voids, and leaving behind a super-slippery film on both surfaces.

http://www.microlon.com/elements/benefits_01.jpg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macster

Given the pressure on carmakers .. would be already offered in engine oil used by the car makers.

That may be true but as a shareholder in Porsche I can assure you the pressure to deliver profits on our parts business far outweighs concerns, which can be met in more traditional ways. On a pollutants per liter bases Porsche is as efficient as anyone. The problem was the lawmakers want to do it on a per car basis. Porsche AG, had to take over VW to get more cars in the calculation.
Microlon is a one time metal treatment, something that could be easily applied at the factory if manufactures wanted to close down there parts business and cut there own throats. 100,000 cars a year company like Porsche maybe could do it. But if they did, they would no longer be the most profitable car company in the world. A company like the Porsche owned VW couldn’t do it at all. A few years of three million cars a year not wearing out is not good for the industry.

Quote:

My thinking is that if I'm using oil that requires and additive to increase the oil's ability to do its job I'm using the wrong oil.

Maybe so, but Microlon is not an oil.

The low-friction characteristics of most dry lubricants are attributed to a layered structure on the molecular level with weak bonding between layers. Such layers are able to slide relative to each other with minimal applied force, thus giving them their low friction properties.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macster

There is an exception: I have been told by Porsche techs that the use of Swepco 502 oil additive -- which contains 100ppm "Micronized Moly" (IIRC another name for molybdenum disulfide) -- helps quiet engines upon startup engines that are used infrequently.

So Porsche does recommend an oil additive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin

Typically you have 4 different oil additives on the market.

Of which Microlon metal hardener is not one. It may use some of the same ingredients to condition and help in the application to metal. But the treatment itself is marketed as a one-time friction reducing treatment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macster

Might add on my own that if an oil maker feels a need to mix in an anti-wear additive is the oil maker doing this to provide extra good engine protection or is it perhaps because the additive is cheaper than just making a better oil?

It certainly could be that. But it could also be that the additives are not oil. Dry lubricants, are able to offer lubrication at temperatures higher than liquid and oil-based lubricants are able to operate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcb-memphis

Just change the oil more often is my personal opinion of what is best for the car.

You would know better than Porsche.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fastboy

Does anybody see any potential danger to using this kind of thing on ones P-car?

As far as potential danger. The FAA says Microlon will do no harm to your engine. This is what you asked before you got this snow job about additives, of which Microlon is not. I am sure the FAA is more concerned with planes falling out of the sky.

adam_

Yawn.

Something smells. Must be that "not an additive" that "fills minor voids" and "leaves behind a super-slippery film".

Go visit the website...there's a microlon for everything.

Mikelly

Smells of amway to me...

And remember, these are the same idiots who are pushing ethanol in our fuel, while extended storage gasoline destroys fuel systems all over the nation. More often than not these federal "requirements" have more to do with lobby groups and less to do with the "good" of the planet...

And while I'm at it, SUMFLOW explain how it's bad to change your oil sooner than Porsche recommends, since you want to poke a stick at Jeff's comment (jcb-memphis)?

Mike

Kevinmacd

Mobil 1 5W-50 and 0w-40 if I am not mistaken has 1,000ppm to 11000ppm of ZDDP, 15w-50 has 1200 to 1300 one of the higher ones.

NewYorkBuck

This post makes absolutely no sense to me. ZDDP has been used until recently and ONLY removed for EPA/cat reasons. Further I have never heard one claim that ZDDP is related to the mineral portion of an oil. Quite the contrary, the oil I know with one of the highest ZDDP content on the market is TDT - a pure synthetic.

Back to additives - I have only used one - and only one time - and that is ZDDP plus. Reading about IMS problems and how much quieter TDT has made the IMS for many, I decided to go to TDT myself. That said, when I had read this was in the late fall and I JUST changed my oil to 0W-40. Wanting to keep the lighter oil in for the winter yet still get the benefit that TDT provided, I added a small amount (1/4 container) of ZDDP plus to my oil. Low and behold, my engine sound has become quieter.

I will be going to TDT in the spring as I am not generally crazy about additives, but I felt this was worth noting.