to many to list, but do they work?
Whole aisles devoted to these at auto parts stores…
Here’s a summary of the sorry track record of a number of them. I have no use for oil treatments:
Slick 50 – lost lawsuit to FTC (false advertising)
Duralube–lost lawsuit to FTC
MotorUp – lost lawsuit to FTC
Fuelmax - lost lawsuit to FTC
Zmax – settled out of court
Prolube-- busted by CR as useless, but not prohibited by FTC as yet
Thanks for the info,
I don’t use them, but every time I go to the auto parts store I keep thinking what if…
I guess if you change your oil like you should no worries
“But do they work”… What work?? What do you expect them to do?? At the 200K mile mark, people drag out the Rosary Beads and are willing to try ANYTHING…Please God, just another thousand miles…$4.95… Worth a try…
Even Tester swears by Restore, an engine overhaul in a can…
When sales people were trying to sell additives they would claim that it works almost as good as full synthetic. I translated that into “don’t buy this stuff”.
Here’s my favorite argument AGAINST Slick-50.
If you find early ads for Slick-50 you’ll see they say the active ingredient is Teflon. And now they use the Chemical name for Teflon (TPFE).
The reason for this is because Dupont (the company invented Teflon) owns the right to the name. They’ll allow anyone to use the name if they actually use it…like a company that makes cooking pans and are Teflon coated. Well Dupont heard about Slick-50’s claim of using Teflon in their oil additive and wondered HOW it could possibly work. From their experience there was no way Teflon could coat the moving parts of a engine. So they did their own research and found it to be GARBAGE. They then told Slick-50 they could NOT use the name Teflon in their advertising. That’s why they use TPFE.
Even with all this proof that these products are GARBAGE…it’s still a billion dollar a year industry.
Adolph Hitler and his propaganda minister Joseph Goebels firmly believed that “no matter how big the lie, if you tell it often enough, people will believe it!”. The only persons that did not work for was the US military and Nixon’s spokesman during the Vietnam War. They said “America was winning!”, but you only had to turn on your TV to see that it was not.
The only persons that did not work for was the US military and Nixon’s spokesman during the Vietnam War. They said “America was winning!”, but you only had to turn on your TV to see that it was not.
Or in my case…I was in Nam when Nixon made that STUPID STATEMENT. We were winning the battles…but NOT thw war.
Marvel Mystery Oil is still around? I remember my father used that on small engines and cars back in the 60’s (he learned engine repair on B24’s!). Isn’t this stuff a good valve train lube added to gas of old cars with non-hardened valve seats. Not much value on a modern car engine?
The only one I would say that was even halfway useable would be Marvel Mystery Oil, which has cleared up a sticky valve lifter or lash adjuster now and then.
Everything else is hype and the shelves stay full of this stuff because marketing campaigns work.
It works for the same reason that many people think their vehicle’s fuel system and engine performance will disentegrate if they don’t add a can of fuel injector cleaner at least once a month.
There’s a time and place for some additives but for the most part people have been conditioned to use conditioners…
I agree MMO may have some value - as a gasoline additive. Years ago my 1984 Chevy Cavalier was getting some preignition knock on slight acceleration. After a few tanks of gas with MMO added, the problem was gone. I continued to use MMO in the gas. Somewhere around 170,000 miles I replaced the head gasket and had the cylinder head worked on. The machine shop guys were impressed with how clean the head assembly was. I told them about the MMO and they thought that might have had something to do with it. I think the MMO helped clean off carbon deposits, which had brought on the preignition knock.
Looking at the Iraq situation today it gives me a familiar deja vue feeling.
I used to use MMO in my air tools,then the manufactures came out with their own oil.