by Robert Sanborn on June 20th, 2007, who was a member of the STLE Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers for 15 years.
I recently read an article claming oil additives are not effective. The article claimed that independent research laboratories, state universities, major engine manufacturers, and even NASA said they don’t work.
In response to this article today’s blog post is devoted to showing you independent research laboratory results of SFR’s oil additive. I am going to show you the American Society for Testing and Materials ASTM KA24E Nissan Valve Train Wear Test with Pennzoil 10W30 and 5% SFR100. This test today costs roughly $100,000 dollars. This is THE test all oil companies use to determine engine wear. This test shows that Pennzoil 10W30 has 17% more wear in an engine than 5% SFR with Pennzoil.
But I thought oil additives don’t work? I thought the article said that independent research laboratories found oil additives ineffective.
The article had little to no testing data or sources to back up their claim. They certainly were not going to do a $100,000 test on a random sample of oil additives. Maybe someone did a test on a particular oil additive and found that additive ineffective and the author used that as evedince that ALL oil additives are snake oil.
If NASA says oil additives don’t work then I am convinced! After all, they know alot about science and technology.
Well I am not really sure if NASA has done testing and found them ineffective or not. But I am sure they would not endorse an oil additive if they didn’t find benefits in additives. X-1R’s oil additive is in The Space Technology Hall of Fame in cooperation with NASA! SFR has also sold product many times to NASA.
Ok, how about state universites? They claim they don’t work.
The article had only this to say, “North Dakota State University conducted tests on oil additives and said in their report, “The theory sounds good — the only problem is that the products simply don’t work.” After doing a search in google scholar, I could not find any information offered by North Dakota State University. If someone could find the document and testing methods please send them to me.
Ok, how about the engine manufacturers?
I’ve heard of briggs and stratton running some sort of test in their own facilities with their own engineers. This test is NOT certified nor used by any major oil companies to determine engine wear. In addition the test was conducted many years ago and the brand of the oil additive that was tested was not disclosed.
Ok, how do I know this test is from a certified source and where can I find out who did the test?
Since this lab is used to test billion dollar corporate motor oils and is used by government agencies they want to remain completely independent. We are “contractually bound” by the laboratories to not reveal their identities. However, the way the contract reads the test can be distributed if the test is given in its entirety. This includes: the name of the test, the company it was tested for, the independent research lab that conducted the test, and the signature of the research engineer. For a complete copy of this test please write to SFR Corporation. The fee to obtain the test is $5.00 to cover printing and shipping costs. To see the online version for free click on the link below.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 11:43 am and is filed under Technical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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