Late, because I was off-line for a bit while visiting the desert southwest
and testing secret stuff...
In short, Teflon/PTFE in oil additives and filters and the like is a
complete waste of money. The very BEST you can hope for from such a thing
is no effect. I've personally rebuilt (customer) engines that were "Slick
50'd" into oblivion due to the PTFE gunk clogging up the filter, pickup
screen, and an oil gallery or two. It doesn't stick to other things (low
adhesion) but it does stick to itself quite well (high cohesion).
Think about this: the people who sell this stuff will, in the same breath,
tell you that PTFE is the slickest stuff around, but that it will
*selectively* bond with certain bits inside your engine *but* *not*
*others* if you just pour it in with its carrier oil. If you knew that
PTFE-coated cookie sheets, for example, are coated by taking the stamped
sheet, running it through a solvent bath to remove any oils, then putting
it into a controlled atmosphere (usually argon) at an elevated temperature
(350 or so degrees F) where the PTFE coating is sprayed on, you'd see that
the PTFE engine additive marketers are grasping at some seriously thin
logic straws here.
In 1997, Petrolon, the marketers of Slick 50, were slapped by the Federal
Trade Comission for deceptive ad practices -- they had no tests to back up
their claims of 'most engine wear occurs at startup' and that Slick 50
would reduce emissions, increase fuel economy, and reduce engine wear, and
had to remove those claims from their packaging and advertising. They
still have no tests to back any of those claims up. Nor does anyone else
marketing a PTFE additive.
Other oil/engine "treatments" aren't any better. DuraLube is chemically
almost identical to 1920s-vintage Conoco "Germ Treated" Motor Oil. The
various additives with moly disulfide as an active ingredient have their
own problems. Moly disulfide is a great dry-film lube (Ford, BMW, and
others are coating piston skirts with it now) which is present in small
amounts in just about any API-certified oil. Working on the priciple that
"if some is good, more is better", the moly additive makers put a BUNCH in
there, which is usually enough to displace some of the other additives in
the solution, so some of the anti-oxidants, anti-foaming agents,
detergents, etc. fall out and aren't there to do their jobs.
I could go on in much more detail on this (I've done a fair bit of research
on the subject), but you get the basic idea.
Jim Crider
DCX doesn't approve an oil additive or "engine treatment", either.
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