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Newsletters>
DOES OIL BREAK DOWN OR WEAR OUT?
March 1, 2008
I am often asked by a suspecting prospective customer
“Doesn’t Oil Wear Out or Break Down?” This is brought about
by myths, untrue stories, or mostly just by lack of
knowledge of oil properties. My answer is always, “No, Oil
gets dirty but it does not wear out.” This fact is
substantiated by the U. S. Bureau of Standards, the Shell
Oil Company, the U. S. Air Force, and many others.
Combustion in an engine creates several byproducts
including water, soot, carbon, heat, and gases. Let’s not
concentrate on gasses because that is corrected by your
smog system. Heat is another thing that is controlled by
your cooling system. That leaves soot and water vapor
and/or liquid. Of course metal wear is also happening and
minute particles of metal or bearing material is mixed in
the oil.
The water is often seen at the exhaust pipe dripping or in
the form of white smoke. This is not harmful if the engine
is run for a significant time for it to evaporate and
dispense out the system but what happens when it doesn’t?
On short runs to the post office or short trip to the store
is harmful to the engine because this water doesn’t get a
chance to burn off and will combine to form acid. This is
bad. Fortunately, the Frantz Oil Filter is efficient enough
to eliminate or capture small quantities of water in liquid
form and trap it from your lubrication system reducing the
hazard to your mechanical parts. Frantz Oil Filters can
remove or capture as much as six ounces of water. Do you
realize how much six ounces actually is? It is 12
tablespoons, 177 milliliters, or 3/4 of a cup of liquid.
Yes, similar to almost a cup of coffee.
During an experiment today, I wanted to know how much water
in liquid form a typical roll of toilet paper would hold. I
started out coloring 1240ml or 2.5 pints of water and used
blue food coloring to better view the results. The photos
are on the www.FRANTZOIL.com website under the Myths
section for review. Here’s the link but it is easier to go
to the home page and click Myths.
http://www.frantzoil.com/page/page/5651679.htm.
It is amazing how much water a roll of toilet paper can
actually retain.
My initial photo shows filling the measuring pitcher from
the faucet after starting with several drops of blue food
coloring. This is followed by a close-up of the measured
water to begin the test. Next, it shows the clear beaker, a
TP cartridge from a new Frantz Oil Filter from my stock,
and a plastic container to plug up the center cardboard
from retaining any volume of water during test. The next
photo shows the plastic plug in the top of the center
cardboard. Now we’re ready to start the test.
The next six photos are stages of filling the TP with the
colored water from the pitcher. Then a photo shows the
saturation point indicated by fluid in the bottom of the
beaker. This surplus fluid is poured back into the pitched
leaving the beaker dry and containing a saturated roll of
TP with colored water.
Now it is time to measure the remaining water in the
pitcher and calculate the difference which is the water the
roll of TP absorbed. The starting water was approximately
41 ounces or 1240 ml or a little over 2.5 pints of water.
The final measurement was about 12 ounces or 865 ml or
about 3/4 pint left. The difference equals 29 ounces or 865
ml or 1.75 pints of water absorbed. This is almost FIVE
TIMES the amount of water Frantz claims the TP will retain
or remove from your oil. I was quite impressed with the
results of my unofficial experiment.
Getting back to my original statement, soot or carbon is
also a product of combustion along with metal wear. The
Frantz Oil Filter filters out these materials to a much
finer degree simply because of the amount of filtering
material the oil is run through in the filtering process.
These impurities are sometimes visible after installing a
Frantz Oil Filter and changing the filter TP element. The
top of the TP occasionally will have shiny objects
embedded. Guess what? It’s not water or oil. It’s metal.
Similarly, there will be dirty soot or carbon trapped by
the Frantz TP element. These impurities diminish in
severity as you continue to use the Frantz Filter and
change your TP element regularly. These are impurities your
stock car manufacturer’s filter missed.
Even though the Frantz Oil Filter does this excellent
cleaning of your engine oil, it does not remove the
additives the oil was produced with so you are still
receiving those benefits. The result is the oil in your
engine is almost as pure as when you first poured it in
your engine. Be aware however, the coloring may change.
Black or dark oil is not necessarily dirty oil. The heat
generated by the engine will act on the additives and
sometimes change the original color of the oil. One of my
car’s oil is a light machine oil color or very light honey
color while my other car is a dark black color. One is
easily viewed on the dipstick while the other could be
mistaken for no oil at all o the dipstick. The best test is
using a blotter or coffee filter paper and drip a drop of
oil onto it and after a few minutes, view it to see any
soot or particles on the white paper. The oil should fade
into just a darkened spot with no visible soot or anything
else showing in the spot if it is clean. Of course you
could also spend the money you are saving with your Frantz
Oil Filter and have an oil sample evaluated and tested at a
lab. This would be the ultimate proof.
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