What about aftermarket oil additives- engine treatments, won't they make any motor oil perform better?

Engine treatments are unnecessary & can potentially be detrimental to the chemistry of your motor oil. The Federal Trade Commission has issued charges of false & deceptive advertising that several aftermarket oil additive manufacturers have misled consumers into believing that their products offer increased engine protection & performance when added to motoroil.

Without going into extensive detail here's what you need to know about aftermarket oil additives:   There are basically two types of additives used, either Teflon based with PTFE or Chlorinated based with some type of carrier, usually a paraffin based carrier or other mineral oil. Some have extremely large amounts of moly, zinc or phosphorus, all extreme pressure agents which can be detrimental to a motor oils proper function in the amount that they use.

Teflon does absolutely nothing inside an engine. Teflon must be heated up to about 800 deg. F to get it to stick to anything for friction reducing purposes, just like the Teflon on a frying pan, yet in an engine suspended microscopic colloidal Teflon particles can potentially gradually attach to the oil pick-up screen & reduce oil flow to critical components as well as reducing the oil flow in other critical internal engine passages by attaching themselves to the passageway walls.  In addition, as the oil filter filters out some of the Teflon particles, the filter flow rate can potentially be reduced which in turn may eventually become restricted & default to the by-pass mode of operation, which means unfiltered will then flow through the engine.

If you've ever gotten bleach on your fingers you will notice how slippery it is. Add enough Chlorinated components to a mineral based carrier & mix it with some type of teflon, moly, zinc or phosphorus & you can reduce friction, except for one concern: chlorinated additives mixed with oil & subjected to heat forms hydrochloric acid.  Hydrochloric acid is detrimental to internal engine components.

The truth is: When using a properly formulated motor oil you do not need any aftermarket additives whatsoever & additionally, the additives you may put in can potentially be incompatible with the additives the oil company carefully blended in. The major oil & additive companies are some of the richest & most powerful companies in the world, & they certainly can afford to hire the top chemists that know how to properly formulate a motor oil (this is not to say they make a premium quality motor oil; just that they know how to properly formulate one to perform the functions it was designed to & meet the required specifications, but they won't because it would cut into their profit!).  

A.J. Amatuzio founder, President and CEO, designed AMSOIL synthetics with the express purpose of making motor oils that were of such high quality, they could totally outperform the oils of the day.  AMSOIL manufactured the first oil made for extended drain intervals to 25,000 miles or one year in 1972. The technology was available over thirty years ago! The other oil companies were recommending 2,000 to 3,000 mile drains back then. They still haven’t come that far in 32 years, have they?

Today, AMSOIL still has their 25,000 mile/1-year oil, and has now formulated a 35,000 mile/1-year oil or no oil changes with by-pass filtration & oil analysis testing. The other oil companies don't have anything that even comes close to what AMSOIL offers!

AMSOIL INC. has no fear of increased competition from other oil companies on any level, whether it be performance, protection or service life.

AMSOIL is specially engineered to last longer in service & perform better than any motor oil product on the market. AMSOIL published tests & over thirty years of satisfied customers prove it!

Here is our professional opinion as Lubrication Specialists and Truck/Automotive Engineers (not only is it our opinion but it is our opinion backed by proven scientific research and testing by some of the worlds best chemists and engineers):

Stay away from all aftermarket additives!

You simply do not need them and you surely don't need the problems they may cause with your engine. If your still not convinced then think about the following.

The major oil companies, including AMSOIL, are staffed with the, bar none, some of the best chemists, scientists and engineers the world has to offer. Now, don't you think that if they determined that their motor oil was lacking an additive that they would blend it in their additive package? They obviously have the technology and resources and the financial backing to do it. Then why don't they? The answer is simple:  They are not needed!

How can it be that some fly by night additive manufacturer can have a miracle, cure-all additive without knowing the chemistry of the oil it will be used in? The answer is, they don't. They simply are out to get your money by using false and deceptive advertising to appeal to your desire to have what they are selling in your engine. They are masters at marketing, not science chemistry and engineering and I would equate them to nothing more than snake oil companies. Thank goodness for the FTC that is actually doing what it is supposed to be doing;  protecting the consumer and going after these companies and hopefully put them out of business.

Think about this question: how can it be that an aftermarket additive company can come out with an off-the-shelf additive that they claim you can pour into any motor oil and it will perform all kinds of phenomenal things the motor oil as engineered by the oil manufacturer seemingly cannot?

Our answer is they cannot. First of all, the chemistry of a particular motor oils is proprietary and there is no way an aftermarket additive company can engineer one additive to enhance the performance of any motor oil without knowing the exact chemical composition of that particular motor oil. Different base stock motor oils and manufacturer additive package formulations each respond differently to aftermarket oil additives.

Secondarily, a base oil formulation, which is inferior, cannot be converted into a top quality motor oil simply by pouring in an aftermarket oil additive, contrary to the additive manufacturers claims. What works in one motor oil may have totally different effects in another brand and/or type of motor oil. Yet, look on the bottle of any of these miracle additives and they are stated to work with any brand or type of motor oil.

Ironically, if you research the ownership of a few of these aftermarket additive companies the parent company is an oil company. To me, that raises questions about the motives of these companies in relation to sales figures and profits. The additives manufactured and marketed by these companies have recently come under scrutiny by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. I strongly believe the additives are on the market because of the profit potential that exists and the consumer demand that can be created by an effective advertising campaign for these products. As an engineer with over 18 years experience in the auto industry I have not seen one single iota of documented test data from an auto manufacturers R&D labs that can substantiate the use of aftermarket oil additives.

The claims these aftermarket additive companies make are absolutely ridiculous. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has issued charges of false and unsubstantiated advertising claims against many of these aftermarket additive companies. After both the FTC and the various companies presented their cases in a court, the false and unsubstantiated advertising claims were upheld and the manufacturers were assessed damages and consumer redress and placed restrictions on the type of advertising they can do in the future.

There is no mystery here. The additives that are used primarily consist of Polytetrafloeraethylene (PTFE) suspended in a standard motor oil, zinc (remember, zinc is used as an additive in most every major brand of motor oil, however, more zinc does not necessarily mean more protection and can cause other engine problems if not properly blended into the overall additive package of the motor oil), ZDDP, kerosene, acetones, xylene, naphthalene, isopropanol, and chlorine blended with some type of carrier, which is typically a high viscosity motor oil. These aftermarket additives can offset the critical balance of additives the oil company has carefully engineered and blended in as well as cause detrimental reactions with the chemicals already in the motor oil that can either strip away useful additives the oil company blended in, attack internal engine components or plug critical internal oil passages.

The bottom line is that there is absolutely no credible documented data or evidence by any major oil, automotive or equipment manufacturing company that substantiates the use of aftermarket oil additives. My advice is to stay away from any aftermarket oil additive.

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