Engine oil additives

I have seen such a product advertised on TV many times. It is probably useful for engines that are regularly driven under considerable stress or extreme conditions, but the Prius engine hardly fits that classification: 76 hp, low torque, 5000 peak rpms.

I guess that adding such an additive will do no harm, but in the Prius engine it's about as necessary as synthetic oil.

 

In the US there is a similar product called Prolong. It is first applied with their "Engine Treatment" the first time you use the product. Each oil change requires their Booster product be added.

I was sold on this product years ago after witnessing first hand a demo at Tuscon Raceway Park. They took several racecars with very high performance high dollar engines. Oil plugs were removed and all oil was drained. They then prpceeded to drive all these cars for 20 miles at 105 dergree's. From the reports afterwards, these engines suffered no damaged as they were Dyno'd before and after the Prolong exibition. The dyno results were near identical for each car!

I have used the product ever since being convinced that this product is something that will most definately help you get more miles out of your engine.

My 1985 Toyota SR5 pickup has 365,000 miles on it and its still very much rollin!

 

I've been treating my Prius with X-1R that I picked up cheap at AutoZone. I had good results with my previous car, that *needed* treatment to get even mediocre MPGs. I flushed the engine once, and needed to re-treat to get the MPGs back up.

Of all the available products, I'd suggest X-1R...

http://www.x1r.com/withframes/faq.html

 

The topic of engine oil additives has been hotly debated in the U.S., especially since the oil crisis of the 1970's. At that time my friends and I decided to test these products to see if they worked, and if so, which ones were best.

We selected different products and began our long term testing which has gone one to today. There was even one chap that took all the oil out of his engine and drove it around all day, despite my pleading that his engine would melt down in a geat big fireball. It didn't. By the next day he was tired of us asking, pleading to have him put some oil back in the engine - so he did. That car never never had anything more than normal oil changed every 3500 miles or so. Go Figure : )

What we found was that most products went off the market once Dupont started making the rounds of slapping everyone with a lawsuit (if their product actually said Teflon on it). Teflon being their patented trademark and they did not want to be responsible for all these claims that Teflon would help engine parts do anything better.

I was fortunate to have selected Slick 50 as my test additive. I can say that I am still using this product (now called Xcel Plus - the stuff in the stores called Slick 50 today is not the same company or formula) and have had excellent results with it.

I still have my 1976 Lotus Eclat, got rid of my 1978 Mercedes 6.9 only last year and just lost our 1982 Toyota Cressida (to a freak fire). All vehicles showed excellent compression, none were rebuilt despite harsh driving that caused my friend's test vehicles to require major engine repairs. In the end we found that Xcel was the only one that actually made any difference (all the above vehicles showed an average 3 MPG improvement that held up over the years.

If its worth it to you, you'll have to decide for yourself. What I recommend is doing some research on Teflon engine additives and the Dupont lawsuits (they never sued Slick 50) and you may be a bit better prepared to make that descision.

Good Luck

http://www.xcelplus.com/