From: leonglaw@hpsgm2.sgp.hp.com (Lawrence Leong)
Newsgroups: rec.autos
Subject: Re: SLICK 50: Good or bad?
Date: 17 Aug 92 00:42:30 GMT
Organization: HP Singapore

In rec.autos, svoboda@rtsg.mot.com (David Svoboda) writes:

|In article <SYNTH.92Aug11135521@deepthought.unm.edu> synth@deepthought.unm.edu (Synth F. Oberheim) writes:
||
||gt0851b@prism.gatech.EDU (David Hoff) writes:
||
||David> mellum@skyler.mavd.honeywell.com writes:
||
||David> but I can tell anyone that Slick-50 will
||David> NOT HELP ANYTHING IN YOUR ENGINE. PERIOD.  Dupont will not sell
||David> slick-50 any more teflon, because they know what is going on.
||
||Source for this?  Slick 50's been on the market for at least five years;
||you would think if DuPont had a problem they would have intervened a
||long time ago ...
|
|I agree with the conclusion to which Mr. Hoff arrives, but understand
|the particulars a little differently.  DuPont originally refused to sell
|Teflon to anyone for the purpose of putting it into an internal combustion
|engine oil supply, stemming from their own research into its effectiveness.
|The company which markets S50 sued DuPont (I don't remember the actual
|precedent) and won, which forced DuPont to sell them the material.  Still,
|the Teflon name is a DuPont tradename, and they do not allow S50 to be
|sold bearing that tradename.  The current official line of DuPont is that
|Teflon has no beneficial effect when added to the oil supply of an engine.

I read somewhere (sorry,can't remember where, so no attribution) that Du Pont
didn't want to sell Teflon to the manufacturers of Slick 50 was that Teflon
would "degrade" at cylinder temperatures.

|
|My current source for this information was an article entitled 
|"Snake Oil?" in the current issue of Motorcycle Consumer News (Road 
|Rider Magazine).  The article deals with oil additives in general, not just 
|S50.  It seems well thought out and researched, and includes a bibliography.
|
||David> Dupont and several independant labs (I have
||David> names/dates/specifics avail. if you need them) have tested them
||David> (Slick-50 and any other oil or "engine" treatment).  It made no
||David> differences for the better on the engines.  Some tests noticed
||David> increased damage from the "treated" engines.
|
|Specifically, Briggs&Stratton did extensive tests with Slick 50,
|since their engines were often used in the famous "no oil" demos.  But,
|rather than using an S50 treatment, and draining the oil and running
|the engine, the way the S50 people do, they used *two* engines, one
|with the treatment, one without.  Then, they drained the oil and ran
|the engines for a long period (several hours, but not to seizing),
|after which they disassembled and inspected them.  They repeated
|the process for several pairs of engines.

Finally, an experiment with controls and replication.

|
|They concluded that the S50 treated engines consistently showed more
|internal scoring than the non-treated engines.  They attributed this
|to early oil pressure losses due to the expansion of the teflon
|beads, although they didn't further test this hypothesis.
|
|
|An interesting part of the article was the included interview with
|the head of the company that manufactures S50 (his name escapes me).
|The company advertises results of "independant lab tests, by one of
|the largest labs in the nation", yet the company head flatly refused 
|to name the testing lab, for "reasons of confidentiality".  That 
|seemed strange, as it would seem that if the company paid the
|considerable sum that such tests would cost, they would certainly
|want to lend the reputation of the respected testing lab to the
|results.
|
|So the author checked up for himself, calling *all* of the major
|testing labs in the country.  Each and every one of them denied
|ever having any business dealings with the S50 company, they
|were most anxious to deny it, in fact.

Disassociating themselves, eh? :-)

|
|Personally, I do not deny that some people seem to have had great
|results from using the Slick50 product.  In fact, a member of 
|my close family, and one of my closest friends both swear that
|it saved their engines.  I only say that it seems as if the verifiable
|evidence does not seem to support that conclusion.

Placebo effect?

|
|	Dave Svoboda, Palatine, IL

lawrence