Oil Additives

Has anyone used Lucas Oil Stabilizer or similar additives? Three weeks ago I bought my first XJ. It's a 91 4.0 Laredo with the NP242 t-case. Yesterday I changed the engine oil and thought I would give Lucas Oil a shot. I mixed the Lucas Oil in a 20/80 ratio with Valvoline 10W 30. Immediately I could tell my engine was running hotter and the additive was the only change I made. At one point on the interstate I had to crank up the heater and roll down the windows to keep the temp gauge from entering the "Red Zone".

I would really like feed back with this particular additive or any additive in general. Check out this link:

As far as I'm concerned, the Lucas Oil is coming out and I'll stick with my Valvoline.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

I thought I was nuts when I had this same thing happen, earlier this year. I also had a bottle of the Lucas fuel system cleaner in. I swore it was running hotter than normal. Might have just been coincidence, but fawk that stuff. I have run gallons of Techron, and never had this happen. I am interested to see if any others had a similar experience. The oil additive looked cool, though! Cheers.

WOW. After looking at that web site, im glad i never tried that stuff. I havent used oil additives yet, but ive used some gas additives (seafoam) and it has hepled to cleanthe injectors and such.

If one is to believe the little countertop display they have in the parts stores (the crank with gears, showing how the stuff sticks to the gears), I'm not surprised it runs hotter. The stuff looks like a really nice additive for gears and chains, but engines are partially oil-cooled, and for that, stickiness and high shear aren't as useful as fast-flowing liquid.

edit: I just looked at that website. The foaming is a surprise. Very interesting. I'm glad I never bothered to try the stuff.

i read somewhere that oil additives are virtually useless, you are better off in switching to synthetics, ya they are more expensive, but worth it because you can change the oil at 5,000-9,000 miles, and reduced engine wear versus dinosaur oil

check out the discussion at http://www.4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5588

there are couple of links that are mentioned to understand about synthetics, and another discussion about oil filters

I use Mobil 1 synth and Mobil 1 301 oil filter, oversized premium filter

Wow...it looks so good in the store. Good thing I never put additives.

here is the article (long but very thorogh article) about synthetics versus dino oil: http://www.getahelmet.com/tech/syntheticoil.htm

and here is the oil filter study: http://www.minimopar.net/oilfilterstudy.html


so as you can see, synths does a whole lot more than oil addittives can claim to be

someone mentioned valvoline? how about some FREE OILl from valvoline? not sure if it is synths but free nonetheless:

http://www.valvoline.com/pages/rebates/rebate_details.asp?rebateid=9

I realize this is different .... but ... back in the 70's I ran synthetic in my 450 Maico race bike. Prior to the introduction of synthetics in 2-strokes ... you had a choice of petrolium base or bean oil for premix .... those days were hell when out in the middle of the desert and you fouled a plug ...

Thank god for synthetic's ...

I just never ran them in the crankcase in my vehicles.

My question is ...

After 150K miles and running 20-50 Valvoline Racing Oil for 13 years ... is it wise or safe to switch to synthetic ??

I can see this on a new vehicle ... but on my old XJ with leaky mains ??

not sure if it does anything or not, but ive been using lucas oil additve for a few years. i have never had any overheating problems after i use it. im amazed that a 20/80 mix would cause the engine to overheat.

Maybe the low milage on the engine plays a part in the overheating.....? It's a 91 4.0 with 113,000 miles on it. I think an engine with higher mileage will have significantly more internal wear, leaving larger gaps bestween the internal components for oil to fill. This, at least I think, sounds like a reasonablre theory. I don't care how many miles I accumulate, the Lucas Oil has to go because of the way it froths up with little air bubbles.

Does anyone have a suggestion for the best type of motor oil to use? I tend to drive the baby a little hard... Fast on the interstate and then there are the stop and gos, partially because of the SoCal traffic. Hey, here's a thought! Maybe if you Lucas Oil is used in motors that aren't driven above and beyond the speed limit there will be no over heating. I drive a little faster than I should on some occasions. Thank the Lord I wasn't towing, even if I were driving the speed limit.

Thanks for responding and for the good information that was shared.


Dogtired, thanks for the heads up on the Valvoline oil rebate. If I can find it in the stores then that will be the next oil I use.

hey Fogman,

NP, anything I can do to help my fellow XJ'ers!

please consider using synthetics, it is really good! I think my mileage went up since I changed the oil. It really lubricates it. Usually when I change the (regular dinosaur lube) oil, and restart the Jeep, the engine oil light comes on, this time it didnt do it for some reason, I guess the oil has to circulate completely before the oil light goes off. I suspect the Mobil One oil lubricated it enough on the way down to the oil pan, so it didn't trip the engine oil light on.

what gives????? my reply up above this one is hidden, something is buggy.
if ya want to read my invisible post, please hi-light it to read ok?

Royal Purple.

I started using Royal Purple synthetic oil in all my vehicles a few months ago. It's supposed to be really good stuff, and I haven't had any problems with it. I live in Calif and my XJ tends to run hot, so I use 20w-50.

At Wally World one day I found a bottle of Motor Up. Saw the commercials and said yeah right. I put it in while the engine was running and it ACTUALLY quieted down. Hell, if it does that it MUST be reducing friction.

rockcrawlinxj said:

At Wally World one day I found a bottle of Motor Up. Saw the commercials and said yeah right. I put it in while the engine was running and it ACTUALLY quieted down. Hell, if it does that it MUST be reducing friction.

Click to expand...

i think you added cold oil to a hot engine oil, that might have settled the noises quite a bit or your oil level is too low

Naw, the oil level was always good and the engine wasn't even all that warm. Besides, there's only about 10 ounces in a bottle of motor up. What I think it is, is it's just some kind of magical miracle juice. Did it to my wife's car too. I'm no dolt when it comes to things mechanical and I was really wowed, never seen anything like it.