Long ago, I had bought a brand new Ford explorer. During the first 1000 miles (mostly highway driving) I checked the mileage. I was doing a cross-country trip. I pulled into an oil change place and had them put in a synthetic oil and slick 50. Over the next couple of tanks, I gauged the mileage. It had bumped up by between 2 and 2 1/2 miles per gallon. For the explorer, this was about a 10% boost in gas mileage. I am curious if EM was going to start them out with a treatment like this as a factor to get them to 84 MPG. If not, is there any reason to NOT do it to an Elio once it gets off the production line?
Synthetic lubricants do make a difference, and I intend to use them throughout my Elio once I consider it broken in. I've had very positive experiences using them over the past 30 years. I have a question though. How much of your gain in mileage was due to the synthetic engine oil, and how much gets attributed to the snake oil additive?
and how much was due to the fact that you were driving a little differently because you were a little more aware of behaviors which would both hurt and help your mileage. I have two vehicles that have MPG readouts so I am aware of my mileage as I am driving. Every day though, I see lights turn red up ahead and people charge past me, still accelerating and then slamming on the brakes at the last moment. I back off on the gas, coast up to the light, and often pass them while they are stopped. Then they put the hammer down and pass me again. I am getting 35 or 40 mpg in my Cruze and they are getting 10.
My car (2005 Sunfire) has about 288,000 miles on it. I don't use additives because I just think its kind of a waste when it burns a little oil anyway. I just don't race it and take my time
Yes. The reason is oil additives in general are scams, and Slick 50 in particular is a scam. The inventor of Teflon - the "magic ingredient" in Slick 50 - said it has no use nor purpose in engine oil. The FTC fined Slick 50 heavily in 1997 for lying about the benefits and forced them off the market for a while. Now "Slick 50" dropped the Teflon and is just ordinary additives that are already in engine oil. Every automobile maker and engine oil maker recommends against putting in any additives. The fuel economy improvement you saw in the Explorer likely had nothing to do with the synthetic oil, and for-sure had nothing to do with Slick 50. The improvement probably came from the type of driving you were doing ("mostly highway" vs cross-country trip), you getting used to it, differences in gas you were buying, and maybe a little the new vehicle breaking-in.
I would never use additives in a new motor; they would do more harm than good. As for the synthetic oil; I use nothing but Synthetic (Castrol Edge) in all of my vehicles, always have for the last 40 years. I've never had an oil related problem since. Always remember to shop around for best price on it also; I started buying all my oil from Walmart since I found it to be about 40% to 50% cheaper for the same brand names.
I use Castro GTX now in the Van and Sunfire (192,000) and (285,000) and Gerard (Mini Cooper S) gets Castro Edge Titanium or something like that. (66,000).
