10 Things You Should Know About Engine Oil Additives

Oil additives are basically chemical compounds that help in improving the lubricant performance of base oil. The manufacturer of different oils can use the same base stock for the formulation. For each specific application it can choose different additives. Mostly additives comprise 5% of weight of some oil. Whether the oils are petroleum or synthetic based nearly all commercial motor oils have additives.

There are few things that you should know about oil additives:

1. Engine oil additives are required for long use of motor oil in modern combustion engines. It is also essential for proper lubrication.

2. Without additives, the oil would be contaminated, leak out, break down or not end up protecting engine parts at all the operating temperature.

3. Some of the additives are used for lubricity and viscosity, seal control as well as control of chemical breakdown.

4. There are some engine oil additives which allow the lubricants to perform better under certain severe conditions such as extreme temperature and pressure and also high levels of contamination.

5. Before going to buy the best engine oil additive you should try to find out if the company went for testing the additives and also got it certified. There are many oil additives in the market but only a handful of them can be trusted with good result.

6. Common engine oils that are sold on the shelf already contain additives. Such additives do the work of turning ordinary base oil into the kind of oil that is needed to provide the best protection for the engine.

7. Anti-acids, detergents, dispersants, viscosity modifiers and friction modifiers are part of common engine oil. Such additives do a lot of function to keep the engine in good condition. Detergents and dispersants work together to keep the metal surface clean by removing impurities so that they do not cause any damage. Anti-acid as the term indicate helps in neutralizing the acids that are produced in the engine environment or else the acids would cause damage and corrosion in the engine.

8. The oil is likely to face broadest range of conditions and temperatures. Viscosity modifiers are mainly used to help the engine oil maintain best viscosity across such temperature and conditions. In order to cope with high pressure conditions friction modifiers are used.

9. When deciding on any oil additive for your vehicle you need to know exactly what you are buying and what does it actually do to your engine vs. what you are expecting it to do or what the company claims about the additives.

10. It is important to note that while Oil stabilizers and viscosity modifiers claim that it will provide more mileage as it boosts the antioxidant level in an oil and extreme wear additives claim that it will help in improving or extending the oil's extreme pressure protection capacity, one should do extra research before zeroing on any additives. Also use of additives more than the desired level can cause harm to the engines hence it should be used in appropriate proportions.

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