Why you should drain your engine oil

lights.
The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development commented on a section that deals with the specifications of headlamps.
However, the relevant Statutory Instrument was not yet available at the Government Printers. We applaud and will continue to raise issues that affect the motoring public.

This week we answer a question raised as to why should we change engine oil.
One reader suggested continuing topping up and forget about oil change. The greatest challenge is to ensure that all the parts of the engine are lubricated, and more importantly with good oil.

Lubricants have to remove heat, reduce accumulation of deposits, protection against rust and corrosion, should retain its strength for a long time and work under changing conditions.
We believe that the useful life of the oil will come to an end because of contaminants arising from dust, water, soot, metal particles, acids and fuel. The other aspect being depletion of additives which too have time expiry.

Most good oils are manufactured and blended to take care or minimise the wear and tear of the engine parts and most recently to address the environmental carbon emissions.
But of greatest concern being products that come from UAE which induce and quicken the wear and tear of engines, and if you use such types of oil you need to change it more frequently than all other oils.
There are some very good brands in the market such as Castrol, BP, Shell, Engen, Total and Valvoline which all have a point at which the longevity of their oils will need a change. Then imagine the oils from UAE, which are not blended to specifications, will have damaging effect to the engines.

The contaminants arising from the mixture and operations of the engine have to be removed hence the need for an oil change.
Hence you reduce contamination by regular change of air, oil, fuel filters and oil. There is need to appreciate the sludge that generally arises from deterioration of oil, worse still if it is sub standard oil with no properties included and engine operating under very high or low temperatures.

Did you know that the small amount of fuel that gets to the sump after a cold start will not always evaporate but accumulates hence it will contaminate the oil? Sludge literally accounts for between 25-35 percent of engine failures.

Diesel engines unless specifically made for Zimbabwean temperature will not last long as they are made to operate in cold weather and low temperature which is opposite to Zimbabwe, hence the Mazda BT-50 is a classic example.

The good brands of oils fight sludge especially the latest class of oils, however, there is a greater difference between cars made in the 1990s and 2000.
The catalytic convertor has a tendency of increasing engine temperatures and yet in the past oil change was at 5 000km. Recent marketing strategies purely influenced most manufacturers to recommend that oil be changed at 20 000km.

SAE40 is normally changed at 5 000km subject to driving conditions such as dirt roads.
In short distances you need to change possibly at 2 500km, SAE15W40 at 20 000km, and 20W50 at 30 000km. In both cases subject to driving conditions alluded to herein and halve the distance for the oil change.

We would like to believe this has a tendency of increasing sludge formation as this is purely from a marketing point rather than operations.
Some cause of sludge is due to high stress in the engine possibly due to the cooling system. This may be due to blockage in the radiator, none working thermostat, water pump, or the ignition timing system being faulty.

The other cause of sludge could be mismatch of sump capacity, oil filter size and other causes.
Despite the high performance of good oils we believe the remedy to sludge control lies in frequent oil change.

Incidentally, formation of sludge is a function of the combination of contaminants, which inhibits easy flow of oil and greatly affects good lubrication, it has been established that between 25-35 percent of engine seizure are associated with this.

If you agree so far imagine the effect of oils from UAE?
This is a very good recipe for sludge creation as most of these oils we have tested are not suitable as engine oils but rather as gear oils that performed differently.

We illustrate two types of engine oil in this article that we tested from the UAE.
One is written Motor Oil with a picture of the latest BMW SAE 50 with the API rating of SF/CD and the other one is written Diesel Engine Oil SAE 50 and API CD/SF with a picture of a turbo charged heavy-duty truck.

The pictures clearly give an impression of the latest models. Please check again the correctness of the ratings and as an indicator they should always start with an “S” for petrol and the next letter for performance and the third letter “C” representing diesel engine and the last letter being performance again in that category.

Therefore notice that they have merely transposed the letters when it is the same thing.
This is misrepresentation of facts to the gullible audience and one hope with the coming up of the Consumer Protection Act such products will be the issue of the past.

The question to ask then is what oil is contained in here?

This is then obvious, it is not a good product. Let’s meet again next Friday for more tit bits on lubricants.