407 HDi Coupe - Oil warning light- Oil can,

jaahn said:
Just as a comment on this so not to appear holier than thou ! Back in the good ol'days in the '50s and '60s Winns and Bardol were aftermarket additives that were flogged by enthusiastic sales teams, at motor shows, around the trade and car clubs, every Service Station had them on the shelf. Safeguard your engine and it will keep it going if you run out of oil ??? (why) . We did have some connection with one of these salesmen. He was the rep for the region. Bardol I think and other stuff. Nice guy ! Indeed we fitted an R8 motor to a Dauphine for him to drive around in.

But he was happy to drop the oil out of his motor and drive around the block with a customer to show how good it was and make a sale. Did that often. So it was not just some old flat head six like was used for the car show demos. They had no sump and a mirror so you could see up into the crankcase with the engine running all day idling away. :approve:

HMMM so those additives did work to some degree and were popular. High sulphur type stuff I believe. Possibly quality standard new oils are just as good from the bottle.
Jaahn
Who remembers the motor show demo motor, old flat head six, with the spark plug leads fitted with pearl buttons. Idling away all day going zap zap zap over the buttons. I forget what the point of the demo was now ??? Selling snake oil of some sort ! :oops:
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I don’t remember Bardol as a brand name. And I don’t remember Wynns having an additive that ‘allowed you to run your engine without oil’. Plenty of other additives, yes, but not that one.

Slick 50 was (maybe still is) a product that would ‘save’ your engine should you run out of oil. It was a PTFE based product that Nulon tried to copy. I remember seeing independent laboratory test results from Slick 50 and they looked impressive. I never wanted to test the product in that way for myself, although I did have it added to a couple of my 504s’ engines.

I also had the Slick 50 gearbox additive put in the 1978 504’s gearbox. Even my (ex)wife noticed the difference in gear charges after that.
 
The big takeaway from bigrr is the oil hasn’t been changed in 6 years then games are played to get the last bit out my head is spinning.
 
jaahn said:
ust as a comment on this so not to appear holier than thou ! Back in the good ol'days in the '50s and '60s Winns and Bardol were aftermarket additives that were flogged by enthusiastic sales teams, at motor shows, around the trade and car clubs, every Service Station had them on the shelf. Safeguard your engine and it will keep it going if you run out of oil ??? (why) . We did have some connection with one of these salesmen. He was the rep for the region.
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505604 said:
I don’t remember Bardol as a brand name. And I don’t remember Wynns having an additive that ‘allowed you to run your engine without oil’. Plenty of other additives, yes, but not that one.
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There was a wee smidgeon of truth to the enthusiastic sales pitches.

1948, A flight was made in a Luscombe Silvaire airplane with NO OIL IN THE CRANKCASE. The plane flew seven minutes without oil (the engine had been treated with Wynn's Friction Proofing, illustrating that it penetrates the surfaces of moving metal parts and forms a protective film of lubrication).

source
https://www.wynns.net.au/history
 
AlexB said:
There was a wee smidgeon of truth to the enthusiastic sales pitches.

1948, A flight was made in a Luscombe Silvaire airplane with NO OIL IN THE CRANKCASE. The plane flew seven minutes without oil (the engine had been treated with Wynn's Friction Proofing, illustrating that it penetrates the surfaces of moving metal parts and forms a protective film of lubrication).

source
https://www.wynns.net.au/history
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Thanks, Alex. I honestly didn’t know that Wynn’s had made that additive. Or if I did, I had forgotten about it.
 
dmccurtayne said:
The big takeaway from bigrr is the oil hasn’t been changed in 6 years then games are played to get the last bit out my head is spinning.
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Oil should never degrade. It shouldn't matter if it was 16years .... it should still be as good as the day it was poured in. I guess it could be full of moisture if the car has done thousands of cold starts, but only driven to the end of the street and back... so never got warm enough to boil the moisture off :)

I wonder how the turbo enjoys this ... its impeller should be spinning on a layer of oil ...... that wouldn't be there if there wasn't any oil pressure ..... hmmm.... your turbo bearings would be toast in mere seconds.

I'm sure my old cars .... many of them probably haven't been changed for 5years. Who cares if they have only done a couple of thousand kms in that time :confused: Why throw away perfectly good "as new" oil and filters. If I go dip them, the dipstick shows spotlessly clean oil (epsecially the CX turbo that never burns any measurable amount).
 
DoubleChevron said:
Oil should never degrade. It shouldn't matter if it was 16years .... it should still be as good as the day it was poured in.
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On some engines, it wouldn’t have a chance to degrade.
DoubleChevron said:
If I go dip them, the dipstick shows spotlessly clean oil (epsecially the CX turbo that never burns any measurable amount).
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I’m curious. How old is the engine, and roughly how many kilometres?

Cheers,
Andrew
 
505604 said:
On some engines, it wouldn’t have a chance to degrade.

I’m curious. How old is the engine, and roughly how many kilometres?

Cheers,
Andrew
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505604 said:
On some engines, it wouldn’t have a chance to degrade.

I’m curious. How old is the engine, and roughly how many kilometres?

Cheers,
Andrew
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The old CX ... 1985 ... that would make it 37years old right?? Good grief, I still think of it as "The good/new" car :eek:

I reckon the motor in its so good because it wore CNAN numberplate when my father imported it from the UK. Which means it was an english demonstrator when new. Ie: every test pilot and car reviewer that drove it would have, er, "worked" it well ... so the piston/ring seal would have been really nicely bed in :clown:

I think its at 164,000 miles. So nearly run in. It still pulls very hard ... and runs nicely. But i wouldn't be suprised if it was down on power. I'm betting the old turbo on it would love a new core. Its probably not capable of making the boost it did 37years ago.
 
dmccurtayne said:
Really I’m out this is craziness
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How is that crazy. Why would it degrade.... Some additives might boil off over time. But degrade to a point where its not suitable to run a motor on. I just don't see it. The base product is always going to be there, that's why it can be recycled, cleaned ... new additives added and re-used.
 
jaahn said:
Hmm BIGRR :giggle:
They have a 10 minute limit on draining the oil and filter to fill and restart the engine. Otherwise you risk the pump not able to prime and get any oil pressure !!
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With my old 1979 Rangie you had to do the same thing, incl having to fill oil filter as well.
Rangie used an old alloy Buick V8 engine.
Ford Ranger must be still using the same technology.
 
DoubleChevron said:
How is that crazy. Why would it degrade.... Some additives might boil off over time. But degrade to a point where its not suitable to run a motor on. I just don't see it. The base product is always going to be there, that's why it can be recycled, cleaned ... new additives added and re-used.
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This is not a debate it does
 
dmccurtayne said:
This is not a debate it does
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This really is a fascinating topic that you have just prompted me to go and investigate.

I just tried googling this. Apparently oil expires after 5 years, even if stored in un-open bottle. Which "experts" seem to be repeating across forums. The oil companies themselves don't seem to state anything. I just checked every oil bottle here I could find. None have an expiry date ( which is a crazy, insane suggestion ). If oils "expired" just sitting un-used. What about "sealed for life" items such as gearboxes.... and heavy equipment. Oils that aren't used in any sort of combustion engine environment don't seem to have minimum change period. All of the bottles here have the production date printed on them however.

I agree with oil companies not stating anything other than recommended oil change period regardless of use. As they have no way of telling what the cars use has been. It might only have 1500kms on the oil. But it might have done 1500 cold starts and driven the length of the street to the local milkbar twice a week.... where the car lives in a cold wet environment were is rarely gets above 0degrees C.

I must say, I'm not the slightest, not even the tiniest bit worried about the cars here with clean, fresh "aged" oil in them :) Infact I'm as worried about there engine oil as I am about the gearbox, diff oil. Even as worried as I am about the steering box oil and 'CV joint grease/oil that is probably decades ..... even 1/2 century old.
 
Where does this time limit for the Rover V8 come from?

I have owned two, and have both workshop manuals (excellent, like Land Rover) and the service books. Nowhere is a time before losing prime mentioned, and I have done many a leisurely oil change on them.
 
seasink said:
Where does this time limit for the Rover V8 come from?

I have owned two, and have both workshop manuals (excellent, like Land Rover) and the service books. Nowhere is a time before losing prime mentioned, and I have done many a leisurely oil change on them.
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I don't htink there is a time limit. They have been known to loose prime for no reason .... I've never had the issue.
 
DoubleChevron said:
The oil companies themselves don't seem to state anything
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Directly quoted from totals website

Under optimal conditions (stored in the original, unopened containers at moderate temperatures), motor oil usually remains stable for an extended period of time. There should be no deposits at the bottom of the container. You cannot dissolve the deposits at the bottom by simply shaking the package. The oil has to be replaced.

That said, engine oil characteristics are best if used within two to three years. After that, we recommend replacing the oil.

Don't put old oil in the trash. Oil must be recycled.

All my 20l bulk oil total stuff has a expiration date I don’t use anything but total now but valvoline and mobil bulk had the same consumer bottles only ever have production dates for some reason probably because the don’t want it returned.
Hot tip next time you see that awesome deal at repco or super cheap for oil check the dates it would be old and they get a subsidy for moving it on quick.
 
That's interesting, I never realised that. It sounds like the modern oil additives fall out of suspension. I still can't say I'm overly concerned :)

edit: I probably should mention, I'm not worried, just because it doesn't seem to be a "thing". If oil getting old caused issues ... or was a problem, the internet and car forums would be covered in stories of damage being done due to "old" oil. It simply doesn't seem to be a thing though.... Maybe the additive package not being 100% in cars that have known issues could be bad (eg: the 1.6 petrol turbo ... or maybe the 1.6 HDi ... that are known to soot up the intake and engine oil passages).
 
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I understood that the reason for annual oil changes even on a lightly used vehicle was because moisture and acidic combustion byproducts accumulate in the oil and may attack vulnerable components.

Of course if you change the oil and then don't use the car at all it's hard to see how there can be a build-up of bad stuff :).
 
dmccurtayne said:
The big takeaway from bigrr is the oil hasn’t been changed in 6 years then games are played to get the last bit out my head is spinning.
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Spurred on by a comment somewhere today on Wheel Studs, I checked my oil change mileage today, it was not 6 years, it was 7 years and 4 months.
However the oil in the engine has already gone blackish. The car has only been driven twice, a couple of hundred Ks.
Note: Our Transporter has always done this as well. Must be something to do with diesel EGR systems?
My every day car the 205 oil still looks like it just came out of the bottle.
 
Diesel suitable oils have a large proportion of detergent. They pick up and suspend fine black muck in very short order.
 
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