Anyone use Slick50 in their oil?

[Guest]

I thought i'd give it a go after having happy results in other cars. But the 944 now seems a bit 'chuggy' when firing her up and the car vibrates a lot on idle until it warms up a tad.
I'm using 10/40 castrol GTX, the high milage one. Maybe adding the Slick50 has thickened up an already thick oil. I might flush it all out, or use a thinner oil.

Anyone used it? How did you find it?

 

[Indi9xx]

do a google search for Slick50 and read some of the reports on this product.

I would not recommend anyone use this stuff

 

[sawood12]

I used it in mine with no problems, but then that was a good three or so oil changes ago. I've also used it in other cars with no problems whatsoever. I'm not aware of any of the horror stories about the stuff so can't comment on what is out there. I'm not planning to use it again as my philosophy is now to spend the money on a real tip top oil.

 

[georgethackray]

I've used Slick 50 on several of my previous cars - a 1981 Ford Cortina, a 1980 Ford Fiesta, a 1979 Datsun Bluebird, a 1980 Rover SD1, a 1985 Ford Sierra and a 1990 Peugeot 405. I always found it to be excellent - the engine seemed quieter, oil consumption reduced, and mpg increased very slightly. None of these cars ever had oil changes at the correct intervals, and none of them ever had any serious engine problems.
However, when I bought my 2000 Mondeo, I decided not to add anything non-Ford to it, and I've just kept up to it with regular main dealer services, and there's no way I'll add anything to my Porsche engine - I'll leave that up to Hartech.

 

[Mark_Bennett]

I thought that you shouldn't use it with the Nicasil (sp) cylinder bores in a 944?

 

[Indi9xx]

All I know is the following...

1. DuPont make the contents of Slick 50 and recommend its not used inside an engine. They even threatened not to supply Slick50 with the component chemicals at one point, but were forced to via legal action in the USA. Something about not being legally allowed in the USA to withhold a product on just the grounds that they dont agree with its intended use unless it endangers life.

2. In the USA, apparently Slick50 has been banned from all Media advertising, which is a bit odd from a country with such laws of free speach?!?

3. Several reports can be found on the internet which disprove all the claims (such as the compound size is larger than the filtration on most cars, so it should become collected by the oil filter and that it cant bond to the metals within the car)

On the contrary side of things, I tried it many years ago on my first car.... the rpm at idle increased from 800 rpm to 1200 rpms and the max speed increased from 85mph to 115 mph, which was quite dramatic and I have never been able to understand why.. Having said that, a few thousand miles later the car was rather dead, so I have no idea about the long term use of the stuff.... But that was on a bag of poo french car, where as I dont think I would want to try it on something I cared about.

 

[Diver944]

ORIGINAL: Indi9xx

that was on a bag of poo french car,

That's funny, my first car was a bag of poo Renault 14 and I put some Slick 50 in after seeing it in Halfrauds. It did make the car noticeably quieter (tappets were knaced anyway), reduced fuel consumption and enabled me to nudge 90mph whereas it struggled to reach 80mph before. I used it on my second car too (a Vx Nova from new) and had no problems in 120k miles. Then all the hooha started and I've never used it since

 

[Guest]

HOLY CRAP. Well that's put the frightners up me, i know what i'll be doing tomorrow afternoon. Shame cos it's expensive stuff and what with all the oil. Next time i'll ask you lot before i try anything like that again.

 

[sawood12]

Oh well seems like i'm living on borrowed time. Best start putting money aside for an engine rebuild!

 

[Indi9xx]

To be honest, I dont think I would be too worried.

I think I am more concerned that it would do no good than I am that it would do harm.

 

[Indi9xx]

Paul, thats amazing, my first car, the one in question, was a red Renault 14 GTL.

It WAS a bag of poo.... But having said that, I was kinda fond of it at the time... I even remember searching to find any form of alloy wheels that would fit it... which was a bit of a non starter as it seemed to be about the only car in the world with 3 stud wheels apart from other bag of poo cars from france which also didnt have alloy wheels!

 

[Hilux]

HOLY CRAP. Well that's put the frightners up me, i know what i'll be doing tomorrow afternoon. Shame cos it's expensive stuff and what with all the oil. Next time i'll ask you lot before i try anything like that again.

After advice I decided to use it many years ago in an old Hilux 4x4 pickup (I`ve driven Hilux`'s for 20 years) and was advised to mix it in with oil BEFORE putting it in the engine as it doesnt easily mix apparently (this old mechanic who advised me said he used to take sumps off old cars and they were full of it he said), anyway Hilux petrol no 1 had regular oil changes every 6k and did 285,000 miles and I sold it running sweet. Hilux petrol no 2 did 185,000 miles and I sold it running sweet. Hilux diesel no 3 (now sold) I didnt use Slick 50 BUT at 100,000 miles the engine was down on power and smoked a tad.

My view is that modern oils are better and manufacturers would use it if it was a benefit but I believe that following the Slick 50 era they ptfe/Teflon coated parts (or whatever Slick 50 is)

 

[Guest]

Well after listening to your points i did a search and there is indeed a major concern with Slick50 over the whole motoring community. So i changed the oil and filter yesterday and now the car doesn't shake like mad when on cold idle/start up, although the tappets are now noticably louder.
I was reading on one site about S50 and a lad was saying that the manufacturers pride theirselves on the scientific research that Utah University did on the stuff. They even print it in their advertising saying 'Proven Better MPG, more MPH, more protection', which is all true but the boffins also put in the report that the engine was destroyed a lot earlier than expected. The advertisers didn't decide to share that bit of info with us. And i know that could be just some lad making up a load of crap but for there to be that much concern all over the community, sod it, it's not worth the risk.
Oh and i also read it had been banned in The U.S. Don't know how reliable that bit of gossip is though.

 

[sawood12]

An established marketting principle is that people who are dissatisfied with a product will invariable tell alot of other people about their experiences, whereas the people who are satisfied with the same product will often not tell anyone, or far fewer people. Therefore you generally only hear about the often small percentage of people who have had problems and you don't hear about the vast majority of people who are happy with a particular product and the internet and forums such as this just amplifies this effect. For example look at the 996/Boxster RMS problem. You hear alot of noise from the the poor people who have suffered problems but he fact is that RMS is still a relatively rare issue (which is probably why Porsche are largely ignoring it). I know of about 10 people who have either Boxsters or 996's and not one has suffered as much as an oil leak, but there are clearly people out there who's experiances are very different and they are understandibly peed off and expect justice.

The problem is that of these failures that are linked to Slick 50 how many have acutally been subjected to some actual investigation to asscertain the exact cause of failure? How many of these engines were knackered anyway and their owners were trying Slick 50 as part of various other activities to try to get another few thousand miles our of their already knackered engines? The chances are that all the people who have horror stories of Slick 50 are a minority of the percentage of people who have used it, and out of those people the chances are their engine's were already knackered before they used Slick 50. Also how many of these cases were where the owners were using the product every oil change where it is only supposed to be used every 50k miles (or something like that I can't remember). Also the chances are that alot of the stories over the internet are from people who know someone who works with someone who had a brother who's best mate had a problem with it. I.e. how many of these accounts are 1st hand experiences?

I wont be using it again and wouldn't necessarily recommend it to others as my experience of it is that it makes no noticable difference so you are best to put the money to better oil, but I remember a time when it was considered the dogs dangly bits, it was winning awards in all the motoring press and thousands upon thousands of people were using it and singing its praises and this is the first time i've heard about problems associated with it (not that i've been looking for reveiws). The chances are that most of our cars have already had the Slick 50 treatment at some time in their lives.

I'm not sticking up for the stuff but just trying to get a sense of perspective. I've been running with the stuff for 13k miles now with no noticable issues so I will be the first to report any problems to the forum if my engine packs up (i'm touching wood right now!!)

 

[colin129]

I used Slick50 on an old Dolomite Sprint I used to own, but that was because it was exactly that, old and I didn't know where it had been.

I wouldn't dream of putting that stuff in my 944S2, because, although its old, I know exactly where it has been.

Still running like dream at 185K!!

 

[morris944s2john]

I used the gearbox version of slick 50 in the gearbox of one of my Morris Minors and that quietened and improved the gear change of the previously noisy gearbox that had run low on oil.

I wouldn't dream of putting it in my 944S2 though!

 

[sawood12]

Why not? If you had a noisy and notchy gearbox on your S2 and were facing the possiblility of a very expensive rebuild wouldn't you try Slick 50 or some other similar product to see if it makes any improvement that might prevent the need or stave off the point at which you had to bite the bullet with the rebuild?? If £20 on some Slick 50 might stave off the need for the rebuild for 6 months it's got to be worth it to give you chance to do the rebuild when it suits you.

Alot of people on this forum are using Swepco 201 gearbox oil for this very reason and have reported very favourable results and Porsche have never authorised or recommended this product and don't use it in any of their current cars, and i'm sure no specialists or OPC's out there would use it if they were to service your car, but i've yet to read any bad press about it - far from it, it's all singing its praises. In principle why is this any different from other products out there?