When Can You Add Additives?

Traditionally, the most grateful customers for engine oil additives are dealers who buy and resell used cars. They pick up a car cheaply with an engine that's practically dead from age or bad care, pour in a double dose of some additive, and — miracle of miracles — the engine suddenly runs almost like new!

Then, after a bit of simple tampering with the odometer, the pedals, the steering wheel and other parts that give away a high mileage, that car heads to the used-car market and sells for a completely different sum, to some unsuspecting buyer, along with a story about how the car belonged to a careful old man who only drove it on weekends and only to the supermarket. This, by the way, is where even fairly experienced car owners sometimes get caught out, because it's extremely hard to diagnose the possible use of aftermarket additives in an engine oil.

The moment of truth, of course, comes after the first oil change, when the buyer realises that instead of a means of transportation they've actually bought a black hole for the family budget. And by then there's almost no way to prove anything, because the seller can always say they only owned the car for a very short time and knew nothing about it, and besides — the buyer should have inspected the goods carefully.

That was about how engine oil additives help people make money dishonestly. But there are also situations where deliberately using additives in an engine can save the family budget and bring real benefit.

We're talking about situations where the engine's fate is already decided, but you need to buy some time. For example, say your engine burns far more engine oil than normal, and after consulting mechanics and studying the current market you've decided not to repair the engine but simply replace it. Naturally, finding a new or good used engine right away is practically impossible, and on top of that you still need to find a shop to do the replacement and arrange in advance for the work to start, which will take more than a day.

In other words, even though the decision to replace the engine has already been made, you still need to stay "on wheels" for a while. In that situation you have a choice — either top up expensive oil every 200 km, or go ahead and add an additive while switching to a cheaper oil. The choice here is pretty obvious — an additive will spare you the extra expense and hassle. But only for a while, and that's worth remembering.

Really, that's it — there simply aren't any other cases where using engine oil additives makes any sense at all! Once again, don't count on the possibility of a full overhaul after using additives — if you're curious, talk to an experienced engine mechanic, they'll tell you more about it.

And one last thing. Don't expect too great an effect from additives in your engine oil — if you're already burning a litre of engine oil per 100 km, no extra layer on the cylinder walls is likely to help you, and oil consumption won't change one bit.