Car Audio Blog

What would happen inside your engine if your oil filter all of the sudden plugged at highway speeds?     If the engine oil was not able to get past your oil filter .  We just hope the little idiot light turns on let us know there is a problem with our oil System .  Disaster happens fast at 2100 rpm and highway speeds!

If your oil stops flowing there is a loss of critical lubrication and critical cooling of your engine.  An engine disaster is imminent.

Motor oil filters are designed to capture a certain amount of contamination before they need to be swapped.  I say designed loosely because I believe some companies know how to assemble filters but don’t really know how to design and test them.  I want to know the filter I am using was designed and built by a competent company.

Regardless, if the filter media does get blocked oil filters have a bypass valve which is spring loaded.  This bypass valve will spring open if the filter media is blocked and the pressure gets to high.  If the media does get overused and blocked then oil will flow through the bypass valve.  The problem with that is the oil is no longer getting filtered.

Sometimes this will show up as an oil light indication that there is low oil pressure downstream of the filter (hopefully your oil filter bypass valve is not stuck!).  I can guess that sometimes the pressure decrease is not enough to cause an oil light indication.

Bypass valves tend to be open when you first start your engine when the synthetic motor oil is cool and thick.  The pressure drop through the filter media is too high to pass all the thick oil and some has to go through the bypass filter.  Again this causes unfiltered oil to pass up into the engine.  Don’t worry too much though lubrication system and filter design has been like this for years and engines have done pretty well.

The problem occurs when oil filters are not changed for long periods of time and become blocked for extended periods of time.  Unfiltered motor oil can then continuously circulate through your engine and cause unnecessary wear.

Technorati Tags: engine oil, motor oil, oil filters, synthetic motor oil

The tragic spill on the Gulf of Mexico is a reminder of the danger oil poses to the environment .  Concentrated areas of oil are toxic to life   and low levels of oil contamination cause subtle long term damage like retarded plant and animal growth along with poor animal reproduction .  These effects start at the top of the food chain and cascade all the way down to our dinner table.  Interested in having some gulf coast shrimp right now?

This environmental catastrophe has been placed in the front of americans by our mass media but the reality is this tragic contamination is happening every day at an individual level.  People are still pouring waste motor oil down the sewer!

I think there is a mentality that the storm sewers go off to some treatment facility but the reality basically all storm sewers run to a local stream, lake, river, onto the ocean.  Everything you put on your lawn that doesn’t immediately absorb runs off on the next rain.  Everything spilled on our driveways washes down to the storm sewer and off to a local waterway.

US Bureau of Transit Statistics for 2006 estimated about 251,000,000 vehicles on the road in the use.  Say on average these vehicles change 5 quarts of oil every 6 months.  That creates 628,000,000 gallons of waste oil per year in the US.

Motor oil circulates through your engine and picks up contaminants and heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, chromium, copper, benzene, and other nasty toxins .  These poisons are known to cause problems in mammals and upset the delicate ecoSystems of our waterways.

It takes only a minute drop of dirty oil to ruin an entire drum of clean drinking water .  Just a fraction of a percent of 628 million gallons of waste oil is a enough to do the dramatic damage already taking place.  The small amount we spill ends up on the ground or in the sewer and is poisoning the environment.

To make a difference make sure you collect all of your waste motor oil and deliver to the nearest recycling facility .  Make sure your engine is not leaking motor oil or any other lubricants (all of this adds up and ends up down the sewer).  You can also consider synthetic motor oils for extended drain intervals to drastically reduce the amount of waste oil you produce.  The use of synthetic motor oil alone could cut waste oil generation by 300 million gallons per year.

Technorati Tags: motor oil, synthetic motor oil

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One of the biggest questions for car and truck owners concerns best practices when it comes to routine maintenance. Specifically, people would like to know if they need to use conventional motor oil or best synthetic oils such as Royal Purple Oil in their car’s engine.

First and foremost, research for your vehicle should begin by looking in the vehicle’s manual to see if manufacturers endorse the use of synthetic oil. That being said, owners may also do a little research to see if their warranties are impacted at all when straying from the recommended lubricants.

What are the advantages of using synthetic oil in your engine? Royal Purple Motor Oil, has been reported by the manufacturer as boosting horsepower, reducing friction, reduced emissions, and increasing overall fuel economy. There are also a number of mechanics that recommend the use of synthetic oil when preparing for winter maintenance, just like topping off the engine’s antifreeze.

Another advantage of using synthetic motor oil is its longevity in the engine when compared to traditional motor oil. Many mechanics only change their synthetic motor oil once per year or every 7,500 to 12,000 miles in clean engines that are no longer under warranty. Racing oil used in engines also takes advantage of the benefits offered by synthetic motor oils for overall speed and high performance.

Synthetic oil helps to keep engines clean and tends to break up gummed petroleum motor oil deposits. Tests on engine operating temperatures have shown that, when using synthetic oil, lower operating temeratures were achieved. Conventional, petroleum based oil can have less of a viscosity range than synthetic oil.

Car owners often look for clues to find out which is the best synthetic oil to use in their vehicles. What is best for your car, only you can decide between performance and cost. Trucks also can take the benefits of using synthetic oil to reduce the amount of oil changes and increase fuel economy as well. In many situations, using synthetic oil instead of your father’s dino based motor oil, in certain truck engines, helps to extend motor life.

Technorati Tags: motor oil, racing oil, royal purple oil, synthetic oil